Sunday, August 30, 2015

Fall is A'Comin'! (And other Outreach Updates)

Hello Prayer Team!
It’s late for me, but I wanted to write to you all before I go to bed (so expect typos and amazing sentence structure.  ahem.)

Tonight was an Outreach night, and we have 2 teams that each visit 2 separate clubs, so think roughly 55ish or so women we get to see, plus the door men, bouncers, owners, managers, and bartenders.  Would you pray for everyone we encountered this evening, that God would work in their hearts.  We always take small gifts to the women, and honestly, its not about the gift but rather we pray that the message the ladies receive from getting the gifts is one of love.  Would you pray that the ladies will be reminded that they are loved dearly when they look at their gifts this month?  Sometimes the women are too busy to linger with us, but in the morning (or afternoon) when they wake up and see the gifts, I pray that they would be overwhelmed with the realization of how much they are worth, and that not only do we love them, but God loves them.  

This Outreach we also had our baked goodies packaged so well, I love it when we get to give cute cookie packages out!  The cookie bundles were packaged with a bible verse tag from Matthew 19:26 “With God all things are possible.”  Its such a small detail, one that could get overlooked so easily.  But I’m thrilled about it!

At the Abolition Summit, we heard a story from a survivor who reminded us the power of God’s Word.  At one point this woman had been given something small with a scripture on it (I forget exactly…its late…).  She didn’t dwell on it, but somehow the verse stuck with her.  Later she was with a John who had put her in his car, and he was driving out of the city toward the dessert, and the longer they drove the more disturbed she became by him.  So what popped into her mind?  The bible verse!  And she began repeating it out loud, over and over.  This irritated the John who asked her about it, and she just said it was a verse she had been given, but internally she was praying to God.  Immediately the man was upset and pulled over.  He said that he was intending to kill her that night, but now he couldn’t because of the verse she quoted, and that he saw a light surrounding her.  So he pushed her out of the car, and you can believe that incident made a huge impact on this woman!

I doubt that anything that dramatic will happen to any of our women.  But here’s what I want to leave you with:
Even though the verse was small, and many of us may be tempted to overlook it…the truth is that it is God’s Word, which is alive, active, sharper than a two-edged sword, and does not return void.  And right now its in the dressing rooms of 4 clubs in Springfield, MO, in the hands of women (and even men) who are swallowed by darkness and desperately needing the Light of God.  Will you pray that God’s Word would sink deep into the hearts and minds of these men and women that we saw tonight?  

One more prayer request, and then I need some sleep!  This Fall I’ll be launching a Bible study for the women we meet in the clubs and other areas of exploitation.  I’m SO EXCITED!  Will you pray for God to draw the hearts of the women?  We will start announcing it in September’s Outreaches, and I’m really hoping to start it in October.  One thing I’m praying about is that we never want the women to feel like a project.  Instead we want to invite them into community with us.  That’s a big difference.  So while our focus is to introduce the women to God and provide an arena for them to grow spiritually, we want the women to join us as we meet with God and study.  We’ll have a few handpicked volunteers participating, and they can model a relationship with God in a lot of neat ways beyond simply doing the study together.  
Will you pray for our bible study?  Will you pray that key women will come?  We’ve identified a few who seem as if they are interested.  Specifically, I want you to pray for “Ginger” and “Tina”.  Especially “Ginger” as she is influential in the club she works at, and could be someone who brings the other girls in her club with her.  

Thank you dear prayer peeps!  Your prayers are powerful, don’t take them for granted!

*Post taken from my Friday night email to my Prayer Team.  Leave a message if you'd like to be on my prayer team and commit to praying for me and this ministry.

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