November OCC Prayer and Belarus

WILL YOU JOIN US IN COVERING OCC IN PRAYER?
Your prayers are essential to the work of Operation Christmas Child. During National Collection Week, Nov. 16-23, signup to join our 24-hour prayer coverage. Our goal this year is to collect 11 million shoebox gifts from the United States and nine other countries. We will pray for the people packing the boxes, the volunteers who will be collecting, processing, and delivering the gifts, and for the children receiving them. “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” (Ephesians 6:18, NASB)

Mid-South Regional Prayer Requests for November:

1. Pray for Collection and Relay Center volunteers as they prepare for National Collection Week (NCW).
2. Pray that all of our donors will experience missional drop-off locations when dropping off their shoebox gifts. 
3. Pray for the health of all Mid-South volunteers and their families. Many are facing serious health concerns. 
4. Pray for all of the logistics that will take place during NCW. For the trucking companies and drivers who will be supporting our ministry during this time.  
5. Pray for all of the OCC staff who will be traveling during NCW and those who will be traveling to serve in the Processing Centers for several weeks. 
6. Join us in praising God now for the many Gospel Opportunities that He will bless our region with and for the many children who will receive them.

General Prayer Requests each country faces are:

1. Wisdom to recruit, select and lead new and/or transitioning volunteer leadership team members.

2. Provision of resources to reach their God-sized goals for the current year.

Children celebrating City Day in Minsk, Belarus © Nickolay Vinokurov, Shutterstock 

Specifically, this week pray for Belarus.  It is a landlocked; fertile agricultural land with extensive forests on the North European plains. Surrounded by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Smallest of the three Slavic nations of the former USSR.  It has 28 different people groups and 18% of them are unreached. There are 11 different languages and only 1% of the population is Evangelical Christian.  Pray for divine openings and opportunities for those God is calling into Belarus; pray also that the national Church would be specially enabled to evangelize, disciple and minister without the partnership of many foreign Christian workers.  There are some significant non-Christian minorities that are less-evangelized, pray as Christians try to minister to them.  

Belarus' specific prayer requests are: 

1. Pray for the Ministry Partner and The Greatest Journey discipleship program trainings this fall. 
2. Pray for the creation of a website for more efficient and less time-consuming work for all involved in the OCC project.  
3. Pray God will help the Ministry Partners find and work with new children so that more children and their families will repent and follow Christ. 
4. Pray for the collection and processing of the customs documents. Pray for correct and prompt work with each of the documents related to the receiving and distribution of gifts.