Invincible by Prayer--Team update 24 September

“They only are invincible who are as ready to die as to live.”
That quote comes from The Scottish Chiefs, a flowery tome I am reading aloud to the kids at night, celebrating the legend of William Wallace.  But it strikes me as a rough translation of one of my favorite verses, Rev 12:11, which describes Satan overcome by the saints who did not love their lives to the death.  We had an extended Kingdom Prayer night this week, and once again as we prayed for the Kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth, my own heart was challenged by the image of Jesus.  Long after he taught the disciples to pray, he used those words in His own prayer in Gethsemane.  Thy will be done . . . Even if the cup contains the bitterness of death.  Yet only by living in that freedom can we overcome the evil all around us.  Please pray for us to have that holy disregard, that tough willingness to endure.  

We called the prayer meeting sensing the need for an offensive.  Please join us in praying for the Kingdom to come, in our own hearts and in Bundibugyo:

1. Scott and Michael fly to Sudan Monday to join with many mission agencies and Sudanese Christians and church leaders in an effort to coordinate the outreach to southern Sudan as war ebbs and opportunities increase.  They will be in Sudan through Thursday, along with Robert Carr, representing WHM.  Please pray for the Spirit to imbue them with vision and calling . . . And for their safety.  NOTE (25 September:  this prayer was already answered in part when the MAF pilot noted a change in the engine’s noise on take-off from Entebbe and brought the plane right back down, only to find a blocked fuel injector that had to be fixed before proceeding to Sudan.  They arrived safely after the mechanical problem was solved.)
2. Josh Dickenson and Stephanie Jilcott are in the midst of orienting to this new culture and life and team and work.   Pray for their hearts to be encouraged in their initial weeks, for God to give them clear and creative ideas on how to serve, and for their health.  Josh is an engineer who will work with Michael until mid-February, and Stephanie is a nutrition PhD who will be instrumental in addressing the needs of malnourished children and people living with AIDS.  Jesus used water and food and two prime examples of who He is:  pray that people would see Jesus in the work of Josh and of Stephanie!
3. Join us in praying for God to provide $85,000 for Christ School.  Yes, that’s a lot of money and combines many needs and dreams, but God is certainly able to send it.  Pray for Bob Osborne, WHM executive director, who is including appeals for CSB funding as he meets with major supporters of the mission.  It would encourage the Bartkoviches greatly to have these needs met by the work of others in the mission.  We’ve already been blessed by two other mission teams, Ireland and London, raising money to support scholarships for CSB students.
4. Quite a few team members have been sick this week, including some pretty significant asthma symptoms for little Aidan.  Besides him, at least six more people  have general gastrointestinal or respiratory viral-seeming draggy illnesses as of today.  Combined with the sense of spiritual attack, and the stress (especially for Karen and me) of having Scott and Michael gone . . . I think you can see that we need your prayers to stay the course and find the strength of Jesus to submit our wills to that of our Father.
   

Thank you as always for kneeling with us in our Gethsemanes.
With love,
Jennifer for the team