Nothing could have prepared us for the circumstances of Easter 2020. We feel a bit like the disciples must have felt that first Easter – shocked, grieved and then amazed and hopeful. In the midst of this all, we have been so aware of the truth of Ps 46: 1-2 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear …”
Have you had some similar experiences? Are you also grieving some things during the COVID-19 pandemic while you are blessed by the evidence of God’s hand in the situation?
Like so many around the world, we have been house-bound since the middle of March. Two things have kept us very busy:
- Marie is on our global crisis management response team, responsible for communications. Our ministry had to cancel countless mission outreaches and conferences. A personal blow for Marie was that the Global Communication’s Summit that she put together for communicators in our ministry, was also cancelled.
- Helping all our missionaries around the world become on-line missionaries as they are not allowed to operate as before. We are creating training materials and meetings are now taking place over Zoom.
Seeing how quickly our missionaries adapted to their new realities is one of the highlights. It is also evident that there is a greater openness to spiritual matters as people’s worlds are shaken.
Observing this openness, especially for prayer, gave us a new idea. With the help of our Ethiopian co-worker, Miheret, we advertised a zoom prayer call on Facebook for 30 minutes to pray for COVID-19. We called our prayer experience “There Is Hope”. We decided to test it in Johannesburg first. People signed up so that we could give them more details.
To our surprise – 116 people signed up and on Friday night, we hosted our first event of this kind. We read scriptures and then prayed for different COVID-19 needs: the sick, the vulnerable, the healthcare professionals, our leaders and then also those who are affected economically by the situation.
We then also gave the 12 people who joined the call an opportunity to have a personal relationship with Jesus who is our ever-present help in trouble. A number of the people on the call were already Christians, but one person committed his life to the Lord. He has been going through a follow-up videos series with us.
Praise the Lord with us for this man’s salvation, and pray that he will continue to grow in his faith.
Pray also as we try this prayer experience in more cities for people who are curious about spiritual things. Sunday we tried something similar in Ethiopia and had similar results.
Pray for all our missionaries as they are trying different things to connect with people to bring the gospel to them.
We are spending more time in prayer at the moment – what can we pray for you in this time?