Monday, April 4, 2016

Prayer Ministry - Seek the Welfare of the City

This past Sunday we discussed prayer walks and Cathy Pauley shared a bit about her experience with prayer on a mission trip to Thailand back in March of 2014.  Let this re-post from what she wrote in 2014 be an encouragement to you as you consider walking and praying in your community:

Our post today is written by Cathy Pauley, a member of our church who recently traveled to Thailand with The Sending Place (a short-term missions sending organization).

Cathy writes:

I have enjoyed watching members at St. Andrews Lutheran Church embrace
relationships. Building relationships and connecting to the community have
been mission themes for more than a year. Rachelle, Marjorie and I
experienced the same when we went to Thailand Feb. 5-18.

The Sending Place sends short-term missionaries to many countries. In my
experience, certain countries are more relationship-eccentric than other
countries. Thailand is definitely one of those countries.

TSP missionaries started forming relationships several years ago, and this
year I really felt connected to the villages, and to Musikee Center -
headquarters of Handclasp, our sponsor, and home to our hosts, Don and Kay
Fox.

We lived at Musikee, where the students and staff of this village inside a
village live. The students attend devotions every night, and they start
their school day in prayer every school day. They also attend weekly worship
service either in their community hall or at a village church. These
students are Christians fairly new to their faith in most cases, but mature
in Spirit. They seemed to connect to the devotions that our team led almost
every night we were there.

Praying with families, staff and individuals in the villages helped us
connect and build relationships that were as much a blessing to our team as
to those we prayed with, and for. When we prayed with villagers, we each had
a Bible verse specific to their need.

We prayed with a widow, whose husband - a Christian since 1989 - passed
away. We watched the family of that man decorate his casket with crosses! 
We prayed with a Buddhist school principal and his wife for Jesus to
come into their hearts. It was very powerful. We prayed for a man battling
with alcohol abuse. His friends keep encouraging him to drink with them and
he is trying to slay that beast. We prayed with his wife and sons. We prayed

with the adult children of an 86-year-old man who is preparing to go Home
(die). He is a Christian who was strong and healthy until five days prior to
us praying. We also prayed over the siblings and closed with singing
"Amazing Grace." We prayed with a father who is raising three children alone
because his wife walked out. His mother-in-law is mean to him. We prayed for
strength for the father and wisdom for the mother. We then prayed over a

very young mother who is quite ill with symptoms similar to Hepatitis A. She
has three children younger than 5. We also prayed for the father and the
children. We attended a Karen Christian wedding and on our way home, we
stopped at the home of a single mom raising four daughters. Her husband is
in prison for eight years for drug-related charges. We prayed for the mom
and children to find peace and stay strong. They are all at-risk because the
village men know she is alone. We also prayed she would be able to feed her
family. (Musikee staff is praying about taking the family in but it is a lot
to add five more people to their meal roster).

My faith journey in Thailand has made me a better listener and prayer
warrior for my friends and family at home. 

Relationships in our community are vital for the community to overcome the
poverty, despair, gangs and violence; but relationships in communities
across the globe are equally as important. We are co-heirs of Christ, not
just in Stockton but across the world!

Blessings, Cathy