Remembering to Pray

Prayer is so important.  I have always said that prayer was important but for many years I did not act like I thought it was important.  God continues to call us to prayer through His Spirit and His word.  More recently I have been overwhelmed by the need for prayer and fasting.  There is a crazy world out there with a very real enemy.  God's people need to continue in this Spiritual battle through prayer.

Ephesians 6:10-20

I believe that the Holy Spirit will bring to mind things we should be praying for and will burden our hearts causing us to pray.  I also believe that we live in a very distracting environment so we tend to ignore this call to prayer.  So as we fight back against the world's pressure and continue to pray. There are ways to help us remember to pray.  Such as Echo Prayer.  it has been around for awhile but I have just been reminded of it.

I think echo prayer is genius.  It is a website that will send you reminder texts or emails with different prayer requests.  You can set up different times to send specific prayer reminders or set it to send you random prayer requests that you have previously entered.

So it can remind you to prayer for a missionary at a certain time of the day that they might feel spiritual attacks  on a consistent basis or remind you to pray for specific events such as a neighbor's surgery that maybe taking place next week.

I would encourage you to check it out and/or follow the Holy Spirit's calling to pray: )
Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulations, be constant in prayer.

 www.echoprayer.com .

Blood and the Thai political situation.

Well I am leaving for Thailand in 3 months.  I cannot believe it!  The time is going so fast, July is going to be here before we know it.  God has been continuing to provide me with support, loving community members and new things to learn before I leave.

Recently, I have been hearing a lot about the political situation in Thailand.  I just wanted to make you guys aware of what is going on.  There have been huge fights and protests happening in Bangkok.  There are two groups the red shirts and the yellow shirts.  The yellow shirts are in favor of the current prime minister and the red shirts are in support of a past prime minister Thaksin.  Thaksin was taken out of office by a past military coup from a few years ago.    The red shirts are mostly people from the country areas and the yellow shirts are from Bangkok and other large cities.  So recently, the red shirts have been protesting for the return of Thaksin.  These protests are huge 50,000 to 60,000 people converging on Bangkok by from all over Thailand.  

The protests are seen as mainly peaceful, but there is a deep underline spiritual battle happening during these protests.  Thailand is a very spiritual place and even politics are effected. During one of the protests the red shirts burned down the "Spirit house" that is in front of the main government building in Bangkok.  This is a big deal because the Thais believe all the spirits that control that building live in that "spirit house".  Almost everyone has a Spirit house in front of their home and/or business. Here is an example: This is where the spirits live and they must be kept happy so that things on their property go well.   I believe there is real power in these spirits and if they are upset these spirits will hurt the Thai people, that is if they do not have the power of Jesus Christ to overcome these spirits.

SO that was a shocking development within itself.  The next part of their protest was even more deeply shocking and spiritual.  The thousands and thousands of red shirts decided to draw their own blood and pour it out in front of the government steps.  Blood is such a significantly powerful in many religions especially in Christianity.  To think of the sacrifices throughout the old testament and today being Good Friday.  Christ's blood was poured out saved the souls of many!!! 

Here is a picture of the Thai blood being collected and poured out.  

The blood of the Thais has some power to...they poured out a deeply demonic occultic power to try to control the Thai government.

Pray against this power and the very real spiritual warfare in Thailand.

Pray for the Thai Church that they would separate themselves from any left over demonic worship that might be still effecting their lives.

Pray for the missionaries that they will be able to preach about the power in the Blood of Christ and in CHRIST ALONE!!!

Check back here for more frequent posts about my journey and the situations in Thailand!  

A Little History and Update…

When God put Thailand on my heart in 2005 I thought that I would graduate college in ’06, go to Bible College for a year and then leave for Thailand. Well that was not exactly God’s plan as many you know of my brother’s accident in 2007 which paralyzed him from the chest down. I took a break from Bible School and helped my family.  Now just recently I have had another chance to serve my family.  My mom has been recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer. This has given me a chance to serve my family yet again. After my brother’s accident he continued his dream of becoming a doctor and he is now the first quadriplegic to attend Johns Hopkins Medical School. During this first year of Medical School my mom has been living with my brother to help him with his daily needs.   So for the past 3 weeks, while my mom has been having her surgeries, I have been in Baltimore helping my brother. My mom planned to return on Friday and I was going to go back to California today.  However, the airport is closed because of a huge blizzard we had this weekend.  I will be returning to California when the airport reopens tomorrow.  In these next few weeks I have a lot of small and large details to take care of to prepare for Thailand.  Here are a few of my prayer requests:   

1. My family   

-My mom is facing a third surgery and radiation treatment.  Pray     

 that she would make the right decisions concerning how to continue.

2. Leaving date-I am still unsure about when I should leave.  I thought that I had to wait until July, which is when the next orientation course would begin, but I have now been told by the field leadership not to wait only on that basis.  I am praying through if I should leave in April/May or if I should wait until the July date.

3. Prayer Team- I would love to have a team of believers that are committed to praying for this ministry so that I could send you updates and immediate prayer needs.  PLEASE

Sign up to be a prayer partner: Click Prayer at the top left of this page.

4. Finances- Pray that all of my finances would come in to allow this to happen. 

5. Preparations-  Pray that I would be diligently getting ready for this move. All of the little details tend to overwhelm me.    

Thank you for your partnership and prayer.  I am so so grateful for all of you!

#1 REASON: GOD GETS THE GLORY!!

Only through Him can this be possible!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

#2 REASON: Focusing more on prayer!

Raising money right now is forcing me to be more in prayer than if all of my expenses were prayed for already. How sad is that? As believers, prayer is the basis for every ministry. Hudson Taylor, the founder of OMF, relied fully on God and took everything to Him in prayer. I am thankful OMF realizes the importance of prayer and continues to ingrain the need for personal prayer and the prayers of prayer partners. I find it unique that OMF members tell me…”Yes, the money will come in, but you need to be diligent in finding prayer partners that will really pray.” God is in control, we need to bring everything to Him. Please Please Please Pray with me!

#3 REASON: More people partnering at smaller amounts of money equals more accountability, more prayers, and a larger part of the body invested in reaching the nations!!!

So right now a lot of people do not have an extra $50 or even $25 a month to give. So the solution is either pray and see if God wants you to sacrifice something to be able to give more or we should be praying for MORE PARTNERS giving at lower amounts. I have a list of people that receive my prayer updates and if everyone on that list gave $8 a month my expenses would be covered. That’s like taking me out to lunch once a month! And you know, that is a requirement in most of my friendships anyways. : ) So here are some plus for having more partners. More people invested gives me more motivation for me to be fruitful in ministry. I know the amount of people connected to the ministry. I will remember faces of those who are partnering with me and realize their investment along side of mine in His perfect plan. It will also hopefully remind people to pray for the ministry God is calling them to invest in. Praise God for his Body!

#4 Reason: Senders have to make more of a sacrifice to give then they would have in the past

Previous years, people had more dispensable income, people could give to missionaries out of their wealth without even seeing the affects of their monthly giving. This is not a bad thing--giving to missionaries is ALWAYS a good thing--Don’t let me talk you out of it. But, this does remind me of one of Jesus’ teaching moments in Mark 12:41-44. In this passage, Jesus is at the temple watching people give their offerings. At the temple there were a group of the rich people who were giving large sums of money and a poor widow came to give all she had, a penny. Correct fund-raising would tell us to push past the widow and focus on the richest people. We want to focus on those able to give the most to God’s work. Right? Lets check in and see what Jesus told his disciples "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." Jesus saw the true faith of that widow. It’s not bad that the rich people were giving to the Lord, its not bad if rich people support me : ) BUT its when people give in FAITH that truly counts. It would be nice if a rich person just gave me all of the money and send me on my way BUT it would be a billion times better to work along side a team of faith-filled people giving and investing in God’s work in Thailand.