For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8,9 ESV
Just over 80 years ago, when John Carlsen and Ernest Weinhardt were sent out as the first two missionaries of the Prayer League, they made their way slowly to South America on a ship, the S.S. Margaret Johnson. These men were visionaries, to be sure, but I wonder if they could have begun to imagine the ways in which we would be pursuing the Lord’s global work today.
In the first week of September, I’ll be boarding not a boat, but a plane, direct from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, en route to Nairobi. After meetings with church leaders there I’ll get on yet another plane to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I’ll participate in an important and very timely forum of fellow mission and church leaders. Afterward, I will visit our workers and partners in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I’ll return home to Minneapolis three weeks after departing, having ridden a total of seven planes. Later this fall, visiting workers and partners in South and Southeast Asia will require a total of 23 flights! This, no doubt, would have seemed like an impossibility to the founders of WMPL. Sometimes it barely seems possible to me! But in truth God makes our service around the world possible with lots of planes!
Lots of Partnering
God has also blessed us with lots of partners! Not a one of us does this work alone. As the Prayer League’s executive director, I’m especially grateful for the many remarkable people and organizations he’s brought together for his purposes through us. My travels this fall are aimed largely at better understanding, strengthening and defining those relationships. We currently have 65 workers deployed “overseas,” many of them, as you may know, in very challenging places. An additional 24 workers provide prayer mobilization and support services in the U.S. and Canada. We are privileged to partner with some wonderful Lutheran church bodies and congregations, both here in North America and around the world. We also regularly work hand-in-hand with other similarly-minded Christian mission agencies. Our founders could not have imagined the ways in which we regularly communicate and network with one another over the internet via emails, texts, messages, and video conference calls. Indeed, we’re doing this today in ways that exceed what was possible even a few years ago!
Lots of Praying
Our most essential and precious partners are the thousands of fellow believers who share our commitment to the gospel being proclaimed to those who have not yet heard it, and who join us in praying for the unreached, and for those who sacrificially go to reach them. We have a deep appreciation and love for the individuals, small groups and congregations that regularly and faithfully go before the Lord on behalf of the nations, and of those who go to the nations, believing that he can do the “impossible!” Prayer is indeed our working method and those who pray join us in our work!
Many of these prayer partners God also moves to support our work financially, and for this we are exceedingly grateful. We always strive to be as frugal as possible, but all those plane tickets (and the many other needs of our workers) aren’t handed out for free! Only with the Lord’s provision is our work possible, and we regularly stand in awe of the “unbelievable” ways he provides!
Lots of Possibilities!
What might the Lord do in these difficult times, in this changing world, with this new generation? Who will he reach? Who will he send? Who will he equip and call to lead? Who will he raise up to pray for and support his mission? Sometimes we, your fellow workers in the Prayer League, wonder ourselves about these things. Is it all possible? For some, it may, in fact, seem altogether impossible. But we know that we serve the God of infinite possibilities, the Lord of all creation, the Savior of the nations, the Guide of ships and planes. He is Provider of all good things and for him all things are possible. Even now, we cannot even imagine the things he will do for his mission to be accomplished. As he promised, “This Good News about the kingdom will be spread throughout the world as a testimony to all nations. Then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)
For nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 1:37 ESV