Praise and Prayer ~ April 12, 2021

Dear FFICM Prayer Partners, 

We humbly bring our requests before God. He is moving and we are responding to many opportunities around the world. Below you will find a prayer guide to support you as you accompany us in prayer and worship this week. May God bless your time in the quiet place with hope and peace.  

Nigeria:

• Prayers for Ongoing Ministry: 
  • Rich’s luggage didn’t make the trip with him to Nigeria, and got left in Frankfurt, Germany where he had his layover on the way to Nigeria but will supposedly be arriving in Nigeria tomorrow. Pray that it arrives soon and safely. Rich was delayed in his travel due to the airlines changing his flight details multiple times along the way. It was a rough trip, and now Rich is working to get rest and prepare for the conferences. 
  • Radio and TV — Please continue to pray for the ongoing TV/Radio ministry in Nigeria. We praise God that the team has recorded the next 13 TV episodes and those are now airing on 2 different stations. They are now getting material ready for the recording of the next 13 radio episodes.
  • New Office update — The team has moved into their new office! Praise God! The meter for electricity has been transitioned from the former office and the generator has been repaired and is working as well. They are working to fix some leaks in the bathroom plumbing. Pray for wisdom as they work with the landlord who is trying to ask for more money that we had originally agreed upon since it took them more work to fix the building than they were expecting.
  • Last week Sam and Ishaku trained 80 leaders from CAN (Christian Association of Africa). Praise God that the training went well and that the people trained were excited to apply what they learned right away.
  • Theological College of Northern Nigeria (TCNN) training this week was supposed to be for 100 seminary students, but 200 came. Praise God for an ever increasing interest in new believer follow-up training!
  • There is an ongoing risk of being kidnapped while driving on the roads in Nigeria to conferences, trainings, etc. Pray for wisdom as our team maneuvers around and goes to and from the various conferences and trainings. Please pray for God’s protection.  
• Prayers for Current/Future Events: 
  • The MBB (Muslim Background Believers) conference is happening this week! Pray for wisdom for the speakers, those working with logistics and coordination. Praise God for the unity established among the diverse Christian organizations which are collaborating to bring about this important conference! Rich Gardner is there to speak at the conference as well as a number of Christian leaders from across Nigeria. Due to COVID and other factors, it looks like the number of attendees will only be around 600 rather than the originally expected 1,000. Pray for safety as well as deep and lasting impact.
  • Continue to pray for the “True Gospel Conference” that will be held in Jalingo, Nigeria next week. Preparations are coming together, and we need God’s wisdom as we continue to get things ready. Pray for more people to sign up! We have capacity for at least 1000 but so far only 600 have signed up. The local ministry leaders are coordinating with the churches and there is a growing excitement and anticipation of how God will use this to strengthen peoples’ understanding about God and give them a firm foundation. One of our ministry partners from eastern Europe, Roman Baronowski, will be flying to speak at the conference along with Rich Gardner and various Nigerian leaders. 
  • The 70 former drug addicts who gave their lives to Jesus and are in need of follow-up ministry have been having a hard time trying to arrange a time to meet to do follow-up training since many are homeless and hard to reach. The follow-up from their initial connection with the gospel has been over a month. Please pray that they would remember the promise of follow-up and return for ongoing support from FFICM.  
• Prayer for our Ministry Partners: 
  • Baba, the primary organizer of the HBB conference, has been seriously sick, almost paralyzed. He has been admitted to the hospital. Please pray for his healing! 
  • Praise God for Zainab’s health. She was sick but is feeling much better. She is praying that God will help her to be able to train and disciple at least 500 women in 2021. Please pray for a ministry helper, an assistant to help her. 
  • Pray for our Nigeria National Director Peter Washg and his family who are grieving the passing of his mother-in-law this past week.

Ethiopia:

• Prayers for safety and health:
  • COVID recovery: 
    • Eskinder and his family are fully recovered from COVID-19. Praise God that they are getting better. He spent his first day back in the office today.
    • Belay, a friend and colleague of Eskinder who has helped with many of our FFICM training events in Ethiopia, now has COVID. He was hospitalized for two weeks and is at home now. 
    • Keleme, a leader of the church denomination’s Missions Department, had surgery. He was also hospitalized but is home now. 
  • Pray for peace and security in the nation of Ethiopia. There is a party election coming up on June 5, 2021. There are 107 parties in Ethiopia and the winning party will elect the Prime Minister. There have been rumors of wars with neighboring countries as well as much division between tribes, language groups, religions, etc.
• Update from the recent Ethiopia Mega-Conference: 
  • Praise God for the completion of the mega-conference (2 weeks ago) in Southern Ethiopia! The estimated attendance was around 10,000. The conference speakers focused on strengthening the church with a vision of the true gospel. We are striving to give the people a ‘firm foundation’ in Christ so that they do not fall away from their faith as has been happening.
  • Praise for safety for the conference speakers who went over from the US: Rich Gardner, Michael Jen, Mike Parker and Kate Thomas. They all tested negative for COVID upon their return to the US. The people who attended the conference are all still healthy as far as we know and there does not appear to be any COVID spread in that area. The people we trained earlier are working to follow-up the many who made both first-time commitments to rededications.
• Strategic Development: 
  • Tesfye started full-time with Eskinder on April 1! Praise God! Eskinder and Tesfye are sharing office space with one other church staff member in one small room. Please pray that the church denomination headquarters (EKHC) would be able to provide a different space for the other person or a bigger space for the three of them. Tesfye started English school last week to help improve his skills. He was already able to update us in English! We are excited to have someone helping Eskinder full-time with the growing ministry opportunities in Ethiopia. 
  • Please continue to pray for the vehicle search in Ethiopia. We have had a difficult time finding a good used vehicle due to limited supply nationally. Pray for wisdom and direction for the team as they negotiate with a car owner this week. There are two potential options.
• Programs and Materials Development: 
  • Eskandir and Tesfye and Fekadu (a leader recently trained by Rich and Eskinder) will be training 40 church leaders and evangelists April 26-30 in Assella, Ethiopia! Praise God! Pray for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and guidance as they teach using FFICM’s Follow-up Booklet. Those 40 church leaders will then return to their churches and offer the FFICM Follow-up training using 300 Follow-up Booklets. Praise God for the exponential growth in new believer follow-up made possible by the excellent training and the simple, reproducible lessons contained in the material.  
  • The 113 people who were trained in March have requested 1000 Follow-Up Booklets in the Oromo language! The trainees returned to their local churches and want to host FFICM training events. They need follow-up books for this purpose. 
  • The FFICM Ethiopia team is getting ready to print another round of materials in the Oromo language. We praise God for how quickly the last printing was used and for all the people who are both being training in how to follow-up new believers but also the people that they are then following up!

USA:

• Prayer for our Ministry Partners: 
  • Please continue to pray for healing for our former staff members Dara and Mercy. Dara continues to have threatening anaphylactic responses to a wide array of allergens. Pray for Dara’s breathing which is constantly labored. Dara should receive a Xiolar shot on Thursday. Pray for wisdom for Dara’s family as they seek direction regarding financial provision. Mercy just received a diagnosis of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, an incurable disease which is incredibly debilitating. Pray for Mercy as she visits her doctors 3-4 times a week.    
  • Pray for the family of Stacey Lloyd, our Director of Multimedia. His brother is in hospice and is winding down. He is sleeping most of the day and only drinking some fluids. The family is praying for wisdom and comfort as they manage the challenges of the transition at this time. 
  • Continue to pray for mercy for David (FFICM USA Director of Operations) and his wife Denise and their son, Ben (a.k.a. Andrew). Andrew continues to struggle with making poor choices which has been very hard for all of them. Pray for wisdom, guidance, hope, and healing. 
• Pray for Materials Development: 
  • Praise God we received full funding for 200 solar-powered Audio Bible Players! 100 were distributed at the HBB conference (mid-March) and 100 will be given out this week at the MBB conference (mid-April). The people who received them are extremely grateful! Continue to pray for the impact of these devices filled with Bible recordings as well as the 52 FFICM Nigeria radio broadcasts. 
  • We are exploring options for 3D printing Audio Bible Players, which cost as little as $15/each (instead of $50/each)! Pray for wisdom as we continue to explore this new possibility as well.
  • Pray for wisdom as we continue to prepare and revise versions of our new believer follow-up materials in several different languages.
• Pray for Strategic Development: 
  • Continue to pray for wisdom as we prepare to hire a Communications Coordinator and Development Director for FFICM here in the US. May God direct FFICM’s hiring team with hope and insight as we seek to grow our organization to keep up with the profound global impact of our partners in ministry. We have had about 8 different people apply for these positions and we have begun to do phone/Zoom interviews with them.
  • Pray for wisdom as we continue to prepare for the upcoming FFICM Spring Fundraiser on Saturday, May 22 at 4 pm (Pacific Time). www.fficm.org/spring2021 The theme is: Oaks of Righteousness. We will be sharing about the impact of the three conferences in Nigeria and the mega-conference in Ethiopia this Spring as well as all the trainings that have been happening as well as sharing about plans for this Summer and Fall. We will hear video testimony from our staff overseas as well as reports from our US staff. We are praying that God will provide at least $48,000 through the event, including at least 20 new monthly donors and that we will get at least 30 new prayer letter sign-ups. Pray specifically as we work to get ready the scripts, video content, and prepare the electronic and email invitations.
  • Pray for the ongoing work of the Website Update Team that is continuing to work on fixing some issues with www.fficm.org and working to make it more useful and easy to navigate for our partners. We have several ongoing issues that are perplexing us that we are trying to fix, as well as new areas we are working to develop to better communicate about the exciting things God is doing.