At the entrance of the children’s home, there is a row of colorful sandals. Some of the sandals have cute plastic animals on them while others make up the color of the rainbow. They might just be a pile of shoes, but after hearing a story over lunch, I can’t help but look at these sandals differently.With tears in his eyes, and noodles on our plate, our host tells us that he came home one day and noticed the children’s sandals were badly worn. Upon seeing the condition of the shoes, he cried as he imagined what it must be like for his kids to go to school with worn sandals. To remedy the situation, he went to his wife to see how much money they had in their personal account. At that time, they only had the equivalent of $10 USD to their name, but the desire to provide new shoes inspired them to take inventory of their most valuable possessions. Our host glanced at his wedding ring while sharing this part of the story. Sensing what was coming, both my sister and I used napkins to wipe up our tears. This precious couple sold their wedding rings to buy new shoes for over 200 children so that they wouldn’t get blisters on the walk to school or feel inferior or embarrassed while at school. We sat there in silence hungering for more of Jesus — a hunger superior to any physical hunger. And this is why it is impossible to look at a pile of shoes in the same way. These shoes are a display of sacrificial love and miraculous provision.Two weeks after buying shoes for the children, a Buddhist man reported that there was a piece of land for sale near their house that was only available to someone who was part of the same tribe. Our host borrowed money to purchase the property and sold it a little over a year later for 30 times the original price. With this money he was able to purchase a bus, financially bless his parents, pay back the money that was borrowed, invest in other business ventures and buy a new wedding band. By now our host, beaming with gratitude, said, “When we give with our whole heart, the Lord always does a miracle... The feeling of giving those shoes to the children is my greatest joy.” While at the children’s home, my sister and I experience what it looks like to give with your whole heart. Every time we visit, the kids smother us with hugs. I almost fall over from all the love. For fun, they make us matching leaf crowns suffused with flowers. It takes a while to put in the flowers and we look positively radiant. To keep us from sweating too much, some of the girls grab large leaves to fan our faces. It doesn’t help much, because the kids are huddling tightly around us, but it is absolutely precious.The children who loved so freely reminded me of the real price of those new shoes. It is worth infinitely more than monetary provision. Love has an exacting price on the human heart. And much like their heavenly Father, the children, and our host, simply share out of the overflow of the love that they receive. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This large family is a testament to the power of generous love and the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive.To learn more about where and how SEAPC serves, click here.SEAPC is dedicated to changing lives through prayer. If your heart is moved and you would like to partner with us, you can donate here.

“How was your sleep?” asked Goldie Keilholtz, or Gram as I called her, was a godly, faith-filled woman. She was already in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the bacon, eggs, and homemade toast for breakfast. “Oh, it was fine,” I said as I unceremoniously rubbed the remnants from my eyes. Overnights at Gramp and Gram Keilholtz’s house were like a mini vacation. Being the youngest grandchild of their youngest daughter had some perks! I wouldn’t say I was spoiled, but I am sure I was in the area code. The dining room was the center of the home, and the dinner table the center of that room. It was the canvas on which Gram spread culinary works of art. What they may have lacked in fancy presentation they far exceeded by flavor and portion! You never left the table hungry.On the center of the dinner table sat a napkin holder, shakers for salt and pepper, and a small promise box. The promise box held small cards containing one verse of scripture. Gram would pass the box around for each person to get one to read aloud at mealtime just before saying grace. I will never forget her statement after every verse I read at the table, “Kenny, that is such a good verse… it’s one of my favorites.” Years later, I realized Gram loved the Word of God so much that they were all “one of her favorites.” It took my meeting Jesus the Living Word for me to understand her love for the word. I discovered some wonderful promises for what we know as “Sabbath Rest” in God. The Sabbath was a reminder for us to know God as the source of all things.Works and working aside, God has created us to know Him and rest in the life he provided for us. When we rest in Him we honor Him with faith and He works on our behalf. When we refuse to rest in Him we worry, stress, and burn out, thinking everything rises and falls on us. He calls us to do eternal work, but not with the temporal fuel of our own design. I got refreshed for the day from a good night’s sleep at Gramp and Gram’s. I received physical strength (and a few extra pounds) for the chores I would do around the farm from the comfort food she landed in front of me. But, rest for the soul only comes from her Master, the Lord of the Sabbath himself. The Old Testament law of the Sabbath day contained within it the New Testament promise of rest and refreshing for the soul. It is not a single day of the week, but a provision and promise available in our day. Are you stressed, worn out, or lacking creativity? Could you do with some refreshing? Is your level of joy decreasing, rather than increasing? Hebrews 4:9-10 says, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”Sleep, food, and recreation are only temporary fixes to the soul fatigue of our human condition. The Holy Spirit releases rest in our spirit as we turn to the Lord and receive his offer. The shadow of the Sabbath day was shattered by the glory of the Son of God who brings life and peace for those who put their trust in Him and honor Him above their own way.He is the one you need, for the REST of your life.~ Pastor Ken Cramer

Around age 40 I began to realize that I would not be able to personally present Jesus to every person on earth. That had been my goal from age 25 when, with the call of God, I realized that I was to “preach My gospel to the nations.” By 40 I had been around a bit and with the death of my father I realized the frailty of life. I became keenly aware of the need to make disciples and to thereby be multiplied into many young people who would reach all the earth with the good news that Jesus is risen and that the resurrection message would transform nations. Three years later brought us to Singapore, walking and praying and speaking revival of the church and a visitation of the Holy Spirit in South East Asia, and this ministry was born. Now we are Friends Around the Table and active in 75 nations. Through the book Attack Lambs and the YouTube teachings on prayer and mission, we are in even more places. It’s amazing how the Lord is faithful concerning His promises.This year has brought us into a very close relationship with the ministry Fellowship of Christian Athletes. If you were looking for a disciplined group of young men and women to complete the Great Commission in your life time, where would you look? Anthony Infante is a member of New Life Christian Ministries in Saxonburg, Penn. Anthony volunteers (read: raises his own support) with FCA in Butler, Armstrong, and Indiana Counties here in Pennsylvania. His task is to disciple student leaders and equip them for a weekly bible study at their public school for both athletes and non-athletes. Focused especially on the student athlete, Anthony serves groups called Huddles in nine high schools and has four more groups in process. The groups average 40 members each. So this young man, supporting himself in a lawn care business, is touching the lives of more than 500 students in local high schools bringing them the word of God, fellowship, and prayer on the grounds of public schools. Want to make a gift? Send it to us for him and he will get it all.Saturday before Labor Day I was in San Pedro, California at Light at the Lighthouse, the Music Festival covered by SEAPC. We have 4 stages and 50 groups that range from heavy metal to traditional worship. This year we were blessed by the international champion skateboarder and his family who shared their testimony. About 5,000 people show up through the day and the gospel is presented about every 15 minutes. Dr. Bill Fleury and his family have carried the tradition for more than a decade. I was talking with a group from Trinity Lutheran Church about prayer walking when I saw a tall young man walking by. Calling to him, I introduced Shane to the group. Shane is the FCA worker for the Los Angeles area schools. He is serving FCA Huddles on 15 campuses in LA county. He is directly in touch with major athletic programs and reports of hundreds of young people on fire for Jesus. These are swimmers and hoopers and gymnasts and all those people you saw in the Olympics. These are young people who stand for Christ on their campus and who form a brother- and sisterhood that is shaking the world. Just before that meeting I was in Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia where the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia accepted our suggested physical education curriculum. It is a melding of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test and selected sports training with Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ Bible-based character development material. It was put together by Justin McGurgan, an FCA worker we have adopted and the young man who has lived for a year in Cambodia and is now pioneering a National Baseball League for the nation.God said, “In blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply you until you are as the sands of the sea for number.” The emerging generation is global. They will travel further and influence more people than any previous generation. We are thrilled to meet FCA on university campuses and now on high school campuses across this great land and they will go. Just as Justin has gone and is shaping the future of an entire nation, so they will go. Please identify the FCA representative in your area and partner with them for your schools.There are three things we can do to reach the nations. First, identify the foreign student ministries on campuses near you and volunteer to help them. Second, make a place at your holiday table for a couple of foreign students. Third and most importantly, pray daily for the foreigner in our midst. Prayer changes people and people change nations. The foreign student who is in America is here because of their rank and status in their homeland. You and I have the opportunity to embrace a nation by embracing a student. Take the step.

“What on earth is that?” my wife asked as she looked at a map of the world that was taped to the steering wheel of our car. It was December 1975 and we were about to embark on a road trip from California to Oregon. “It’s a map of the world,” I answered, as though she couldn’t see that from two feet away. “I can see that,” she remarked. “But why would you tape it to the steering wheel?” I knew it was not normal to do this, but I felt it was important. On that trip, I prayed through all the nations of the world, several times, feeling more and more enthusiastic the more I prayed!So began my daily prayer journey to the nations — a journey that has continued joyously for more than three decades. After that first road trip, I soon memorized all the nations and have prayed for every one of them, by name, every day since. This burden for the nations grew out of prolonged seasons of seeking God simply for the sake of seeking God. In other words, my passion for the nations began with a passion just to know and seek the Lord. Long before the map experience, the church in southern Wisconsin where Dee and I served as youth leaders had a furnace room that I quickly commandeered for prayer. I would retreat to this furnace room for extended times of prayer when I felt I needed to be alone and unhindered. It was in that room that a burden for the lost and for the nations slowly began to saturate my praying. It seemed that the more I sought the heart of God, the more I had a heart for the nations. A powerful passage of God’s Word that significantly impacted my early years was the psalmist’s declaration of intercessory worship in Psalm 67:1-3, 7: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us — so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you. May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.”The Living Bible paraphrases that last verse: “Peoples from remotest lands will worship him,” a thought that would become my lifelong obsession and so became a personal “life passage” of Scripture. When I began praying for the nations, I was not even working for the Every Home for Christ ministry. But within a year, I had joined the EHC staff as the director of prayer mobilization and soon became part of the answers to the very prayers I had been praying. Since those early days, my steering-wheel map has turned into a World Prayer Map. The World Prayer Map is a resource produced by Every Home for Christ and offered free of charge to churches and believers who want to pray for the nations. It features all 228 nations of the world broken down into a 31-day prayer calendar. It also includes helpful tools to guide and fuel prayer for the nations.In recent years as we began to feel the Lord leading us to reach America with the Gospel through our EHC model of ministry, my first thoughts echoed the words of Matthew Henry, a 16th century scholar and Presbyterian minister whose anointed works are part of many leader’s libraries (including my own). He said, “Whenever God is about to do something truly great, He first sets His people a praying!” As we began to connect with local churches and ministries across America to lay groundwork for our EHC USA campaign, we found that God had already set “His people a praying” everywhere we looked! God is clearly summoning His people in America to His throne in these days, and I believe that means He is about to do something truly great across this land. At EHC, we are well-versed in the importance of saturating our ministry in prayer. Through prayer, we seek to be part of what God is already doing to bring His Gospel to the nations. Because of this — and in view of the massive undertaking of reaching every home in America with the Gospel — we decided to produce a prayer map specifically focused on the United States (many of our local offices in other nations produce similar tools specific to their nations, all inspired by the World Prayer Map and that very first map taped to my steering wheel). The U.S. Prayer Map — much like our World Prayer Map — features all 50 states broken down into a 31-day prayer guide. The map also contains other tools to help guide and fuel prayer specifically for the United States. It is filled with practical tools and useful information to help you pray for the United States and become part of the answers to the very prayers you pray.Our prayerful hope is that the U.S. Prayer Map will unite and focus the intercession of believers across our nation. As we come together in asking the Lord to move in specific and powerful ways, we know we will see miraculous things happen. We believe we will see doors, hearts, hands, and heavens opened to the Good News across the United States. If you would like to join this intercessory movement with a U.S. Prayer Map of your own, or to order some for others, visit www.ehc.org/free-prayer-maps.~ Dr. Dick Eastman

When the image of a man-eating beast travels through the optic nerve and into the visual cortex, the brain relays an urgent message to the body: run! But lion chasers aren’t wired that way. They don’t run away from what they’re afraid of, they run to the roar! They don’t see a five-hundred-pound problem; they seize opportunity by the mane and don’t let go! Buried in the second book of Samuel, the twenty-third chapter and the twentieth verse, is one of the most counterintuitive acts of courage in all of scripture. It’s little more than a biblical byline, but it has become the storyline of my life. My life motto is encapsulated in its message — chase the lion.“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two champions of Moab. Another time, on a snowy day, he chased a lion down into a pit and killed it.” (2 Samuel 23:20)Scripture doesn’t explain what Benaiah was doing or where he was going when he crossed paths with the lion. We don’t know the time of day or his frame of mind. But it does reveal his gut reaction, and it was gutsy. Benaiah chased the lion, and that one decision changed his destiny. Are you running away from what you’re afraid of? Or are you running to the roar? Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Start chasing the five-hundred pound lions God has put in your path!

THE POWER OF A SINGLE PRAYER

In the first century BC, a severe drought threatened to destroy a generation of Jews, the nation of Israel. But there was one man, Honi the Circle Maker, who prayed with the same holy confidence as the prophet Elijah before him. He drew a circle in the sand with his staff, then Honi knelt in that circle and prayed a bold prayer: “Sovereign Lord, I swear before your great name that I will not leave this circle until you have mercy upon your children.” God answered that prayer with rain, and Honi was honored for “the prayer that saved a generation.”I believe in the power of bold prayer! Prayer is the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do. Prayer is the difference between letting things happen and making things happen. Prayer is the difference between you fighting for God and God fighting for you. I live by a simple maxim: pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you. When we do those two things, revival is on its way! It was true for Israel two thousand years ago. And it’s true for America today!~ Mark Batterson

The SEAPC Coins for Kids Fall Campaign starts September 25th and ends November 20th! Please click on the image below to open and print a poster to share at your home, church, or business. Please contact our office at 412-826-9063 for more information.

Once upon a time at summer camp, a friend shared some of her most precious Divine encounters with me. Her personal stories made me feel jealous and simultaneously suspect that she might be off her rocker. I had always been an inquisitive person and her stories left me wanting more. A few nights later, safely home and nestled in our bunk bed, my older sister, Caryn, and I speculated what it might be like to have an encounter with God.Nearly a decade after our time at summer camp, my sister and I were sitting on a faded red couch when everything changed. Our hunger for the Lord was insatiable. In desperation, we held a few of our friends hostage until they agreed to pray for us. If there was more of God, we wanted it. For over a year we had prayed for an encounter and that night the Father met us. Seven years later, with that red couch encounter indelibly seared into our memory, it is no surprise that our spiritual hunger has not abated. That wonderful night made a profound impact on our lives and we have found that it is a joy to live life with the Father. He makes every day worthwhile and is the reason why my sister and I share the same well-developed laugh lines. Sometimes the Father’s promises seem too good to be humanly possible.One way that the Father’s Spirit speaks is through dreams. In fact, my sister and I both moved to different states as a result of dreams. The Holy Spirit also speaks through visions.One night a dear friend of ours saw the word “Bhutan” while praying. A few weeks later she found out that it was a nation and felt an invitation to go. Within a year, my sister and I joined a small team of people to put on a church planting training for Bhutanese students right at the border of Bhutan. During this trip, we saw many miracles, but the best part was sharing stories with the students about the Holy Spirit. Equipped with the knowledge of who they are and who their Father is, these young students went out into a nearby village to share the Father’s love.When they returned, we were all stunned to hear their reports. Tumors disappeared, idols were thrown out, and many gave their lives to Jesus. The student’s childlike faith is a picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like in action. It is called the Good News for a reason! Life with the Father is an exciting and wild adventure. India was the first of many trips. Since that initial trip, Caryn has traveled to over 20 different countries as a humanitarian photographer. Being in campus ministry, however, has primarily kept me stateside the past five years. Things changed this year and I was able to travel alongside my sister on multiple overseas trips. Going abroad with Caryn is a dream realized. I love watching her in her element and we both enjoy spending time with whomever we have the pleasure of meeting. On these trips, the Holy Spirit never ceases to amaze me. Whether overseas or at home, I have learned that the Holy Spirit is always the same. God loves to show up in the day-to-day moments of life and He loves to meet you wherever you are.Life with the Holy Spirit is more adventurous than being Indiana Jones himself. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Ever since summer camp, this is a promise that my sister and I continuously pursue. One moment with the Father is worth everything.

“We did it! This is historic! We’ve done what has never been done before… And it worked!”My friend, Mushtaq, was grinning from ear to ear, full of joy at what we had just witnessed in the past week. We had just spent 8 days ministering together at Christ Church in Shimla for Holy Week. Mushtaq had decided to turn what was normally a very religious and formal occasion into a week of Spirit filled revival services. So, he invited me — a loud, spirit filled Pentecostal— to minister to a church filled with very formal, very quiet, very religious, very highly educated people. Even clapping to welcome visitors is not allowed here! What could possibly go wrong?But day after day God came: touching, healing, restoring, forgiving, and doing only what God could do. One woman who is a university professor told Mushtaq that she was overwhelmed by the presence of God and was crying so hard she had to get up and leave the service to try to collect herself. She spent all that afternoon at home crying and worshiping. She had never experienced His presence like that before.One man who previously voiced opposition to my ministry was now hugging me, taking me around to each of his family members asking me to pray for them. Day after day they came. The attendance increased until Easter Sunday when the church was overflowing with people hungry to be touched by God. In this culture it is a very difficult thing for people to make a public profession to become a follower of Christ. They can begin to receive immediate persecution from family or friends who are still Hindu. But on that Easter Sunday I asked people to make a first time decision to follow Christ.The Holy Spirit came like waves through the room: loving, convicting, and forgiving, and the hands began to come up. Only one or two at first, then more hands began to be raised higher and higher until there were at least 30 who publicly made a decision for Christ.For more than 100 years there have been walls between denominations separating people from one another, but I have found that there have been no walls to our ministry. Anglican, Nazarene, Methodist, Pentecostals — all have opened their doors inviting us to come and release the Kingdom of God. How many times have I heard “This has never happened before”? Now Mushtaq wants to open doors for every Anglican Church throughout India for our ministry.He wants to see “dead” churches come alive with passion for Jesus. He wants each one of them to experience spiritual breakthrough and begin affecting the nation for Christ. Most of these churches are in areas where there are less than 2 percent Christian. As they experience revival they can impact multitudes of people who are still waiting to hear the Gospel for the first time. The doors of ministry in India are wide open. Because of your prayers and giving we get to walk through them together. Thank you for sending us!For more information regarding our ministry please contact us at 5riversinternational.com.~ Dan Taylor

“Lord Jesus, come and revive Malaysia for your glory!” This has been my prayer for my country since I was born again in England in 1980. I thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to pastor a church in Kuala Lumpur from 1995 to 2001. A few local pastors and I, though we were all from different denominations and theological persuasions, were meeting together monthly to pray for our nation. By God’s grace we had a few wonderful city-wide revival meeting in the stadium. Revivalists Carlos Annacondia, Claudio Freidzon, and Sergio Scataglini from Argentina were the speakers. I experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit and so did our church in Kuala Lumpur. The Lord had transformed our traditional church into a Spirit-filled church. The Spirit of God is moving in Malaysia. The churches are growing and praying together for the coming revival. First, let us pray and bless those who are in authority as the apostle Paul commanded us in 1 Timothy 2:2, “for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” Ask the Lord to instill a God-fearing heart to our King Yang di-Pertuan Agong as well as our Prime Minister and his cabinet.Ask the Lord to grant our leaders wisdom, understanding, and love as they serve more than 30 million people with multi-ethnic and multi-cultural backgrounds. Second, ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit on all the churches in Malaysia. Pastors and church leaders need to put aside our denominational and theological differences. Let us come together and do what the Lord has promised us in 2 Chronicles 7:14. We must come together and humble ourselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, so that we will experience healing and revival for our nation.Finally, pray for all the believers to live out the life of Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit daily as He has promised us in Acts 1:8. People around us have religions but they long to see the reality of the true and living God. Christians must step out of our comfort zone and love the Malays, Chinese, Indigenous people, and the Indians in a tangible way. When we love the people around us and meet their needs, they will see our good deeds and give glory to the Father in heaven.I am praying and expecting to see revival in Malaysia, “Lord Jesus, fill Malaysia with your presence. Amen.”~ Hing Chai Cheng

In the vision the Angel of the Lord flew very rapidly around the perimeter of the Muslim world. Every now and again it would stop and test the adhesive that holds the veneer of Islam over the native cultures of the region. Along the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the Angel stopped at the mouths of nine rivers. These are streams that flow from the central highland rainforest to the South China Sea.It was in these places that 14th century traders brought Islam to the peninsula. These were the gateways. The Angel then placed a wedge at the river mouth and, as the prayers of the Saints gave power, drove the wedge deeply lifting the veneer and revealing the natural state of the beautiful hard woods beneath.Then, as the prayer warriors became a worship team, and sounds of praise were raised to the Lamb on the throne of heaven, the Angel applied steam to the wood, removed the glue, polished the natural faith of the peoples, and released them from centuries of a foreign religion. As this vision was shared in 1992, I realized that we would have a continuous prayer relationship with this great nation of Malaysia. With David Koo, Dave Linglebach, and Moses Kho, I walked the length of the Peninsula. We prayed along that coast, slept in the villages, prayed with Muslim families, and reached out to connect with all along that line.We documented the nine rivers and the history of Islam in the region. The ways in which this religion was imposed upon the Malay people and their inability to resist the allurement in contained. Our drive to cooperate with the Angel took us next to the Island of Borneo and the Kingdom of Brunei. There we traced Islam to the jetty of Junjugang about 10 km upstream from the sea. There we offered substitutional repentance prayer. The Borneo Bulletin reported the next morning that the river had gone from filthy pollutant to clear water and never before seen species of mature fish appeared in fishermen’s nets from the jetty at Junjugang.Next we found ourselves teaching on prayer and ministering deliverance in major Malaysian cities, forming close ties with the Christian church in Malaysia and even joining for short term missions to Cambodia, Tibet, and prayer walks in Singapore and Taiwan. The Lord showed us that each place that would start 24/7 prayer would start to bubble up under the veneer so that when it started to be rolled back, these places would give way quickly. Malaysia is now a nation of 24/7 prayer. In cooperation with the Angel of the Lord, we united the churches in Kuala Lumpur on the 40th anniversary of the racial massacre that had seen thousands of Chinese Christians beheaded and their bodies thrown into the rivers so that they ran red with martyr’s blood. We worked together with so many wonderful believers and declared an end to the generation of fear and the beginning of the generation of liberty in Malaysia. Now the son of the then prime minister has been found to have taken more than a billion U.S. dollars from the till and will be prosecuted.This year, we are again called to pray for Malaysia and we are gathering the SEAPC Christian Global Community in Malacca for a week of united prayer and worship at the historic Christian gateway to the Malay peoples. We are so excited that the Lord has called us to mobilize Malaysians for mission. We are thrilled to have our Friends Around the Table gather with these who have suffered persecution as though persecuted with them and to join them to the Back to Jerusalem Movement.Please pray for these meetings. Please pray for open vision to receive the continuing direction of the Holy Spirit in this marvelously strategic move to unite all nations to praise and worship and to see the Angel of the Lord camp around those who call on His name. We will hold a Prophetic Presbytery in which those of us with confirmed Prophetic giftedness will minister to those who request a word for continued direction. We will receive teaching from those familiar with Islam and successful in outreach, and we will hear from those who are seeing thousands come to Christ in Muslim nations.We will also hear from those trained in the School of the Spirit who will share Bible and anointing for a release of miracles of healing and deliverance. Please pray for and support the cost of these meetings, Friends Around the Table/Mobilizing Malaysians for Missions.