December 2006: from Cyprus

Answers to Prayer

This is on the wall in our prayer room.  We have tons of prayers on the walls.

Prayer Room: We have a prayer room! God gave us one, for real! We asked the owner of the place that we're living for favor, if he would just give us a place, and he did. We only have to pay for electricity!
This is a huge answer to prayer! It has been amazing to have it, the students are really getting into spending time with Jesus there. It's great!
In fact, we will be starting this week to do it 24/7, not forever, but for the duration of our lecture phase. It will definitely not be perfect, but I really feel the grace of God to do it. I'm incredibly excited about it!
Salvation: We haven't yet seen Keriagos and his family completely swept into the kingdom, but he is not far. They have asked us where there is a church like the one we go to, but he has to work on Sundays (he’s the manager of the hotel/vacation apartment complex that we live on). Pray for more opportunities to love and share with this family.

House of Prayer in Cyprus: In our prayer room, our dts has started a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week schedule. We aren’t doing it perfectly, but we will try to keep this schedule until the end of our lecture phase. It has been amazing to see how into this the students and staff are here, more than the normal crowd.

Prayer Requests:

Another one of our wall prayers in our prayer room.

Provision: I thought I was doing okay, but I just found out that I was supposed to pay more than I had understood before. So, I basically need a couple thousand dollars (AAAAAHH!!!) to get me through until I get home, including outreach and getting home.

Favor with the Courts: One our students, we call Tina, is a Cypriot, but has one of the most devastating stories I have heard. She recently went through a divorce, separating from an abusive husband, at first physically and later emotional. She has 5 children. Originally she lived at home with the children, but her ex-husband would come over continually and try to win the children over to his side by offering things to them and such. He would come whenever he wanted and stay as long as he liked. This state of affairs was difficult for Tina and so she took her youngest son and flew to the UK to get away from him. However, when she came back to the island, the government had sent representatives to take her son away from her at the airport, calling it abduction because she had been in the situation she was in when she left. So now, she has nothing but a car, not even rights to visit her children, and she is in the middle of court proceedings that will determine whether she gets any part in the house or the land. It seems that the lawyers aren’t helping her and the courts are prolonging the case as well. So, it is a big mess, but mostly I just pray that God would let her see her kids again and heal her family and provide for her financially.

Salvation: Last Sunday I went with Tina to visit her family. She has charming kids, the youngest is 9 and the two oldest are already living abroad. Her oldest son is living in Malaysia, and her oldest daughter, Nadia, 21 is going to university in the UK. She is visiting for Christmas. We are praying that God will win her heart and heal her pain, also with the rest of her children, Joanna, 18, Mari, 16 and Ben, 9. Please also pray for her ex-husband, that God will apprehend him and bring him into His Kingdom.


Update:

We are getting through the lecture phase without to many major hang-ups now. Our students are a great group, willing to grow and learn which is all you could ever really want in a group of students.

I decided to go on the night watch here at our little house of prayer. It has been a tremendous privilege even though it has gotten a little lonely. I have really enjoyed it. I get up at 2 am and go to bed at about 6pm. I am actually very excited to do it, because I believe that’s why I came here, for hiddenness. You can’t get much more hidden than the middle of the night several miles from the closest village on an island an 18 hour journey away from home.

I will also be leading the second phase of our dts. We will be leaving the 1st week of January. We are planning on going to Israel/Palestine for a month, and then to Lebanon for two weeks, and then end up in Turkish Cyprus for the remainder of our time. I am currently in the planning stages.

I am kind of preoccupied with the fact that I have a debt, it is hard to plan for the future with this hanging over my head. I have seen the Lord provide before, I guess I just need to pray through. I am also (for almost the first time in my life) HOMESICK! I miss people back in Kansas City, I miss being in the prayer room, I miss church... It's been rough, but the Lord is with me, and He's so good.