Here Am I...Send Me!

Sometimes life seems a little crazy, I wonder if things will turn out right. I wonder if I, we, made the right decisions and ever if we are following God's Will for our lives. We may not always understand what is happening or where we are going but we just have to say "Here am I, send me" and faithfully obey, ONE step at a time. Even if we trip or stumble on those steps as long as we are faithfully pursuing God's Will for our lives it will all work out right, in HIS perfect timing.

22 years ago, today, I was sitting in my senior classes at Trumann High School giddy as could be with butterflies in my tummy! I was so nervous, it was my 1st ever blind date EVER!!! It was the 2nd blind date--2 nights in a row with 2 different girls for for my future husband, Kevin (but that's a different story). I think I may have "had Kevin at hello", but it took me a little longer to realize he was the one whom I was supposed to spend FOREVER with! Little did I know what God had planned for our lives after this Friday night 22 years ago! I probably still talk just as much and have just as big of hair as I did then and he is almost just as quiet but oh how the love has grown over the years! I thought I was marrying a farm boy 9 months after our blind date, but I sure do love that preacher man of mine! From a wheat technician to a pastor, God had it all mapped out, we just had to faithfully take those steps, one at a time! HE has a calling on each of our lives, some of us realize it sooner than others, but the question is will we say "here am I, send me"? If we faithfully step up to the plate and obey, wow, what a change we could all make in this sin-filled world. What is HE calling you to do today?

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

"My beloved is mine and I am his" Song of Solomon 2:16 #NotAllBlindDatesAreBad

Kevin and I on August 6, 1994

31 Days of Prayer for Operation Christmas Child - Day 22

Today is the day to pray for Processing Centers. Pray they will be set up quickly and safely as the processing season approaches! Millions of lives will be touched by shoebox gifts collected this year. Each precious gift is carefully inspected and prepared for overseas shipment. Operation Christmas Child is the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind!!! “We can’t process shoebox gifts without the support of thousands of volunteers who want to make a difference in the lives of children around the world. For many of these children, this will be the first gift they have ever received—the first time someone has ever shown them they are loved and valued.”  After people pack their of shoeboxes and drop them off at Relay and Collection Centers then they are shipped to Processing Centers for final preparations before they leave the country to go to children around the world!  Pray for the Processing Centers around around the world.  Shoebox gifts are collected in the U.S.A., Australia, Finland, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, and the U.K.  More than 500,000 volunteers worldwide, with more than 100,000 of those in the United States, are involved in collecting, shipping, and distributing shoebox gifts.  Shoebox gifts are prepared for overseas shipment at eight major processing centers across the U.S.—Atlanta; Baltimore; Boone, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; Denver; Minneapolis; and Orange County, California.  Northeast Arkansas shoeboxes will leave Jonesboro, Arkansas and go to Denver, Colorado and then make their way into hands of precious children in Mexico  this collection season!

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization headed by Franklin Graham. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has delivered gift-filled shoeboxes to more than 124 million children in more than 150 countries and territories. In 2015, Operation Christmas Child hopes to collect enough shoebox gifts to reach another 11 million children. 

31 Days of Prayer for Operation Christmas Child - Day 21

Today will you lift up all our Operation Christmas Child National Leadership Teams in prayer.  Pray for them as they recruit and train distribution partners.  Our Regional Staff for the Mid-south (Arkansas, Kentucky & Tennessee) are Stephanie Oleson, Michelle Hartley, Amy Johnson, Hilary Cregg, and Hasty Martin. Lift these lovely ladies up in prayer as they will be very busy the next few weeks! 

Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham meets members of the Operation Christmas Child national leadership team from Ecuador. The shoe box gifts open doors for Samaritan’s Purse ministry partners to present the Gospel to children and their families in Ecuador.  Operation Christmas Child has delivered nearly 800,000 shoebox gifts to boys and girls in Ecuador since 1993.

31 Days of Prayer for Operation Christmas Child - Day 20 - Quarterly Day of Prayer & Fasting for OCC

Today pray for our Quarterly Day of Prayer and Fasting which is today!  May it serve as a powerful reminder of our dependence upon the Lord in everything. 
 
SURROUNDED BY BEAUTY, BUT THEY NEED THE GOSPEL IN FIJI...Stunning stretches of white sand and the turquoise-blue water of the Pacific mark the island nation of Fiji, but its true beauty goes far beyond what tourists see. God is using Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts and the follow-up discipleship program, The Greatest Journey, to plant churches in this ethnically and religiously diverse nation. “Though Fiji has natural beauty by God’s design, people’s lives are empty.” “Though Fiji has natural beauty by God’s design, people’s lives are empty,” said Pastor Sid Kumar, an Operation Christmas Child leader in Fiji. “They need the Gospel. They need Jesus.” 

Shayal

Shayal received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift as a teenager in her Hindu village of Vunika. She accepted the invitation to participate in The Greatest Journey, the follow-up discipleship course for children who receive shoebox gifts, and soon accepted Christ as her Savior. The class began to grow to include parents and siblings until a church opened in the village for the very first time. Shayal brought her mother and brother to church where they also became believers. Today she is sharing Christ boldly with her friends at school. She said, “My duty as a child of God is to save lives.”  Three times a week, Pastor “Waisea” Liwaiono walks up to 10 miles one way to villages like Shayal’s to teach The Greatest Journey. He said, “Operation Christmas Child has taken me into rural areas where people haven’t heard the Gospel. We’re talking about Hindus. We’re talking about Muslims. Operation Christmas Child has begun building up churches in these communities.”   

Pastor Waisea

After The Greatest Journey started under a mango tree in the Muslim and Hindu community of Laduna, the class began to grow so much that Pastor Waisea said, “I couldn’t stop it.” As a result of investing in these children, today a church of 100 meets under a shelter for worship every week.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,” (Isaiah 52:7, NKJV).  Because caring people take the time to pack shoebox gifts every year, Pastor Waisea said, “Many lives have changed. Families have gotten back together, churches have worked together, and pastors have forgiven each other through Operation Christmas Child.” In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Gospel opportunities that have come with every shoebox gift in Fiji, more than 4,000 children have participated in The Greatest Journey and their witness continues to multiply. Pastor “Dodo” Bulisovasova said, “My greatest hope is not only for Fiji to be evangelized but at the same time for us to send missionaries abroad.”

This is Fiji’s greatest beauty—transformed souls.

Fiji Shoebox delivery

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.

31 Days of Prayer for Operation Christmas Child - Day 19

Today will you pray that Operation Christmas Child will continue to be a strong support to the missions and outreach programs of U.S. churches.  The work of missionaries is so important.   God may not call each of us to go to foreign soil to become a missionary but each one of us has a job that God calls us to do.  We must be faithful to obey.  Taking part in OCC is one way we can help spread The Good News of Jesus Christ to lost people around the world.  In our 30 Days of Prayer and Fasting for International Missions on Day 28 part of our email said: 

Luke 10:2 provides an example of Jesus calling for more laborers: “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.” (See also Matthew 9:37, 38)
Any of us who have hoed weeds in fields of cotton, peanuts, or corn know just how hard that work is. The more workers in the field, the more work accomplished in a shorter amount of time.
Remember:
2.6 billion people do not have religious freedom.
Of the 6,468 languages spoken in the world today 4,024 do not have a complete Bible.
22 countries absolutely forbid preaching the gospel.
4 billion people without a gospel witness.
6,600 unreached people groups dot the fields.
These facts paint a picture of a huge field in desperate need of laborers!

Pray God will raise up an army of laborers who will go into the fields of the world to plant, water, and harvest for His glory.

31 Days of Prayer for Operation Christmas Child - Day 18

I can't believe it is already November and National Collection Week is 2 ONLY weeks away!!!! Today will you join us in praying for those packing shoebox gifts to be blessed and know the love of Christ.  Not everyone that packs a shoebox gift is part of a church or a Christian.  Some participate just because it is a good ministry they want to support.  Pray for the people packing shoeboxes today and for the upcoming Shoebox Packing Parties that will be happening everywhere! When you pack a shoebox post a photo on social media with the hashtag #ipackedashoebox and see who all is participating this year!