Praying with the rest of the world!
March is definitely a month of prayer for us this year, and we hope it will be for you as well. First of all, thank you for praying for us. We need it and we appreciate it! Secondly, let me encourage you to pray in two other ways as the Lord lays it on your heart.
1. Pray for the Iraq situation on March 3rd. There is a large effort out to gather prayer worldwide on the date "03-03-03" and to focus that prayer on the situation in Iraq. Pray as God leads you, but here are some guidelines sent out by the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado (http://www.worldprayerteam.org):
* Pray that the armies of heaven will push back the powers of darkness in the Middle East.
* Pray that Saddam Hussein will leave Iraq before force is required to remove him from power.
* If war cannot be avoided, pray that God will marshal spiritual forces to limit the hostilities within the Iraqi borders, so that it doesn't spill over to the entire Islamic world.
* Pray that no weapons of mass destruction will be deployed.
2. Beginning March 11th, prayer and fasting is again being marshaled for France for 40 days. Whether you do it because of us or your own convictions about France, we encourage you to pray for France in some way during this time. You can pray specifically about our role in France or about many different aspects of the country. More ideas can be found at: http://www.lafrance2003.org/UK/index.htm
As always, we invite you to send us your prayer requests. We've had the privilege of praying for the requests of several of you and love to hear how God is moving in your lives.
On to prayer...
This month's prayer topics:
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Health: After my bout with flu in February, I've had a cough that has persisted for about two weeks. It's annoying during the day but a real pain at night and is robbing me of my sleep. Pray that the final aspects of this flu would be gone!
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Vision/Direction: The main page on our web site states "We want to see...The French church released in worship...marriages and families healed and empowered to walk in their God-given destinies..." That is our vision distilled in a nutshell and remains true. It has guided us in the last couple of years as we've made our way to this country and helped us as we made decisions on how to occupy ourselves purposefully in various situations. As we've focused on language learning, my (David's) mind has had a pretty academic focus. As such, I need a re-kindling in my heart of our vision. I've also been praying for an expansion/clarification/refinement of what this vision needs to mean for us in this season and the next. Please pray with me for this.
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Finance: One of the things that has been weighing on my mind these days is finances. This year in language school and the (hopefully) soon-to-come expenses associated with moving our home from Scotland to France are a huge drain on our finances. We also just had a 300 euro (about $325) car repair bill yesterday. Pray that we would stay attentive to the Lord's direction for our financial provision and be able to trust in him, not our bank account, completely.
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Newsletters: I've just gotten an e-mail indicating that InJesus.com is converting to a paid service by the end of March. The fee is too steep for me to pay and I really want to avoid a secular ad-based service as those ads are a bit much. I'm thinking of taking it all on ourselves but with 212 on the regular list and 50 on this list, I don't want to be consuming too much time in maintenance. I have some ideas but I need to get on it right away as we're on school break now and it's probably my best chance to get it done. Pray for wisdom.
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School Break: Speaking of school break, please pray that we use our time wisely and get the refreshment that we all need to dive back in on the 10th of March!
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Thank You and God Bless!
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David
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