Showing posts with label #Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Prayer. Show all posts

Monday, March 6, 2017

Drumroll Please...2016 Shoebox Gospel Opportunity Totals are in!!!


We have an exciting announcement—the numbers are in! Join us in praising God for 11,485,662 shoebox gifts packed in 2016! That's 11,485,662 children and 11,485,662 Gospel Opportunities, packed by all of YOU...WOW!

Please continue to pray for each child receiving these gifts, that they will feel God's love and experience the Good News and Great Joy of Jesus Christ. Since the project began, over 146 million shoebox gifts have been collected and delivered to children in more than 150 countries around the world.

Shoebox gifts collected in 2016 by country: 
United States - 9,121,799
United Kingdom - 872,104
Canada - 664,525
Germany - 388,673
Australia & New Zealand - 346,592
Spain - 41,107
Finland - 37,144
Japan - 13,718
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Total: 11,485,662 Gospel Opportunities

Someone may have been praying for the exact Shoebox Gospel Opportunity that you packed!  Pack a shoebox (or two, or three, or 3000) touch a live and change it forever in 2017! Have you set a goal for how many your family, church or organization will pack in 2017? If so comment below at the end of this blog post-we would be thrilled to hear from you!
Philippines



Sunday, September 13, 2015

Sweet Hour of Prayer & Romania

Aren't you so thankful that we can go to our Heavenly Father for a sweet time of prayer! As the old hymn says "I'll cast on Him my every care and wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer." Prayer is essential to give us the strength, guidance, knowledge, and protection as we go into spiritual warfare every day. I am so thankful that my prayers are heard and answered.  He always hears and He always answers. Ask Him to guide you in whatever you need then wait, expectantly, for Him to answer you in your sweet hour of prayer. 

This week join Operation Christmas Child in praying for Romania.  5.4% of Romanians are Evangelical Christian. There are 23 different spoken languages in Romania. Stories of the hundreds of thousands of orphans and abandoned children in the 1990s broke the hearts of many. While this is still a great need, churches and missions do an increasingly good job caring for these young people, praise the Lord! The relevance of Christianity to youth is a challenge – this is more an issue of church culture and tradition than openness. Churched youth are often dedicated and effective in ministry. Unfortunately, most church programs are not attractive to unbelieving young people. Pray for effective programs and pastors who are willing and able to mobilize the youth into ministry, an area of ministry surprisingly lacking until now.

Specifically:
1. Pray for the regional volunteer leadership team. Pray they are able to find solutions to the challenges they are facing.
2. Pray The Greatest Journey discipleship program will have a great impact in Romania.
3. Pray for the children who have graduated from the program this year.

Give thanks to God for Alina and her story. We are thankful that she is now living in the USA instead of Romania and that God is using her story to touch lives!

NEA Requests:
1. Our 2015 goal of 10,200 - it's shoebox time!!!! Pray we will do abundantly more this year, in Jesus' Name!  National Collection Week is November 16-23.

2. All of the year-around volunteers to be rooted and strengthened as the season is quickly approaching.

3. Pray for the churches that are participating in packing shoeboxes, that they will have success and see good fruit in their efforts!

4. Hobby Lobby will be promoting OCC in their 700 stores nation-wide Labor Day through National Collection Week. Pray for God to multiply this effort.

5. Upward Sports is sending OCC promotional communication to the 625 churches that have a Fall Upward League.  Pray for this to multiply Gospel Opportunities (Shoeboxes).

6. War Room will send an OCC crafted and dedicated eblast to 7 million to promote National Collection Week. When the War Room releases on DVD, it will include at least one OCC/TGJ bonus feature. War Room was the #2 movie at the box office opening weekend and #1 the following (Labor Day) weekend. Praise God for the power of prayer!

7. Lifeway and 5 other bookstores will have Go Boxes and "How to Pack Your Shoebox Gift” brochures, and Jesus Loves Me musical lambs for purchase as a shoebox items this year!  Pray this produces abundantly more shoeboxes than we can imagine!

"But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!" (Psalm 66:19, 20 ESV)