March 1-8

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Creator is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27).
 

Excerpt from Prayers for the People, a free yearlong guide to prayer for CBF missions and ministries. Order the Prayers of the People prayer calendar as a way of remembering CBF missions and ministries throughout the year.

In East Africa, widows face incredible difficulties: They struggle to earn a living; many are sick; they cannot send their children to school; their roofs leak; their land has been stolen from them; and they face discrimination because they have no husband. Jade and Shelah Acker, CBF field personnel in Uganda, are seeking to share the love of Christ with widows in their area. They strive daily to achieve the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG): to promote gender equality and empower women. Pray that the Ackers will offer hope to women as they organize skill training and income-generating activities to empower widows to provide for their families. Pray also that the widows will find encouragement in the love of Christ. Learn more at www.thefellowship.info/mdg.

 

 

  

 

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Prayer Requests from the CBF family

From Raquel Contreras, President of the Union de Iglesias Evangelicas Bautistas of Chile

Posted 3.2.10

• Pray for needed financial resources that will allow Chilean Baptists to respond to the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Saturday, February 27, 2010.
• Pray for the safety of pastors and Baptist Union leaders who are traveling to the most affected regions (7, 8 and 9) to assess the damage and distribute supplies.
• Pray for Raquel Contreras and other Union leaders as they seek wisdom for prioritizing their response efforts. Raquel is currently in the United States and is trying to coordinate their efforts via long distance.
• Pray for the spiritual renewal of the people of Chile. Pray for Chilean Christians as they respond to their neighbors in love and service.

Annette Ellard & Steve Clark, work with refugees, Kentucky

• Praise God that we can be available to the growing community of Karen, Chin, Karenni, and Burmese refugees in Kentucky. 
• Pray for several children facing major surgeries and months of recovery. Praise God that they have access to the medical care that they need. 
• Pray for so many refugees who have been laid off from their jobs, had their hours cut dramatically, or who are still waiting for their first job in their new country. Pray that God will replace their anxiety and fear with patience and peace.
• Pray for congregations where Americans and refugees are choosing to be church together as they work through cultural differences and language barriers to be the family of God where they are.
• Praise God for those who are giving sacrificially to support us. Pray that other individuals and congregations will join in supporting this work so that we can continue.  

LaCount Anderson, ministry to homeless, Scotland Neck, North Carolina

• We are busy making administrative changes at Union Mission, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, to enable us to better serve those people God sends our way. Please pray for me to have wisdom in making the correct choices.
• Pray for Faith House in Enfield, as the cold weather has caused heating costs to accelerate.
• Pray for the homeless men at Union as we seek to help them make decisions relating to their future. Pray for our staff as they minister through Bible study to these men.
• Pray for the daily chapel services to the street people and the residents of the mission.

Joel & Tiffne Whitley, work with internationals, Spain

• Pray for Segunda and her new baby Immaculada who was born a few weeks early and spent some time in the hospital in Almeria. Pray for the other children and adults who are a part of this family.
• Pray for Aaron and Anta as he looks for a new job to provide for his family. Anta is expecting a new baby and they would like to move to an apartment of their own. Right now they are sharing an apartment with another family with three children. 
• Please continue to pray for John. He is from Georgia and will be with us in southern Spain for the next few months working with the sheep project and other agricultural activities. As he spends time with the many African young men here in Spain, please pray that they might see the presence of Christ through him. Pray for John as he adjusts to a new culture and foreign languages. 
• Please pray for us as we travel to our team meeting this month.
• Continue to pray for the distribution and updating of the scripture on the MP3 players. We will update the players with the Easter story this month. Please pray that those who listen to this story will begin to understand about a living Savior.
• Please pray for the new ministries starting at “mi casa.” Our Spanish church in Almeria has started a kids’ club and will provide classes for women in sewing, cooking, and Spanish.
• Pray for Greg who will begin language school in Madrid this month.
   

Butch & Nell Green, work with internationals, South Carolina

• Thank God for the excellent turn out and enthusiasm of participants at the evangelism training for Eglise Evangelique Baptist d’Ottawa. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide them as they build relationships and share their lives with others. 
• Three churches from Francophone Canada were on a mission trip together in Haiti when the earthquake occurred. These three churches are coming together again, this time with a team member from a CBF church in South Carolina. The team will be composed of Haitians, Canadians, and Americans. Ask God to protect this multicultural team as they go and minister cross-culturally in medical relief as well as other aide. Ask God to help all of the members grow in their understanding of cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural communication. Ask that through the ministry of this team, people in Haiti will be relieved of various sufferings and will be drawn to the love God has for them.
• We are beginning to work through the logistics for the move to Canada. Ask that God will help us understand all of the necessary paperwork and that visas will be granted before our anticipated September arrival.
• Two consultations took place at the end of February in an effort to build collaboration between churches in North and South Carolina and French Canadian Baptists. Pray that creativity and vision are continued to be defined as working relationships continue.
• We are preparing for five months of an off-field assignment beginning the first of April. Ask God to help us use our time wisely so that Nell can finish her Master’s project, Butch can complete all of the logistics for the move, and for a time of refreshing that will prepare us for the new ministry in Canada. 

Gennady and Mina Podgaisky, urban work, Kiev, Ukraine

• Praise God we now have a total of 20 children living in three foster families at the Village of Hope.
• Please pray for short term mission teams to come and finish the Laurel House. We already have a prospective foster family waiting to move in.
• Gennady will take a trip to Russia to visit his parents and do some paperwork. Please pray for favor in all he will do and for Mina and the children remaining in Kiev.
• Please pray for the political situation in Ukraine. We have a newly elected president but the opposition party is not accepting his triumph.
  

Kim & Marc Wyatt, work with immigrants/internationals, Canada

• We are happy to announce the opening of La Masion Mattheiu de Montreal -- Matthew House Montreal. MMM is a shelter dedicated to welcoming refugees migrating to Montreal. Pray for Christine, Brian,  Christopher, and David, the MMM ministry team as they begin this special refugee initiative following the theme of Matthew 25:35 ff.
• In Ottawa, Canada's capital city, efforts continue to open a similar shelter for refugees. Habitat for Humanity is partnering with us to do renovations on a property owned by Bethany Baptist Church. We anticipate the shelter to open around Easter.
• Ministry related to the earthquake in Haiti and Haitian migration to Canada continues. We ask for specific prayers for Eglise Evangelique Baptiste d'Ottawa and First Baptist Church of Leamington, Ontario, who are returning to Haiti. Twenty-three Canadian Baptists were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. All returned uninjured. They are now going back to attempt to locate family and friends from whom they have not heard since the destruction occurred. Thanks to our teammates, Butch and Nell Green, a nurse from Oakland Baptist Church, Rock Hill, South Carolina, is accompanying the Canadians on this mission.
• Pray also for Jackie, a Haitian mom with five children, living in Ottawa. We are working hard to help reunite her husband, Ozzny, with the family. Ozzny is in Haiti.
• Pray for First Baptist Church, Shelby, North Carolina, and Providence Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, as they are preparing to come to Ottawa this summer on mission.
• Pray also for Dr. John Pond, Director of Missions for West Cowan Baptist Association and Rev. Patrick Denuet, Director of Missions and Partnership with the French Baptist Union of Canada. These two dedicated missioners are helping coordinate new partnerships between their churches that will strengthen each and help bless the nations that are migrating into Quebec, Canada.

Lita & Rick Sample and Fran Stevenson, work with internationals, San Francisco Bay Area

• Pray for Alma and Brenda, volunteers from Crossroads Church, who are tax professionals donating their time and their services to prepare tax forms for internationals during tax season.
• We are concerned for Lita's brother-in-law, Joe, who lives in Houston, Texas. Joe sustained a head injury a few months ago when a large heavy box fell on top of his head at work. His recovery has not been complete and his speech has been affected. Please pray that Joe's recovery will be complete and that he will soon be healed.
• Pray for California Against Slavery, an initiative to strengthen human trafficking laws in California. Pray for Lita and Fran who have been instrumental in launching this initiative. Pray for the local team working hard to get one million signatures required to have this initiative on the 2010 ballot in California.

Persian World Outreach 

• AICF-VA (Afghan and Iranian Christian Fellowship) has a live Internet radio worship broadcast every Sunday at 12:30 PM (EST) from McLean Bible Church at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pwo. Please join us!
• A young Iranian Christian couple just arrived in the U.S. after a 40 month stay in Turkey on their migration from Iran. In Turkey they were discipled by an Iranian church. Now they are serving in the Afghan and Iranian church in the U.S. The woman shared her spiritual journey to Christ with us. One morning, when she arrived early at the University of Tehran, she sat alone in the classroom. On the board someone had written the story “Foot Prints” in Farsi. When she came to the end where it says “My child,” she was touched by the concept of having God as a father. She became receptive to more teaching about Christ. This story illustrates the importance of sharing cross-culturally (through translation) inspirational messages and books and how these writings can be used of God to impact cross-culturally. Please pray for our resource production and distribution of Persian Christian materials. 
• Afghan and Iranian New Year begins March 20. Please pray for opportunities to reach Persian-speakers with the love of Jesus Christ during the Persian New Year celebration and times of visitation.
• Pray for the Afghan and Iranian Christian Fellowship-Maryland (AICF-MD). Praise for the son of a couple who serve there, who, after a long time of unemployment was able to secure a job.
• Praise that several students at the Iranian University of Maryland visited AICF. Pray for S., a young Iranian who is reaching out to these students. 
  

Nancy & Steve James, medical work, Haiti 

• We visited and assessed the current situation of the hospitals and clinics in the Cap Haitian, Limbé, Milot, and Quartier Morin communities. With our Community Health Evangelism coordinator colleague, Damise Grimard, we visited and worked with our medical colleagues in four community health centers. The health centers had swelled in patient volume, in some cases to 6 times their normal size. This volume is currently starting to diminish though the needs of the health centers will likely remain greater than the pre-earthquake needs as the Port-au-Prince relocated population will likely stay in the north for many months, if not years to come. Despite these clinics being very poor and struggling to keep supplies on their shelves, they all had made the decision to offer free care and free medicines to the patients that were coming each day, at a financial sacrifice for the love of Jesus to the poor and needy. Pray for our Haitian brothers and sisters reaching out sacrificially to their people in need.
• Pray for the Danda Health Center, staff, and patients. We found little colostomy patient Rose-Guerlande and her grandfather doing well. We helped insulin-dependent diabetics continue to receive insulin and monitor their needs, including helping a pregnant insulin-diabetic in her sixth month of pregnancy make plans to move to Cap Haitian for her last 3 months to try to receive the best care (repeat C-Section) for her and her baby.
• In Bayeux Health Center, encouraging Nurses Margaret and Iclène and the staff, we were able to help the man with leprosy. He had stopped taking his leprosy medicines for the past three weeks as the medicines made him nauseated on days when he could not find anything to eat. As we provided funds for him to eat daily, we stressed with him how important it was not to miss a day of medicines. Pray for these patients and that the staff will continue to monitor them closely with home visits through the CHE village health workers.
• Pray for Emerson, little congenital heart patient, and his father. Nancy fit Emerson with a new protective Velcro vest that Laura Corbett from Maine had sent, so he can be protected when he plays soccer with his friends.
• In Ebenezer Health Center, we rehydrated a severely dehydrated woman with AIDS, praying and counseling her. We were able to suture back an almost completely amputated index finger in a 7-year-old boy, using this opportunity to teach the two doctors tendon repair technique.
• We met with the leaders of the Community Health Evangelism disaster relief response with whom we partner. Pray for our joint efforts in trying to provide medical supplies to beleaguered clinics, safe water, and counseling to earthquake victims.
• We recently returned to the earthquake area where we helped in networking with relief groups working and providing food and medical supplies where needed.