Prayer Meeting: May 2012

Call to Prayer ~ Request for His Presence:

Psalm 66:7-8  Bless our God, you peoples, make the voice of his praise be heard, who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip.

Worship and Thanks:  

For the reminder of the Word and for living examples of the blessing of laboring in prayer...  

Intercession ~ Requests:

For strength, deepening of faith in this sister who has trusted Christ

For new tutors for both of us, for increased language learning this summer and for contact with a new community of U students by these new tutors

For softening, tilling of soil in the hearts of U students in this town, our friends some of whom have heard much of the Gospel now and some new students here who may have never heard

For the Uyghur church in XinJiang....  many followers of Christ there are disconnected form other believers, pray for strength, encouragement for lonely believers,

Pray for humble, devoted-to-the-Word leadership for the small church there

Pray for courage, strength in the Spirit and wisdom to withstand persecution, to do all that they can.... to stand

Pray for boldness for the Gospel to continue to spread out from the small church of believers among the Uyghur people

Pray for our brother who is still in chains because of Christ, Alim, and for his wife and sons who are still serving him in prison and clinging to grace for their lives.  

Pray for Revival....  let us approach the throne of grace boldly that we might see a great move of the Holy Spirit to pour over this whole land and draw multitudes of Uyghurs- young and old, families, singles, to himself, for his praise.  Build your church Oh Lord God!

Surrender:

Our plans... where to live...  move?  when?  what work might give us access, to who?  How can we serve?  Don’t let us be led by human wisdom Lord!

Assurance~  His Faithfulness, His Promises:

Revelation 7: 9-14  He will do as he has said.... the success of this work is not due to our smarts or strength but what grace that we can throw our lives into this endeavor!  And oh my we invest our days and all of our whole selves wisely to his glory, for his praise!

Sin

Perhaps it's too odd to tell you that our new sister in Christ has been sharing with her other Uyghur friends about sin.  Of course we all want to share with all of them about the Savior but right now, besides this one friend, I've never met a Utghur who understands sin.

For Muslims, and that means basically all Uyghurs, sin is something you do.... or cleaer still, sin is something bad people do.  But yesterday I got to discuss with my precious tutor friend, K, that sin is something that is in us, even in our kids.

She tensed up noticeable at this point in the conversation.... and who wouldn't?  Because if sin is something in us, then we are far less in control of doing/ not doing it.  (Since the Islamic moral law is ar more doable than Jesus'- don't commit adultery vs. don't lust in your heart).  If sin is something in us... if we Are Sinners... than there's really no way out except that we have a Savior.  Islam decieves it's followers to say that sin (and their first idea of sin is eating pork) is something you can work hard to avoid... and if that's the case you can skip out on the Savior "option," right?

Please join us in praying for our friends here, and my dear K, who will be here any second now... that they would know the Lord's kindness in convicting them and leading them to repentance (Romans 2:4) ... and to the Savior who forgives, heals, transforms, loves.

Rejoice!

If you've read our email updates you know that we have witnessed the most joyous thing...  a dear friend here has decided to trust in Christ.  She told me about her fiancee:  "I would have always thought that he's a good guy, and I'm a good girl.  But why are we fighting like this then?  It's become really plain to me that we are sinners.  I can see it now, so clearly, we are sinners from birth."

Who says this, who calls it a "gift of grace" to be quarreling so thickly with your fiancee that you count yourself very close to calling off your engagement?  These are the words (that came with the tears) of a woman who has been changed by God.... her eyes opened to see the Gospel, her need for a Savior, her heart transformed to finally alive...

It is striking to me to see how central the doctrine of depravity has been in this friend coming to Christ.  Please pray for her as she shares with others, very carefully and sensitively, about sin.