LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 8

The big outreach event was almost here. Plans had been made and prayer supporters engaged. South Asian believer Abel was leading the efforts for a widespread gospel outreach to a largely unreached district. But COVID-19 disrupted the plans. Transportation to the region shut down and the event had to be cancelled.

But Abel didn’t feel like God was canceling the efforts. He sensed the Lord saying he should focus on a community closer to home. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 7

On another sunny day in northern Uganda, Hector steps into the river and turns to extend his hand to Oketa Robert, a new believer. Oketa Robert walks into the water, ready to take the next step of faith and be baptized. He is one of 34 believers baptized on this day in early spring. Each new follower of Jesus is a refugee from the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 6

Bibles lay open amid the food wrappers on the fast-food restaurant table. The two men sat quietly discussing a key concept in Christianity — Jesus rising from the dead.

“WHAT? NO WAY!” the college student from Uzbekistan exclaimed and grabbed one of the Bibles. “Did he fly or something?”  Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 5

Everyone in the small church wondered if the baptism was ever going to happen. In this Central Asian city visited by thousands of tourists each year, the delays kept stacking up.

Delay one: A new believer fell through a double-paned glass sliding door, landing him in the hospital.

Delay two: The pool overflowed, flooding everything around it. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 4

Olga wanted to go to church for years, but her husband forbade it. He didn’t believe in God and didn’t want his family dabbling in a faith he understood to be false. 

After Russia invaded Ukraine in the spring of 2022, Olga, her daughters and grandchildren fled and were welcomed at the border of Moldova by Christians from Dancu Baptist Church in Dancu, Moldova. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 3

Across the 2,000 inhabited islands of more than 7,600 that make up the Philippines, is a vast spiritual darkness. People are not only trapped by the islands, but trapped in their sin — separated from God because many have not yet heard the life-saving gospel. Read more...

An update on summer 2022 Nehemiah Teams. 

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 2

Word spread quickly in this North African town. A medical clinic arrived, and anyone is welcome. Setting up in a local church gave some people pause, but free healthcare is hard to turn down.
Security guards sent by the local government wander close by. They are used to keeping a close watch on activities hosted by Christians. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer: Day 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. And it was good, until it wasn’t. Since those fateful moments in the garden, creation has suffered the consequences of sin while humanity has perished, living a hope-deprived life far from God. But God, in His grace, made redemption possible through Jesus Christ. And through His gospel we declare that the lost are found, dead are brought to life and hope is renewed. Read more...

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LMCO Week of Prayer... Join us!!

We pray for missions around the world

Every day, 157,690 people enter eternity without the hope of Jesus. Please join us for the next 8 days as we observe the Week of Prayer for International Missions, where Southern Baptists pray for IMB missionaries, their ministries and the unreached people and places they serve.

It's been our privilege to serve Southern Baptists as IMB missionaries in the Philippines since May 1993. You have been our lifeline for many years! From the vehicle we drive, to the homes we've lived in, to the education our kids received, to the resources used to purchase Bibles & training materials... YOU have been our partner in reaching the Philippines and beyond with the Good News of Jesus Christ. It's true... the greatest problem in our world is LOSTNESS. We are thankful there is more LIGHT in the Philippines because you give & you pray for us. Thank you for your partnership!

-Jess & Wendy Jennings

Philippines & the South Pacific

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 8

The Path to Hope

The world has more refugees today than ever before in recorded history. They’re on the move across dangerous seas. They’re trekking on foot over mountain ranges. They’re trying to create a life for themselves in a new country with nothing but the clothes on their back. 

And in the midst of their heartbreaking story, many refugees have walked right into the eternal hope that was waiting for them all along.

IMB workers all over the globe say they are seeing refugees come to faith in Christ in the ashes of their tragedy. It’s an unprecedented opportunity for the gospel to reach people from hard-to-reach countries. More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 7

Keeping the Well from Running Dry

At the end of a beaten-up road in Tanzania, a small hospital occasionally gets as full as it can get, and then runs on empty. In the past, it’s had moments where sick children slept two or three to a bed. It’s had moments where anesthetic drugs for C-sections and suture materials for surgery have run out.

But the situation has never stayed that way for long, reported Larry Pepper, an IMB doctor. Over and over, churches have stepped up to cover the hospital’s needs, all the way from wheelchairs to building a new pediatric wing. More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 6

Coming Back Changed

Keith Wieser said he’s found a surefire way to develop courage in sharing your faith—go to East Asia. Over the past three years, more than 80 students have participated in his church’s partnership with IMB workers in that region, going there to serve for 10 weeks in the summer or two weeks on Christmas break. That experience changes everything, said Keith, who serves as lead pastor of Resonate Church, a Washington state-based church with campuses in Idaho and Oregon.

“They come back, and their perspective on their life and on the world is completely changed,” he said. “They see lostness where they had just seen regularity, and they see themselves as missionaries more than when they left.” More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 5

Not a 'Flash in the Pan'

J.D. Greear says his church’s partnership with IMB missionaries is more than just a partnership—it’s a front-row seat to some of God’s most exciting work in hard-to-reach places.

“The most significant things in the world are happening through the church that God is building,” said J.D., pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, “We pray, we give, we go—not because we have to, but because of what God has promised he’s going to do among the nations.” More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 4

A Piece of the Puzzle

Every single week, Pastor Fabio in Brazil makes it into the prayers of a few hundred people in Kentucky. Chris Platt, pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Shelbyville, says that’s because they’ve met Fabio—and that in turn has made missions personal.

Ever since Chris’s church partnered with the work of IMB missionaries Scott and Joyce Pittman in São Paulo, Brazil, several years ago, the needs there have had faces and names. As the people of Highland Baptist have traveled annually to carry out outreach in the city of 22 million, it’s made them see their part in the “whole ball of wax” that is the Great Commission, Chris said. More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 3

A "Miracle" Partnership

Four years ago when IMB worker Edwin Feather* set out to reach a large city in Southeast Asia, Daniel Tuchez was there. Daniel’s team wasn’t just the first Hispanic missions team to partner with Edwin in that city; it was the first team, period. And Daniel, who serves as pastor of Iglesia Bautista El Shaddai in Jackson, Tennessee, wouldn’t have it any other way. More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 2

A Small Church's Big Dreams

A few years ago, Pastor Steve Lakin’s small church took a big leap of faith. They had a large budget surplus, and they weren’t sure how to use it. But after some praying and dreaming, First Baptist Church of Andersonville, Tennessee, congregation of 125, decided to commit to something radical. They decided to raise $90,000, the equivalent to fund a missionary couple for a year. More...

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: Day 1

The Pepper Family

Larry Pepper was on a trajectory. He was a NASA flight surgeon who was good at his job, active in his church, involved as a dad—and possibly headed for space. It wouldn’t be long before he ended up as a candidate finalist for a space mission. But God interrupted his plans. As Larry thought more and more about his life and its eternal significance, he felt God saying, “You’ve committed everything to me except your job.” It soon became evident God was drawing him to walk away.

More...

LMCO Day 8: Why Prayer Matters

When it comes to praying for missionaries, IMB President David Platt said there’s one thing to keep in mind.

It matters.

When we pray, God works.

It isn’t just a rushed or mechanical exercise, he said—”God has ordained our prayer as a means to accomplish His purpose in the world. We’ve got to be aware that our praying for boldness for missionaries is actually going to affect whether or not they have boldness. When we pray, God works.”

He offered some real and powerful ways to pray for missionaries:

• PRAY they would be confident to preach God’s Word—not just to do relief work or learn culture well, but to speak truth with boldness, no matter the circumstances.
• PRAY the gospel would be clear through missionaries’ lives and words and that God would open hearts.
• PRAY missionaries will be at peace with other believers, that Satan would not have success in attacking families, friends and ministry partners.
• PRAY for them to have joy when they suffer, kindness when they are slandered and patience when things are hard. Pray for God to help them persevere—fighting the battle for souls is hard, but it’s worth it.
• PRAY God would give them success in sharing the gospel with others, that they would see disciples made and churches planted.

LMCO Day 7: What God Has Done

Dilara’s* heart nearly jumped out of her chest when she found the building. She had seen it in a dream—Jesus had picked her up from her bed one night and led her there through the streets of her Central Asian town. In the dream, He had asked her if she was ready to believe, and she’d seen three men standing in the front of the church. When she found the building a few weeks later and walked inside, she was greeted by one of those men. Today, she’s a believer.

Like with Dilara, in every corner of the world, God is drawing hearts to Himself in amazing ways.

Just ask the woman in Southeast Asia healed from partial deafness after an IMB missionary prayed over her. Or ask the dad in France who believed after a “chance” encounter with a follower of Christ at his son’s soccer game. Or ask the man in Slovenia struggling with mental illness who cried out to God and now is living a life surrendered to Jesus. Though the ground can be hard, stories of miracles and changed lives abound.

• PRAY for God to continue to work in mysterious ways in the lives of people all over the world.
• PRAY for hearts from every people group to be drawn to worship Jesus.

*Name changed

LMCO Day 6: Mikeska Family

At Shane and Lindsay Mikeska’s house in London, Christmas tradition is anything but traditional. Holiday after holiday, the world converges in their kitchen.

“Last year, we had an Iranian student and Indian student baking Christmas cookies with a girl from Lebanon and another from Hong Kong,” Shane said. And as they all sat down to eat dinner, a traditional Mexican meal that the Mikeskas prepare every year on Christmas Day, more kept coming.

“One girl who came was Iranian, and she realized that another Iranian girl sitting at our table was a Christian, so she asked her to tell her story,” Shane said. “For 45 minutes, this girl boldly shared the gospel.” It’s something the Mikeskas, IMB missionaries, say happens all the time in their city. London has 48 universities, and a quarter of the student population comes from other countries. Across the city, 300 languages are spoken.

We have the world at our fingertips, and we have an amazing capacity to be senders to the world.

“It’s fascinating and unusual,” Shane said. “We have the world at our fingertips, and we have an amazing capacity to be senders to the world.”

• PRAY the Mikeskas would continue to form strategic friendships with internationals in order to reach unreached people groups in London.
• PRAY God would put a desire in the hearts of new believers to take the gospel back to their countries.