Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Quarterly Day of Prayer and Fasting, May 4th, 2016 Operation Christmas Child


May 4th is the OCC's Quarterly Day of Prayer and Fasting.  That means Operation Christmas Child volunteers and staff AROUND THE WORLD are praying TODAY together for this ministry!!! Tonight I am asking you to pray for The Greatest Journey and Venezuela. TGJ is so successful that 2 kids per minute are being saved! It teaches shoebox recipients how to follow Jesus and has impacted over 2.7M children in just six years. We are working to improve this program and need your prayers.

Prayer Requests for The Greatest Journey are:
  1. Pray that the Lord will guide our team in setting the best schedules for production, testing, translation, training and teaching the updated materials in the classroom. 
  2. Pray for the creative team to meet the production project schedule. 
  3. Pray for all of the stakeholders to have wisdom as they provide feedback so the children receive the best discipleship that is relevant in their context.
Also, pray for Venezuela - their shoeboxes have been blocked for the past 4 years.  Pray with us that these doors will be opened again.  
A boy in a slum area of Venezuela arrived at an OCC gift distribution with an old baseball glove tucked under his arm. He told a volunteer, “I wish there was a new glove in my box.” He opened his gift to find a new glove! It was the first time the national OCC team had seen a baseball glove in a box. At the same distribution, a little girl who was a dancer got ballet shoes, a tutu, tights and a tiara in her box.

Gospel Multiplication through Prayer - “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15a)
Operation Christmas Child volunteers are the most motivated people on the planet. There is a passion for the expansion of the Gospel in the hearts of our volunteers. As stories of children’s hearts impacted by a simple shoebox gift continue to come in, we are seeing that passion grow. The effects are unmistakable – unprecedented unity is occurring among church leaders causing the church around the world to work together so children have an opportunity to hear the Gospel.

The enemy doesn’t like the passion or the unity that is taking place and resists our efforts with all his forces. But, we will not let the trials weigh us down because we remember that we are promised there will be trials. We take hope in the truth that our efforts have been orchestrated by God and the results belong to Him. Regardless of our role, it is God who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He loves to give us the desires of our hearts as we pray and fast for the salvation of children throughout our countries. It is our heart connected to a loving and gracious Father through prayer that facilitates more prepared hearts, more Gospel seeds planted, more discipleship and more communities impacted.

Because of our prayers and efforts, Gospel multiplication is exponentially growing and young preachers are being sent to share the Good News.

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