As a missionary I wanted to share how my husband and I view intercessory prayer. We have been on the mission field for 15 years now and we have seen it proven over and over again the importance of having a strong prayer base for our work. We tell our prayer partners that they are the most important members of our team and we mean it.
As we began forming our prayer team God showed us over and over in Scripture the importance of prayer. Jesus prayed for us, Paul asked time and again for fellow believers to pray for him, and we are commanded to pray for one another.
As missionaries the prayers of the Saints is where we draw our greatest strength. We can do all kinds of good works because the needs are great, but without the foundation of prayer asking God to empower us with His Spirit that is all we would have, good works. For us to move past good works to seeing a moving of the Spirit we must have a strong prayer base constantly bringing us and our work to the Father.
You may be asking, “but is it really helpful?” I would reply with a resounding, “YES”.
A few years ago I was asked to speak to a group of fellow missionary prayer advocates about how God uses prayer in our ministry. Being an organized person I went back to previous prayer requests and answers to prayer that I had been sending to our prayer partners over several years. Although I knew God had been answering prayer I was astounded at the number of direct answers to prayer requests I had sent out. For a 3 year period I had over 3 legal size pages filled with the prayer request and the answer to prayer that I had sent to our prayer partners.
God has also given us the privilege to see how prayer continues impacting areas even after the missionary leaves an area. What a joy it was to share with our prayer partners how the prayers they had lifted to the Father while we were in one area were still be answered even after we left.
We serve an awesome God who loves to answer the prayers of His children. Please don’t give up or think that what you are doing through prayer is of little importance. Without intercessors missionaries may as well stay home. The power and protection that missionaries have are a direct result of the prayers of the saints. We love our pray-ers. Thank you for persisting in the work of prayer. I know that many times it seems like a thankless job with no results. That is just a lie of Satan to discourage you. For every missionary that has results those praying for that missionary and his/her work will receive rewards in abundance at the Throne of Grace.
Remember: You are a life changer because prayer changes lives.
With a grateful heart,
Pam Johnson
Tanzania, East Africa
