PRAYER GUIDE
Local Focus
GIBC
Praise God and pray for all those who serve our church family by helping with practical needs. Pray that God will continue to strengthen and raise up people to help with the care of our facilities and grounds. Pray that God will help us continue to have the supplies and equipment needed to properly maintain our facilities and grounds. Pray for those who lead our volunteers, that God would give them strength and wisdom to best help continuing to meet our needs. Pray that God would sustain the life of all the equipment we use. Pray that all those who serve in this way are encouraged by the Spirit.
Community
Pray for the churches of the association. Pray for the Association Mission Strategist, Tim Burdick. Pray that new churches would be planted, existing churches would be strengthened, and our gospel witness to be increased. Pray that they would be successful in connecting pastors and churches in ways that will lead to greater cooperation and fruit in their communities.
USA
Pray for our national leadership who shape US foreign policy. As conflict in Ukraine and Gaza continue, we see the real time effects of our foreign policy positions and postures. Pray that God would grant wisdom to policy-makers so that they will take positions rooted in fact, aimed at solutions, and resulting in human flourishing. Pray for the escalation of conflict between India and Pakistan, that it would not lead to war.
North America:
Las Vegas
What happens in Vegas, will not stay in Vegas.
While Las Vegas does attract tourist from all over the world, it has so much more to offer than just the famous Strip. Many people call Las Vegas home. According to recent census, The Las Vegas valley has a population of over 2.3 million people and growing. In fact, Las Vegas was ranked as the 3rd fastest-growing city in United States. The valley is packed with diverse neighborhoods, beautiful parks and an incredible desert landscape. As the city grows, so does the urgent need for more missionaries and church planting teams.
The nations are in this global hub for entrainment and business. In the neighborhood of Spring Valley alone, about 30% of the population was born outside the United States. It’s a global mission in a stateside city.
There is a great opportunity in every part of the city for new churches and for new partnerships to connect with those already on the field. Become part of the Send Las Vegas family and work alongside on-the-ground partners to expand the kingdom of God in the city.
“The best days are ahead for the city and the network,” says Heiden Ratner, the Send City Missionary for Send Las Vegas. “Las Vegas will become known, not as the city of sin, but rather, the city of Him,” he says
Pray for Send City Missionary: Heiden Ratner
Heiden is the Senior Pastor planter of WALK Church in Las Vegas. He holds an undergraduate degree from Mercyhurst College and a master’s degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. After playing college basketball, Heiden played a season of professional basketball in Israel and coached a season of college basketball in Kentucky. He then sensed a calling to move his family back to his hometown to plant churches. Heiden is married to Neena, and they have three boys.
Send an encouraging word to Heiden at:
Information gathered from North American Mission Board
Every Country:
Guinea-Bissau
Population: 2,249,515
Unreached: 53%
Christian Population: 10.9%
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau has the sixth highest mortality rate in the world, and the average life expectancy is just under 50 years of age. This West African nation, located between Guinea and Senegal, is considered one of the poorest in the world. The legitimate economy of Guinea-Bissau relies heavily on farming and fishing. Illicit drug trafficking has grown almost unchecked, as the government has no coast guard, police do not have cars available, and the navy has no boats for patrolling the North Atlantic shores.
Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal in 1974 and was ruled as an authoritarian dictatorship until 1994. Since then, military coups and assassinations have been common, and the only consistency among the nation’s leaders has been corruption. Many leaders are involved with drug trafficking, and some fear that this will prohibit the country from being transparent and stable. Guinea-Bissau is a nation of origin for child labor and sex trafficking. The majority of those trafficked are young boys whose families are falsely promised a Quranic education for their son, while in reality they are transported to neighboring Senegal where they are beaten, abused, and forced to beg for money. Two hundred of these boys are estimated to be trafficked each month, roughly seven per day.
Under Portuguese rule, Guinea-Bissau was a predominantly Catholic nation. Since their independence, Islam has grown in prominence, and today roughly half the population claims to follow Mohammed. However, there is a high level of syncretism between Islam, Catholicism, and African traditional religions. There is freedom of religion in Guinea-Bissau unlike other nations in the region, and Christians have gained respect from their humanitarian work during civil unrest. There are an increasing number of missionaries to the nation from Latin America and Asia, however they tend to congregate in existing churches, leaving smaller people groups with a lack of spiritual guidance. There is a great need for Scripture in the nation, but low literacy rates and poverty make this difficult.
- Pray for spiritually mature, trained national workers to move outside urban areas to minister to less-reached people.
- Pray for distribution of oral Christian materials for the poor and illiterate.
- Pray for government leaders to stop the movement of foreign narcotics through the country and protect their people from dependence on drug money.
Information gathered from
Operationworld.org and PrayerCast.com
Unreached Peoples:
Fuuta Torro in Guinea-Bissau
Population: 379,000
Worldwide: 3,171,000
Christian Population: 0.00%
Main Religion: Islam
The Fuuta Torro are thought to have descended from the Fulani and the Wolof or Serere tribes. The name “Tukulor” is derived from the word Takrur. This term was used by Arab geographers to describe an eleventh century realm near the middle Senegal River Valley. Today, the Tukulor are known by a number of names, including Pulaar and Haal. They have retained their respective languages, and many are also bilingual in Arabic. While the majority of Pulaar Fulani live in Senegal, another significant group lives in Guinea, where they comprise a very small percentage of the population. There are also small numbers of Pulaar Fulani in Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Mauritania.
Most Fuuta Torro live a rural life. They raise livestock, farm and fish. They live in small villages in round huts made of clay or rough bricks, with straw roofs. Their dietary staples include rice, millet, sorghum, fish, nuts, and fruit. A steadily rising population and an unequal distribution of land have resulted in the emigration of large numbers of Pulaar (particularly youth) to the cities in search of better job opportunities. Traditional Fuuta Torro society is divided into four main social classes, each having twelve “castes.”
Their social life is a mixture of local customs and Islamic traditions. Neither Islam, the effects of colonization, nor the goals of various national leaders have been able to erase the old social divisions. The torobe are the aristocratic class. Villages are governed by a group of elders from this caste. The middle class, or rimbe, is made up of fishermen, farmers, tradesmen, and administrators. The middle class includes the craftsmen, and the lower class includes the freed slaves and the slaves. Social status rarely changes. The Pulaar marry within their class divisions, women usually between the ages of 16 and 18, and men between the ages of 25 and 30. Although it is uncommon, a man may have up to four wives. Families are generally large, with an average of six children per family. Pulaar women often wear large embedded pieces of wood in the soft lobes of their ears and have two small facial slits near the outside corners of both eyes. Although female genital mutilation is becoming increasingly illegal, over half of Pulaar girls from the ages of three to nine undergo ritual genital circumcision in order to be considered “clean” and worthy of marriage.
The Pulaar proudly acknowledge themselves as the first black Africans to convert to Islam although spiritism and magic play a significant role in daily life
The Fuuta Torro people are Sunni Muslims who believe that the supreme God, Allah, spoke through his prophet, Mohammed, and taught mankind how to live a righteous life through the Koran and the Hadith. To live a righteous life, you must utter the Shahada (a statement of faith), pray five times a day facing Mecca, fast from sunup to sundown during the month of Ramadan, give alms to the poor, and make a pilgrimage to Mecca if you have the means. Muslims are prohibited from drinking alcohol, eating pork, gambling, stealing, slandering, and making idols. They gather for corporate prayer on Friday afternoons at a mosque, their place of worship.
The two main holidays for Sunni Muslims are Eid al Fitr, the breaking of the monthly fast and Eid al Adha, the celebration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah.
Sunni religious practices are staid and simple. They believe Allah has pre-determined our fates; they minimize free will.
In most of the Muslim world, common people depend on the spirit world for their daily needs since they regard Allah as too distant. Allah may determine their eternal salvation, but the spirits determine how well they live on a daily basis. For that reason, some Muslims appease spirits using charms and amulets to help them with spiritual forces. More orthodox Muslims consider these practices heretical and un-Islamic.
The Fuuta Torro people need to be given the chance to hear the life-changing gospel so they can enjoy life to the full.
- Pray for loving gospel workers to catch a vision for reaching the Fuuta Torro people and that in God’s sovereign timing the hearts of these people would be open and ready to follow him.
- Pray for Jesus movements to bless extended families so the gospel will spread rapidly.
- Pray for the spiritual lives of the Fuuta Torro people to become fruitful so others will be drawn to Jesus Christ.
Information gathered from JoshuaProject.net