Nigerian Missionaries!

You can feel the excitement and the tension in the air .   This evening we sit in rows listening to the opening speeches as part of the banquet that kicks off an intense thirty-day program.  For the next thirty days seventeen of us will work together every day Monday to Friday from seven in the morning until nine thirty at night—yes, that’s right, all day long pretty much from waking until sleeping.  We will set aside all other work to focus on only this.  The normal family responsibilities and ministry that we would be doing will be set aside.  Now, you may be wondering, what is so important for seventeen people to give themselves to?

 We are preparing for Discipleship Ministry Partner Development.  We are preparing to mentor and train ourselves to find Nigerian Ministry Partners to join us in this ministry though prayer and finances.

Who are we, the seventeen?  Eleven Nigerian missionary staff, two coaches, three mentors, and one person to keep the details straight.  (I’m one of the mentors)

We are going to be calling people daily arranging to meet with them.  When we meet with them we will share how God has saved us and how we got into the ministry of Bible translation, and about all the exciting things he is doing in the various areas of Bible translation—survey, entho-arts, literacy, linguistics, translation, Scripture engagement, vernacular media services and so forth.  Then each Nigerian missionary will invite the person we are meeting with to become a ministry partner with them, investing in prayer and finances.

How do we feel? Nervous, excited, confused, and hopeful.  All of this is more than we can do by our strength, but we know God can make it work.  So . . .

Please, please, please join us in prayer!  I have been sensing the need for you all to stand with us in prayer more and more over the last six weeks as we prepared for this program.  Somehow until today, I just couldn’t find the time and words (and internet connection) to get this blog post together!

Please pray:

·      For courage

·      For us to learn from God what he wants to teach us

·      For each of us to sense God’s leading and calling to this

·      For six wives (and three fiancées) to feel encouraged and part of this process

·      For boldness for the fellow Christians we meet

·      For this “new idea” of Nigerian-sent missionaries (though it isn’t really new) to be accepted by the Nigerian church

·      For each of us to understand the program enough to be able to teach each other in the process

·      For me specifically as a mentor to have wisdom from God for what I say and do

·      For all of us to feel supported and loved by our whole group as they go through the process.

·      That God will give them hope.

·      That God will provide the finances needed

·      That many will catch the vision and see the need for Bible translation.

·      That God’s people in Nigeria will rise to the challenge of taking ownership of Bible translation in the country.

·      That our faith in God will increase in the challenges and in the successes