February 15, 2022
Dear FFICM Prayer Partners,
This week we are reminded that God is a God of peace. Philippians 4:4-9 reminds us that even in the midst of challenges and struggles, God calls us to peace and rejoicing. We are not to be anxious about anything, but to be transformed by God and the peace that can only come from him. As you pray with us through these prayer requests, we invite you to pray with a heart filled with peace and rejoicing in who God is, and what he is doing in and through us, even when life is difficult around us.
New highlights from prayer updates:
- Pray for the FFICM Nigeria team as they are in the middle of several new believer follow-up trainings this week.
- Prayer: Vehicle search – Keep praying! We continue to look for a vehicle for the team to use in Ethiopia.
- Praise/Pray: Church status- We are still waiting for a response from the IRS.
- Pray for Rich and Jerel as return back from travel around the midwest and east coast sharing about FFICM. They drove over 2,000 miles in 2 weeks, and had many incredible conversations with small groups and individuals as they were able to share about all that God is doing through FFICM.
Nigeria:
Nigeria Program Updates
- Praise for last week’s training at the COCIN headquarters. Pray for the discipleship that continues from here.
- Continue to pray for HBB (Hausa Background Believers) Conference preparations. Preparations continue to come together for the upcoming conference planned for mid-March.
- Pray for preparations for the HBB conference where we expect over 2,000 attendees in March.
- Please pray for traveling mercies as this is a dangerous area to be driving through with frequent kidnappers and bandits.
- Continue to pray for the father of Rashida and her sister who is still negotiating with their captors. The girls say they are doing fine, and continue to pray for their release and safety.
- Pray for one of the Muslim Background Believers that FFICM staff has been discipling named Ado from Kano State Nigeria, who lost his mother last week Wednesday.
- Pray for Rick Cordell and FFICM Nigeria staff Prisca as they are training 154 students this week at Gindiri theological seminary on how to do new believer follow-up.
- Pray for FFICM Nigeria staff Peter and Pankyes are in Makodi, Nigeria this week and will be training 100+ people in how to do new believer follow-up. Pray for the participants who are coming from 20 different churches around the area and they have little experience in evangelism and discipleship, but one of the local pastors has been through our training and is very excited to see the people trained.
- Pray for FFICM Nigeria staff Ishaku and Ahmed as they are in Lafia this week with an outreach team from New Life For All, helping to train others and do new believer follow-up.
Prayer for the Nigeria Ministry Team
- Samuel Chungwom, Trainer
- Pray: Samuel’s wife Jessica was due on February 11th and is having contractions, but the baby has not been born yet.
- Pray for their kids – all three of them are sick with measles. Pray for healing. Pray for comfort. Pray that it will not spread to others, especially his pregnant wife and the baby on the way.
- Yusuf:
- Please continue to pray for Yusuf, former FFICM staff member who has been questioning his faith. Yusuf was doing follow-up with new believers from a Muslim background and training others to do the same. Yusuf has been going through a difficult time of persecution and this has caused him to question his faith and relationship with Jesus. Pray that God would draw him back and whatever is pulling his heart away from God would be made powerless.
- Rick Cordell, Adjunct Trainer from US
- Rick is currently in Nigeria and will be there and in surrounding countries until early June helping with new believer follow-up training.
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. The FFICM-Nigeria team is meeting in-person with these converts to support them in their new faith.
Cameroon:
- Pray for continued preparations for the upcoming trainings and for the translation of the FFICM materials into French for the upcoming trainings there.
Ethiopia:
Program Updates
- Prayer: Vehicle search – Keep praying! We continue to look for a vehicle for the team to use in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government is looking at stopping the import of used vehicles in the country, which would squeeze an already very tight market. We might be able to purchase a vehicle from another department at the EKHC church denomination, our main partner denomination there. Pray for wisdom and God’s provision. It has been over a year now that we have been looking for a suitable car to purchase there. We have had many vehicles that we almost purchased, but the purchase didn’t go through for one reason or another. If you want to donate to the fund for this vehicle purchase, you can do this at: https://fficm.org/ethiopiavehicle We praise God for those who have contributed this past week to the vehicle fund.
- Pray for the new believer follow-up training that FFICM Ethiopia staff Eskinder and Tesfaye are leading this week in Sidama, Ethiopia. They expected about 50 participants but ended up with 90. Today they taught the participants how to share the gospel, and then the students went out and shared the gospel with people around the town for several hours. The rest of the week they will be teaching them how to do follow-up with new believers. Praise God for the enthusiasm and interest in this very remote part of the country and pray that God will use these participants to make an ongoing impact for God’s kingdom in that part of the country and beyond.
United States:
Ongoing:
- Continue praying that our team will be able to get visas for Nigeria and Cameroon. We are planning a ministry trip to Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Kenya in March/April 2022 and we have several people on our team who are needing visas to be able to participate in that trip.
- Praise for the opportunity to share with 4 new churches and for those who are excited to partner with FFICM. Rich and Jerel had a successful East coast trip and are very excited about how God is moving through this time together and with partners around the US.
- Praise/Pray: This coming Sunday the FFICM team will have a time of prayer at Cedar Mill Bible Church after the second service to pray together with those who want to stay and pray for the upcoming 4 country ministry trip in March/April. Pray that many would stay after the service and join for this and that God would hear the prayers of those gathered and would lead, guide and provide for the upcoming 8 week trip.
Ministry Partners
- Carly Powne, US Based International Trainer — www.fficm.org/carly-powne
- Continue to pray for Carly to be at 100% monthly support by the end of February 2022 — We pray that God will continue to bring a full team of prayer and financial partners for Carly 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. Praise God for the new monthly donor that just committed this past weekend! She is currently at 60% of her needed monthly support. Pray for the upcoming dinner/sharing event coming up in Texas on February 27th.
- Praise for a donation that came through this week that shows God’s healing and powerful work in the life of our extended family
- Pray for wisdom: As we look at what Carly will be able to take on in 2022, a lot of that is tied to how much time she will need to devote to ongoing fundraising. We currently have her scheduled to help with 2 training trips overseas of about four to eight weeks each. Once she gets up to full support we can look at increasing that to 4-6 trips per year.
- David Moore, Director of Operations
- Continue to 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. Andrew continues to find ways to access drugs and alcohol and threatens self harm. Pray for wisdom as David and Denise work to get him the help that he needs. Ben will be starting the Drug Court Keys to Success program this week.
- Pray for his continued progress on David’s MA in Nonprofit Management. David is in his last class, and then has two months to write the final action research paper.
- Pray for his wife Denise who is pregnant and due in May 2022. She continues to feel a lot of discomfort during the pregnancy. In preparation for the baby’s arrival, they are working on adding a second bathroom to their house. Pray for wisdom, finances and all that is needed will come together in the coming months.
- Pray for the bathroom addition project that David has been working on during the weekends in preparation for the arrival of the new baby. The chimney began last weekend, and electrical work is progressing. They are hoping to finish the project before the baby arrives in May!
- 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.
- Rick Cordell, Adjunct International Trainer
- Pray: Rick is currently in Nigeria and will be there till early June helping with various new believer follow-up trainings and other ministry opportunities.
Strategic Development
- Praise/Pray: Church status — FFICM has applied for church status here in the US. The application is complete and has been submitted! Pray for wisdom for the IRS as they consider our application. 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 financial benefits for us as an organization. We are still waiting for a response from the IRS. Keep praying about this…
- 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.
The real difficulty about prayer is that it has no difficulty. Prayer is God’s taking possession of us. We expose to Him what we are, and he gazes on us with the creative eye of Holy Love. God’s gaze is transforming: God does not leave us in our poverty but draws into being all we are meant to become.
Sister Wendy Beckett
