I was asked to provide a short article for the upcoming "Paraclete Perspectives" - the quarterly magazine of our mission. Here it is. Pray that this will help all who read it to be moved to prayer and action!
“Please pray for us! We have nothing like this in our country! We need to be free!” Such heartrending pleas came my way after my first teaching/prayer time with 40 house church leaders from the Middle East. They had been learning all day about forgiveness. And now, at the end of the day, I was given 20 minutes to introduce our prayer team and why we were there.
“Let me take you through a prayer exercise to actually forgive those who have hurt and betrayed you.” And we prayed. When I looked up, the tears were streaming – tears of sorrow for the pain, but also tears of joy for the freedom they felt. And then they came – almost all of them surrounding our team, pleading for help.
For 4 years now, a ministry based in the U.S. been leading hundreds of thousands of Moslems to Christ through satellite TV. But what to do next? How to develop leaders and gather house churches when the slightest slip means arrest, torture and possibly death? The internet is a start. But the real leadership development occurs during secret, semi-annual conferences in the Middle East.
The training is powerful. But how do these leaders, deeply wounded by a harsh culture and religion, put it into practice when they get home? As we prayed for them, the Holy Spirit moved with a power and immediacy I have never seen – relationships healed, deep fears overcome, sins confessed, spiritual deliverance, and more. And their freedom has continued.
Pray for these heroes of the faith in the Middle East. And pray for those who are taking this same healing prayer ministry to their brothers and sisters. It is changing their lives – and their world.
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