May 2000
Two and a half years ago, Mother Teresa was buried
in India. I was in Calcutta that week and witnessed
the widespread and profound grief of a nation
moved by her life's powerful, living testimony of the
love of Christ among them.
A few weeks later, leafing through a TIME maga¬
zine, I was arrested by this scene: a 3/4-page photo
showing Mother Teresa squatted down in her simple
robe, a gentle smile on her face. Across from her, at eye
level, was a little street child, fear projecting through her
tears. The distance between their faces was about two
feet. At the bottom of the page was this question:
"Could anything be more inspiring than a life devoted
to closing this gap?"
Sin brought a terrible gap between God and human¬
kind. Nothing we can do can close that gap, but what
we cannot do, God did. The Savior paid the price for
our sin; He closed the gap. Now He is right down at eye
level, smiling on us in wonderful love and calling us to
reach out to Him in faith.
Each spring we set aside 24 hours of fasting and
prayer for people who do not yet know the Savior and
His love. This year the date is June 9-10, and the focus of
our love is the Hindus of India.
Thank you for loving enough to pray,
Randy Sprinkle, Director
International Prayer Strategy Office
P.S. To order your free Day of Prayer and Fasting Kit, call
us at 1-800-866-3621 or e-mail (resource.center@imb.org).
1LUGURU OF TANZANIA. Missionaries Charles
and Carolyn Dixon, who serve on the Luguru Team,
ask you to pray for a group of volunteers who are prepar¬
ing to come to the Morogoro area on June 15-28. They
write: "Pray that God will fill them with His Spirit, equip
them for His work, and guide their footsteps each day.
Pray that new seeds will be planted, that of those planted
in the past, some will be cultivated by His Word and from
others we would see a great harvest. They will be doing
prayerwalking, preaching, teaching and door-to-door evan¬
gelism. Pray also for their safety and their health as they
are here."
2 ANGOLA (southwestern Africa). Mission¬
aries Eddie and Janice Ray are burdened for two of the
Angolan believers with whom they are ministering. They
write: "Pray that we will have wisdom as we deal with two
sensitive issues among our workers. The first one is the
problem of unfaithfulness of one of our workers to his wife.
The second one is the problem of one of our workers using
'traditional medicine' for spiritual protection."
3 PORTUGAL (southwestern Europe). Bap¬
tist representatives Scott and Sandra George, who are
members of the Youth Team, ask you to pray for a project
in Aveiro that focuses on reaching the youth in the area
surrounding the church. Pray that the leaders of this out¬
reach effort will be inspired and led of the Spirit.
4 BANGKOK, THAILAND. Please pray for the
many Conversational English Classes that continue to
provide opportunities to share Jesus. Pray that God will
provide teachers for these eager students. Also, please pray
that our Lord will raise up those in whose hearts He is
already at work. Pray that, as these doctors, lawyers, labor¬
ers, taxi drivers, nurses, etc., hear the gospel, the Truth will
be irresistible! Pray that God will use these English stu¬
dents to begin a great movement of the Thai people into
relationships with Jesus Christ.
5 MESTIZOS OF PERU. Members of the Marginal
Urban Populations Team used the fESUS film to reach
out to impoverished neighborhoods, utilizing a video pro¬
jector provided through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offer¬
ing for International Missions. The team and local churches
reported showing the evangelistic videos to over 2,600 peo¬
ple this past year, with 425 people making decisions. One
church, Area de Noe, has baptized more than 80 people
who made decisions after seeing the videos, and the video
projector is already scheduled to be used by several churches
this year. Pray that there will soon be hundreds of new
churches among the urban poor of Lima.
KKABIYE OF TOGO AND BENIN. Recently, 50
believers in the village of Bebeda received training in
how to share their faith. They live in a place surrounded by
villages that have no church of any kind. In late January,
the chief of one of those villages sent word to missionary
John Crocker, "Our village is ignorant. We hear of other
villages that are learning of God and having churches, but
in our village there is no one to tell us of this Jesus. Will
you come?" Pray that the newly-trained believers of
Bebeda will be burdened to go out to these villages and
