If you ask any MCN mission partner what they need most or ask MCN’s leadership what our biggest need is, the response will be prayer. Not funds or personnel or training or church support. Although all of those things are important, nothing is greater than the need for prayer.
When Jesus looked at the ripe harvest fields around him (see Mt. 9:37-38), his response was to tell the disciples to… Go? Mobilize? Raise support? … Nope. Pray.
But where to begin?
We know prayer for missions, missionaries, and the ripe harvest fields of the world is important but with so many people who don’t yet know the Savior, where do we start?
I want to suggest that you start with one country and one week. Commit a week of prayer for one location where MCN mission partners serve and see how God will work in your heart to develop a love for these people and how He will work in that place through your prayers on their behalf.
MCN’s 5-day prayer guides contain five specific prayer requests provided by mission partners as relevant to the region and context in which they serve. Could you lift up these needs one by one throughout the coming week?
Could you pray for relationships and against spiritual warfare in Costa Rica?
Could you pray against economic and family struggles and for a growing church in East Asia?
Could you pray for young people and Lutheran schools in Hungary?
Choose one prayer guide here (search “prayer guide” in the search bar to see them all) to get started – and next week pick another! And think about who you could invite to pray along with you…
Parents, pray with your children over dinner, using a world map to show them where this country is.
Teachers, pray with your school class day by day or pray with a Sunday school class and invite them to take a guide home for the week ahead.
Pray with a friend or spouse on an evening walk.
Invite a long distance friend to pray with you and text each other about the day’s request.
“A few short weeks after I first moved to Central Asia, I had an opportunity to attend a cultural festival. I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t speak any languages common here, and I found myself traveling across vast stretches of wilderness a thousand kilometers from anybody I knew, with no idea where we were going, and there wasn’t even really a road we were driving on. And I couldn’t talk to anybody …
And after we returned to the big city from our trip, some of the people I traveled with were speaking with our pastor, and they were telling Him, ‘This volunteer is really something. He has a great servant heart for the Lord, and we can tell he really loves Jesus.’
And I asked him (through our pastor who was translating), ‘How could you know these things about me if we never talked at all during the trip?’ And they said, ‘You were always ready to serve. When we visited somebody at their house, you had your sleeve rolled down and were helping with the heavy, hot pot of tea. You were always ready to go on time. You were always willing to chip in and help with the luggage … even though we considered you to be a tourist and were just along for the ride, on our treat. And all of these things spoke to us about God’s light in your life.’
And that really set the stage, I think, for how I perceive ministry. I realized that even when I feel like I’m totally out of control and have no way of communicating with people, God can still be working through me in my life. And He can still be working through all of you, as well, even when you’re unaware of it, through things you don’t even notice.”
noun 1 Chemistry. A substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected. 2 Something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected 3 A person of thing that precipitates an event or change 4 A person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic.
(Story from Iantha, mission partner in Hong Kong)
It is common as a missionary to consider ourselves and the role we play in metaphorical terms. For example, as a missionary, I could say that I am a mirror that reflects Jesus’ light into the lives of people that Jesus calls me to serve. These metaphors are useful for framing our role as redeemed members of the church and what it means to live that role in God’s mission each day.
As a cross-cultural missionary, it can be tempting to frame my role with the metaphor that I am an encyclopedia that knows all the answers and the right way to understand God’s work. Walking alongside people each day who haven’t grown up in the church and in regular Bible study, it is easy to feel like an expert and to start to act like one. I’ve found this can be magnified in a teaching environment where the people I am walking alongside are just entering their teen years. What God has taught me time and time again this year is that he doesn’t need me to be an expert. The entrance to the Gospel for most people is not knowledge, it is relationship.
In addition to realizing that my knowledge is not the key resource, God has also reminded me this year that my own relationship will often be fleeting with the people with whom I share the Gospel. Our family has been overseas long enough to experience the blessing of walking alongside people in an extended journey to faith, but there are far more people with whom we’ve only connected for a brief time. In a conversation this year, I was reminded of the web of faithful people that God activates in finding his lost sheep.
A mother stopped me to tell me about another mother at the school who shared that she is so grateful for the conversations that her son started at home after being in my class. The son’s mother is Christian, but the rest of their immediate family is not, and the mother had been hesitant to invite her son to attend church with her. However, after the conversations she had with her son about the content in my class, she was emboldened to include her son in her own faith practice and worshiping community. This introduces a new understanding of a missionary role. A catalyst, not fueled by my own energy, but by the Holy Spirit to activate the fuel that God has placed in the life of those who don’t know Him. In this case, God likely used many moments, experiences, and people in addition to me in order to activate this faithful mother in her long-term relationship for nurturing her son’s relationship with Jesus.
Last Friday after school, I had another related reminder of this metaphor. As I was wrapping up my grading and prepping my lessons for the next week, there was a hesitant knock as a young girl opened the door of my classroom. She asked if I remembered her. I sheepishly replied truthfully that I didn’t. She shared that I had also taught her mother in one of my adult English classes. I never knew she was the student of one of my adult learners! This young girl had been my student in the fall of 2022 to study the life of Jesus. She was a reserved student who did not participate actively in class discussions. However, she was a thoughtful and respectful student.
As I visited with her, I began to remember her in my class. Her family moved from Hong Kong to the U.S. after completing my class, so I haven’t seen her since 2022. She was not a Christian when she lived in Hong Kong. This young woman went on to tell me that after arriving in the U.S. she joined a Christian club at her secular school. She loves reading the Bible, and after some time she began attending church. This winter her parents began attending church with her. This week she is visiting Hong Kong she wanted to stop by my classroom to find out my favorite Bible verse. We enjoyed a few minutes of discussing meaningful verses, our favorite people in the Bible (apart from Jesus), and favorite books in the Bible. It was a delightful end to a week that had been feeling very long and tiring. And, it was yet another reminder of the unknowable ways that our conversations can be a catalyst that the Holy Spirit uses in growing the faith in the life of people.
Thanks be to God for each of you who know the grace and redemption of Jesus and are fuel in the catalyst reaction that the Holy Spirit is working in the lives of those around you!
(Story from Zach Barz, mission partner in Costa Rica)
From an early age, we learn that weakness is something to hide—something to be ashamed of, something to cover up and push through. Admitting weakness is painful, yet it is an unavoidable reality of life in a broken world. I see this tension evident in the students we work with every day [at Parrita public high school in Costa Rica]. Some struggle academically and hide their insecurities with a ‘too cool for school’ attitude in their classes. Some carry the weight of broken or abusive homes and take out the frustration of powerlessness on their peers or through drugs. Still others struggle with mental health challenges or wrestle with questions of identity and purpose but keep their pain tightly locked away behind a forced ‘todo bien’ and a sad smile.
For the past couple months I’ve been faced with my own weakness in an especially tangible way as I’ve dealt with an ankle injury that has kept me sidelined from many of my normal activities. A sprained ankle in our penultimate week of summer clubs back in January resulted in some ligament damage and turned into four weeks in an orthopedic boot and eight weeks on crutches. I’ll be honest – my attitude about the whole situation hasn’t always been great. I don’t like being stared in the face so blatantly by my own physical weakness, and my frustration has had me asking questions of the Lord on what He might be trying to teach me during this whole process. The answer that God keeps bringing me back to is a passage from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Wow. In our weakness and struggles, our inadequacy and inability, our moments of frustration and exhaustion and doubt, God meets us with His all-sufficient grace. Somehow, in a way that only He can orchestrate, our very weaknesses become the places where God’s power is most evident.
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The season of Lent is an opportunity to remember our sinful weakness, to remember that apart from God’s grace we are utterly lost. It is also a season of hope, however, as the promise of Easter reminds us that our weakness is not the end of the story. Jesus, in His suffering and death, took on our weakness—our sin, our shame—and through His resurrection, He offers us new life. The script is flipped, and the story becomes one of God’s power over sin and death. And that is certainly reason to rejoice!
This is the message of hope that my team and I get to share with students at the Parrita high school. I don’t have to pretend to be strong, and I don’t have to have all the answers. Instead, I can point these teens to the God whose strength is made perfect in our weakness, whose grace is always enough.
Make an easy gift online through the links above. Consider a recurring gift to help sustain long-term ministry!
Give by Phone
To make a credit card payment by phone, please call MCN at (888) 495-9005 ext. 1.
Mail a Gift
Checks can be made out to Mission of Christ Network.
If the donation is for a specific Mission Partner or Fund, please include this information in the memo line.
Checks can be mailed to:
PO Box 533, Concordia, MO, 64020
Stock
Transfer stock or appreciated securities. With questions, call MCN at (888) 495-9005 ext. 706.
IRA
Make a difference today and save on taxes with a gift from your IRA.
Thrivent Choice Dollars
MCN is set up as a charitable organization with Thrivent, and you are able to direct your Direct Choice Dollars to us. Search for "Missio Christi Network dba Mission of Christ Network" in the keyword search.
Corporate Match
Check with your employer to see if they have a corporate matching program and maximize your gift to MCN.
