Praise and Prayer November 23, 2021

November 23, 2021

Greetings FFICM Prayer Partners!

Reflection from Peter Wash: This morning we were reminded by Peter from  Zechariah 4:6.  Sometimes we see mountains before us or things we feel “how will we accomplish all of this”  But the word of God encourages us that it is not by our might or power but by God.  It is not by own effort or doing but by the Spirit of the Lord.  We may have an idea of what we want to achieve but we must understand how God is going to do it.

Headlines (updates noted in blue): 

• Praise God for a fun filled evening with our FFICM family and friends at the fall fundraiser.  We were able to raise $50,000 of our $60,000 goal!
• Pray for the 100 People attending a training with a new denominational partnership in Nigeria.
• Pray for the upcoming mission trip to Kenya, the travel glitches and the challenge of fundraising. This is a learning opportunity for three FFICM staff members!

Nigeria:

Program Updates

• Praise: Training for Missionary Pastors went well — the Nigerian team spent two days teaching missionary pastors the strategies for follow-up with new believers on Thursday and Friday last week. These leaders will go for a one year mission trip, many of whom graduated from the Seminary which FFICM-Nigeria teaches class in New Believer Follow-up. 
• The FFICM Nigeria team was recently out with the New Life For All evangelistic outreach. They have over 1,000 people who are spread out between two different states in Nigeria doing a major outreach. FFICM trained people there earlier this year. FFICM Nigerian staff Sam and Ishaku were there with the evegelistic teams, coordinating the preparations for the ongoing new believer follow-up.
  • We are still waiting to hear numbers of new believers, but from the initial reports that we have heard, we can see that there was an amazing response to this outreach and those that were trained in new believer follow-up are already going out and beginning to meet with these new believers. Pray that the New Believer Follow-up would go well over the next couple months. Pray that those new believers would have a firm foundation in their faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.
• Pray: The FFICM team was going to do a new believer follow-up training in northern Nigeria this week, but it got postponed due to conflict in the area and the fact that it was harvest time. Pray for wisdom as they work to reschedule the new believer follow-up training. 
• The new believer follow-up training with a new church denomination partner in Kogi state is happening this week. They have around 100 people attending this training event with Ahamed and Valentine as the FFICM Nigerian staff trainers leading the training.  
• Pray: Kenya Mission Trip — Peter and Prisca (and Eskinder from Ethiopia) will travel to Kenya from December 2-12 with the Doctoral Program in Global Evangelism through Multnomah University. All three of them must raise sufficient funds to cover the cost of the travel and accommodation. Please pray for this fundraising effort. 

Prayer for the Ministry Team

• Pray: Zainab is still sick — Please join us praying for Zainab’s physical recovery and for funds she needs for her medication and food. She hasn’t been able to get the tests which the doctor requested because of lack of money. She’s struggling to breathe and has chest pain. Because of the lack of money for food, she has not been eating well either. Many other families are struggling like Zainab’s to get enough food, which makes it hard to hold onto their integrity. 
  • Zainab’s son sliced his hand and received stitches on Saturday. Pray for a quick recovery. 
  • There is now water scarcity in Zainab’s area, in addition to the ongoing food scarcity. People are uninterested in hearing the gospel message unless Zainab’s also offering them food.  
• Pray: Mercy’s father-in-law died — Her father-in-law was very close to Mercy since Mercy was his primary care giver. Mercy’s husband, who died 7 years ago, was the Father-in-law’s eldest son, so Mercy had a special place in the family. Mercy’s parents died when she was a child. All these losses have put tremendous sadness in Mercy. Please pray for her and her family as they grieve his death and seek to support each other. 
• Praise: Valentine’s wife’s health is much better — We give thanks for God’s healing touch and continue to pray for strength and health as she continues to take care of her family while Valentine is away this week at the FFICM training in Kogi, Nigeria.
• Pray: Ahamed’s brother died — Please pray for comfort amidst their grief at his passing two weeks ago. He was a Muslim and many of the other family are not yet believers. May they experience the love and mercy of Jesus as they reflect on his life and death. 
  • Ahamed returned to the office, but is still grieving. Most of his family members are Muslim. Culturally, the Muslim process of greiving the death of a family member is a 40 day process.
• Pray: Comfort’s complete recovery — Comfort, a Nigerian trainer, had fluid on her left lung and difficulty breathing. She had the fluid drained, and has been released from the hospital. She still needs prayer for complete recovery. 
• Pray: Peter’s Doctoral work — Peter continues to work on his Doctorate in Global Evangelism. Pray for wisdom as he divides his time between work at the office, going out and helping with training events, doing school assignments, as well as personal and family responsibilities.Pray for wisdom in allocating time to his studies in the midst of his busy ministry and leadership schedule. He recently finished a 10 page paper for the degree program and is preparing for an upcoming class ministry trip to Kenya in December.
  • He just found out his flight to Nigeria has been cancelled and he is working to reschedule it.  Pray for wisdom on getting the rescheduled and for all of the other trip preparations that need to be done and for the rest of the finances he needs to personally raise for that trip in the coming week.
• Pray: Prisca’s Masters Degree — Prisca is working on her Masters degree in Global Evangelism. Pray for wisdom for her and she divides her time between that as well as family, FFICM trainings, and leading the FFICM fundraising effort locally in Nigeria for FFICM Africa. She’s had a lot on her plate and has been overwhelmed with stress. Pray for strength and encouragement. 
  • She is preparing for an upcoming class ministry trip to Kenya in December.  Pray for the fundraising efforts which are still slow in coming. Support-raising amidst full-time work is quite a challenge! 
  • Pray for Prisca as she works to get her house and family in order in preparation of traveling for 2 weeks on the upcoming ministry trip.  She is also working on preparing the evangelistic messages she will be sharing there. There are testimonies to give and work to do.
• Rick Cordell, Adjunct International Trainer – Pray: Rick is currently in Nigeria to help with the new believer follow-up trainings happening there and will also be doing ongoing training and mentoring with the staff there. 
• Praise: Samuel has a new baby coming! Samuel’s wife Jessica is pregnant and expecting a baby in February. 
  • Samuel’s sister-in-law has received Christ from within a Muslim context. Pray for her new life with Jesus.  

Muslim Outreach Ministry

• Pray: TV and Radio Ministry — We continue to broadcast the TV and radio episodes that have been recorded to share about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus, and are specifically made for people coming to Christ from a Muslim background. Continue to pray for the impact of these recordings, and for the FFICM staff as they work to follow-up those who are coming to Christ. 
  • Praise: People seeking God — There continue to be a lot of call-ins to the radio station for prayers and people wanting to know how to begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray for the team there and those needing prayer. The FFICM-Nigeria team is meeting in-person with these converts to support them in their new faith. 
  • Pray: Wisdom — Pray for wisdom for our staff as they answer those phone calls and have opportunities to share the gospel over and over each week. God is at work. Let us never grow weary of doing the work He has called us to.

Safety amidst Dangerous Violence: 

• Pray: Safety while Traveling — Ongoing security issues make it difficult to travel and do ministry. You never know which road will be closed or where the bandits will be. There are very frequent attacks and insecurity in the land. Please pray for safety for the trainers. 

Ethiopia:

Program Updates

• Pray for 2022 ministry plans. We have so many requests for training, and are working to try to narrow these down to the right ones for us to focus our resources on. We have numerous denominations that are requesting training. Pray for wisdom as we make decisions about how to use our time and finances wisely.
• Prayer: Vehicle search – We continue to look for a vehicle for the use of the team in Ethiopia. $32,000 has come in so far, and we had hoped that would be enough. The cost of used vehicles continues to increase in Ethiopia and there are so few that are available. It is now looking like we will need as much as $55,000 in order to get a decent used vehicle there. Pray for wisdom and God’s provision.
• Prayer: Utilities – Eskinder’s internet and electricity has been working intermittently. Pray for access to these essential utilities. 
• Prayer: Kenya outreach — Eskinder is planning to be part of an outreach event/training in Nairobi, Kenya as part of his Doctorate in Global Evangelism December 2-12. 
  • Please pray for his fundraising efforts for this trip. He has not been able to raise any of the needed funds for the trip yet. Raising funds in Ethiopia is very difficult at this time due to the extreme poverty and ongoing struggles with the pandemic and ethnic conflicts.
  • Pray also for his Kenya visa application which has been a challenge.

Peace in Ethiopia

• Pray: Uncertain Political Future — Civil war is continuing in the northern part of Ethiopia between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray people. Please pray for political resolution, for peace and for provision for the people whose lives had been devastated by the violence and loss of access to basic resources. People are displaced from their villages to other parts of the country due to this war. This ongoing unrest is mostly in the northern and western parts of the country. The economy is suffering because of all the fighting. 
• We praise God that things are safe in the central and southern part of the country and that we are able to continue to do the new believer follow-up training there that is so crucial to equipping the church. Eskinder shares that much of what the International news is reporting is not true or accurate. It is very biased against the Ethiopian government and sensationalist. Pray that the truth would be made known and that the Ethiopian government and the International news community would report accurately on the ongoing situation in Ethiopia.

Cameroon:

• Pray: Florence and Gedeon — Florence, a FFICM ministry partner, is trusting God for wisdom and preparations regarding the possibility of hosting an FFICM training in Cameroon. Cameroon has faced excruciating pain from civil war, violence, and political instability. FFICM staff from Nigeria and the US have not been able to visit for several years now due to the violence. Pray for God’s mercy and healing for the nation of Cameroon. Pray for wisdom for FFICM leadership about the possibility of returning to Cameroon to host a training event in 2022. 

Sudan:

• Pray for the Christian leaders that the FFICM team trained in Sudan as they have had a lot of challenges due to the political upheaval in their country.
• Pray that they will have wisdom and boldness in how to use the training that they have just received.

United States:

Past events

• Pray/Praise: Year End Campaign — The FFICM US Fall Fundraiser was this past Saturday November 20th both in-person at our office in Portland, OR and virtually. Praise God for the $50,000 that has come in so far! Pray for wisdom in how to continue to follow-up with those who attended both ways. 
  • Pray that more people would continue to watch the event that is posted online and that they would continue to give. www.fficm.org/beyond  
  • Pray for wisdom as we look at “what next” in regards to fundraising as we creatively seek God’s guidance on how to increase our donations by 40% next year to meet the needs of ongoing increased opportunities to train people in new believer follow-up around the world. The event this past weekend is just one piece of that puzzle.

Ministry Partners

• Pray: Carly Powne, US Based International Trainer — www.fficm.org/carly-powne
  • Pray: Full funding by the end of December — We pray that God will continue to bring a full team of prayer and financial partners for Carly before the end of December so she can focus fully on her role as an International Trainer with FFICM. Praise God for those who have already signed up to be part of her prayer and financial support team.
• David Moore, Director of Operations 
  • Pray for wisdom in parenting. Pray for spiritual protection of his children and for good ability to communicate as a family. Pray especially for his son Andrew (aka: Benjamin) who has been having a hard time making wise choices.
  • Pray for his continued progress on David’s MA in Nonprofit Management. David is taking a Grant Writing class this semester. He is writing a grant for a training of trainers for Ethiopian women using our FFICM New Believer Follow-up materials.
  • Pray for his wife Denise who is pregnant and due in May 2022. 
• Rich Gardner, President — 
  • Rich’s daughter, Dara Searcy-Gardner, continues to struggle with debilitating asthma. With the failure of the first medication, she’s needed to try a new medicine; however the insurance is refusing to pay for it. Pray that the insurance company would change their response so Dara could receive the treatment she needs. She’s unable to work and barely able to function. She is asking us to pray that the medication would conquer the asthma. We pray for complete healing. 
• David Beger, Volunteer International Trainer
  • Praise God for strength and energy that sustained him during the MBB new believer follow-up training in Ethiopia. Pray for wisdom as we work together to see how he can continue to be involved in training people with the FFICM new believer follow-up materials in 2022. 

Strategic Development

• Pray: Church status — Pray for wisdom as FFICM applies for church status here in the US. Most large mission organizations have applied for and been granted church status in the US. This would allow us to be able to have all of our staff receive the ministerial housing allowance and would have other tax and finance benefits for us as an organization.  
  • The US staff has been working on a code of conduct for employees in the US and the international trainers. 
  • Pray that the application would go through and be approved. 
• Pray: International Director of Prayer — We are praying that God will provide a volunteer International Director of Prayer for FFICM. We would love to have someone to take charge and develop this crucial area of ministry even more. Pray that God would raise the right person up for the job. 

Praise: Mission ConneXion opportunity — FFICM has been asked to serve as the workshop track coordinator for Mission ConneXion’s NW 2022 conference. The “Discipleship Basics” workshop track will be amazing! We hope to see you at the conference on Jan 21-22, 2022.