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)

Operation Christmas Child, Montenegro, & Poland

This week we are asking you to pray for Montenegro and Poland.  Montenegro is located on the Adriatic Sea, east of Italy. Most ethnic minorities have little or no interaction with the Good News of the Gospel Message. Poland is east of Germany on the Baltic Sea. Less than 1% of the population is evangelical Christian. Poland has 24 different people groups and 13 are unreached. 

Montenegro:

1. Pray for the people groups:  Pray for sensitive and loving outreach to the Bosniaks, who may number up to 11% of the population and will be almost exclusively Muslim.  The Albanians, among whom there are no evangelical churches or groups of believers! And to the Romani, officially only 0.5% of the population but likely significantly more. As in other Balkan nations, they are poorer, often despised and are proving more open to the gospel than most ethnic groups.

2. Pray the children who were saved will be able to regularly attend church and grow spiritually. Pray especially for the children who come from non-Christian families.

3. Pray for wisdom as the team plans for next year’s distributions and works to reach new children and their families.

Poland:

1. Pray God inspires more people to pray and fast for OCC. 

2. Pray God will provide more Prayer Coordinators to serve in the various regions of Poland.

3. Pray God calls the right people to serve as The Greatest Journey discipleship program teachers.

4. Pray for the children and families who have already heard the Gospel.

5. Pray for the unreached people groups of Poland, the largest groups unreached are the: The Jews, Turks, Tatar, Karaite, and the south Asians of Poland. 

NEA OCC REQUESTS: 

1. Pray for Alina Massey and all her speaking engagements. Pray God uses her testimony to inspire people to pack more boxes to bring about more Salvations and Discipleship. 

2. Pray for our 2015 goal of 10,200 - it's shoebox time!!!! Pray we will do abundantly more this year, in Jesus' Name! 

3. Pray that all of us that are year-around volunteers to be rooted and strengthened as the season is quickly approaching. 

“Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.” Psalm 96:2-4 ESV

Fruit, Harvest & OCC

Picking apples Monday night with my husband made me start thinking about homemade apple pies, fruit, and harvest.  As Christians we should always be producing fruit and be ready for harvest also.  Christian Fruit comes from pursuing a steadfast relationship with Jesus. There’s no other way. Too much doing and not enough abiding make our lives weak and our fruit weak. A consistent diligent pursuit of abiding in Christ will produce lasting fruit.  As you spend some time abiding in Christ and His Word, will you pray for OCC. 

Join us in praying for a great harvest of sweet fruit this 2015 collection season that will reap many Gospel Opportunities (shoeboxes) which will bring about many more children going through The Greatest Journey and accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior!   

Without abiding there is no fruit.

Without prayer there is no abiding.

Without prayer there is no fruit.

Prayer produces fruit! 

Also, OCC is excited to announce partnership with the Kendrick Brother’s Production of their new Christian film, War Room – a family-friendly movie that explores the transformational role of discipleship and prayer in our lives. The movie opened August 28. For more about the movie (official trailer, theatres and showtimes, etc.) visit www.samaritanspurse.org/occ/war-room  

    •Pray this new partnership will be an encouragement to the OCC family and to children around the world.

OCC International Prayer Requests for September 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.

Specifically this week pray for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Moldova. 

Bosnia-Herzegovina's requests are: 

1. Pray every member of the team will quickly adjust to their roles and will put into practice what they learned at the international volunteer training in Greece.

2. Pray the team will follow God’s leading to prepare well for the upcoming shoebox season and for wisdom in decisions that need to be made.

3. Please pray for the teachers and children that will be involved in The Greatest Journey discipleship program. Pray many more children will complete the program this year!

Moldova's requests are:

1. Pray for the upcoming national volunteer training in September. Pray that all of the invited participants will be able to come together and have a blessed, productive time.

2. Pray for the children. Pray the seed of God’s Word will bear fruit in their lives.

NEA OCC requests are: 

1. Saturday, September 12th, be praying for Alina as she is traveling and doing her "full-circle" speaking! 2. Pray for a good attendance at all her events! 

3. Pray for reaching our NEA goal of 10,200, and for each group/church/county's specific goals also. 

4. Pray for the churches that are participating in packing shoeboxes for the 1st time this year, that they will have success and see good fruit in their efforts! 

Thank You very much for your dedication to prayer for Operation Christmas Child. 

“Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ"

Colossians 4:2-3a NKJV

Jennifer 

Lean on Me

Despite struggles, disappointment, persecution (which we really don't have a clue about in the USA), hard work, or loneliness we should persevere. We should press on. We should finish the race. Our love for Christ and for the lost souls of the world should motivate us to keep going, no matter how rugged or steep the road ahead seems. Let us never waver from the call that is placed on each of our lives. Everyone may not be called to be a pastor's wife, dental hygienist, mom, or Sunday school teacher, but we are all called to be and do something. What are you called to do? Are you willing to press on even when the battle is tough? When the opposition is steep? When you are standing alone or with just a faithful few? It's not always easy but it's always worth it. 

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14 ESV

I am reminded of a song I sung as a kid in church with my friend, Deanna, called "Lean on Me" by Gary Mathena: 

"When the road ahead seems rugged and the path is getting steep, I feel that I can’t make it and my heart begins to weep. Then I turn to see who’s comin’ to join me in the way, and I see that it’s my Savior and I hear Him gently say, 

"Lean on Me when you have no strength to stand. When you feel you're goin' under, hold tighter to my hand. Lean on me when your heart begins to bleed when you come to the place that I'm all you have, then you'll find I'm all you need." 

How many people do we come in contact with each day that need to hear that Jesus is all they need? 

Share Him with someone today! It will lift your spirit and make their day too!  

"Each one can reach one

As we follow after Christ
We all can lead one
We can lead somebody to the Savior
Then together we can tell the world
That Jesus is the Way
If we each one reach one"

Gabon & Mali

Tonight will you join me in praying for Gabon & Mali? 

Gabon's specific requests are:

1. Pray God will sustain The Greatest Journey (TGJ) discipleship program teachers so that, despite the delays in starting the course, the children will complete the training.

2. Pray God will work in the hearts of the children so they will follow the full TGJ course with perseverance.

Mali's specific requests are:

1. Pray for peace in Mali.

2. Pray the Ministry Partners who conduct the outreach programs understand the full OCC program.

3. Pray for the effectiveness of the national and regional volunteer leadership teams.

NEA OCC requests:

1. Prayer for our NEA goal of 10,200. 

2. Pray for a successful kick off event on Saturday, September 12th, when Alina Massey, from Romania, will be speaking at First Free Will Baptist Church in Jonesboro, 5407 Stadium Blvd, sharing her full-circle. Join us there at 10am. 

3. Pray for our team to continue to be rooted and strengthened. 

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me...” (John 11:41-42 ESV)

Have a blessed night,

Jennifer 

It is almost back to school time!

Back to school time always makes by tummy hurt!  It has ever since I was an elementary student, and now it does since I have teenagers in high school.  Maybe once they graduate college, I will get past the back to school jitters!  Prayer is the best way I overcome them.  We need to continue to pray for our teachers, administrators, school resource officers, and students, as it all begins again in less than one week.  I pray that the students will be filled with good knowledge, not worldly things as this new school year begins.  I pray for them to have the courage to stand for Truth and be the Light to the darkness around them.  I pray that they will grow in their personal relationship with the Lord, their Christian friends, and their Godly teachers and role models.  Will you join me in praying for God's peace and divine knowledge to reign in our schools, classrooms, students, teachers, and families during the 2015-16 school year?

Romans 12:12 says "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer" - this should be our actions, as Christians and as parents, always!  

On a side note...Technology makes me want to scream, even though I really enjoy it!!!!  I started this blog a while ago and as of today, I have a huge following of two subscribers. Haha!  My husband told me my link was broken.  So if you have tried to follow this blog, sorry!  Now, maybe, it is fixed!  To subscribe, here is what you do: 

http://jenniferbarnett.blogspot.com  

As For Me And My House

1. It works best from a computer OR scroll to the bottom of the blog and click  "view web version" from a mobile phone or iPad.
2. Scroll back to the top and click on the "orange Subscribe in a reader link" on the left side - this will take you to a new page. 
3. In the box on the upper right side of the screen choose a reader or click on "Get As For Me And My House delivered by email" and enter your email address in the box.
4. Type in the code to prevent spam.
5. Verify your email with the email link that you receive as an email.  It is that easy!  I hope you enjoy your subscription!

Have a Blessed Sunday,
Jennifer

August OCC Prayer week 1

August 4 – 7, 2015 is the international Africa Connect Conference where over 170 volunteers will be traveling from across the region to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Pray that volunteers will come with open hearts to be encouraged and inspired to further the Gospel to children in their countries. Join us in prayer that God will: 

1. Encourage volunteers in their walk with the Lord and be equipped to do the work of the OCC ministry in 2015 & beyond.

2. Mobilize teams across the region to meet their 2016 distribution goals of 3.8 Million Gift Boxes and 1.2 Million TGJ.

3. Pray also for Conference Support Team.

4. Pray for Conference Speakers. 

A little History: This region has grown significantly in the last few years where over 25,664,505 Gospel Opportunities have been distributed, 1,274,601  children have participated in The Greatest Journey with over 587,358 reported decisions for Christ.

Our Regional Prayer Requests for OCC Mid-South are: 

1. Pray for God to provide new churches to partner with us as drop-off locations in 2015.

2. Continue to pray for God to call the right candidate to fill the role as Regional Manager in the Arkansas area.

3. Pray for the health of Mid-South volunteers. Many are dealing with serious health concerns.

4. Pray for Area Coordinators and Ministry Coordinators as they lead area teams and pray for unity among the teams.

5. Pray for the Mid-South Shoebox Goal of 737,500!!

6. August 5 - Quarterly Day of Prayer and Fasting - join us as we ask our Heavenly Father to work in the hearts of the children impacted by war, poverty, famine, disease, and exploitation that they may know Jesus.

NEA Area Team Prayer Requests:

1. NEA Goal 10,200 Shoeboxes

2. Saturday, September 10th, Alina Massey, from Romania, will be speaking at First Free Will Baptist Church in Jonesboro, 5407 Stadium Blvd, sharing her full-circle story!  Be in prayer for her and come hear how a simple shoebox gift made an eternal difference in her life!

Global OCC requests this week are to be in prayer for Burkina Faso and Cameroon.  Specific requests are below:

Burkina Faso

1. Pray for the political situation and a good end for the transition in Burkina Faso.

2.  Pray for a successful national volunteer leadership training this year.

3. Pray for the impact of the ministry in the three new regions.

Cameroon

1. Pray God will bring peace to Cameroon so that the country won’t be destabilized by outside forces who stop the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Thank You for your prayers. 

Jennifer 

"The prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results" James 5:16

Operation Christmas Child