A Missionary Heart in the Arena of Prayer
By Elizabeth Fox, Global Encounters Director of Operations
Being a missionary automatically means you have a great prayer life, right? I wish! Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to come as part of the package deal when you sign up for the job. At the same time, it’s vitally important. In fact, it’s hugely important whether you are the missionary out there in some foreign country for 20 years plus, going for a three week mission trip, or here in the US but serious about being a part of the great commission. As Oswald Chambers said, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the great work.”Since prayer doesn’t come easily for me, let me tell you of a time when God taught me to pray. I was in South Africa, working in remote villages and a refugee camp. It was dirty and extremely poor. That’s not a problem. I’ve been in places like that before and I actually like them. The difficulty was that we couldn’t seem to get through to people. We were putting on children’s programs and it felt like there was a brick wall between us and the kids. A couple of days into this, I found out that the area where we were working had a huge population of witches. Not only that, they were known to oppose any newcomers. OK... that explains some things.
New strategy! Rather than having all of us work with the kids at the same time, we started a rotation of always having one or two people sitting out praying while everyone else taught. I wouldn’t say any of us on that team were towering prayer giants. We were just young Christians who had a relationship with God. The amazing thing is, God doesn’t require awesomeness in us. He is the one who supplies that when His children come to Him humbly and desperately asking for help. It was amazing. When we prayed, the kids listened. Really listened... and heard the Gospel. The brick wall between us and them came tumbling down.You would think that would be enough to teach me to pray, but God wasn’t done with me. One afternoon, as it was my turn to pray, I was having a terrible time concentrating. So I picked up a team member’s Bible and started praying Scripture back to God. It turned into one of the best prayer times ever! I was so enjoying fellowship with my Father as I interceded for my team, the kids, the translators, the town... and then God told me to stop praying. Huh? “But, God,” I complained, “this is the best prayer time I’ve had in a long time. Why would you want me to stop talking with you.” “Because I want you to go talk with your translator over there.” It was almost like God had spoken to me audibly. One of my young translators was sitting about 20 feet away. I went over and sat next to him. We started talking and he poured out his heart. He was depressed. Multiple family members had died recently. He had been hanging around us because it was the only thing that made him stop thinking about death. Poor kid! I listened, shared some Scripture with him, and prayed with him. Well, at least I knew why God had wanted me to go talk with him.
God still wasn’t done. The rest of the story unfolded the next day. My translator came to talk with one of the guys on our team. He told him that the night before, he had gotten saved and broken up with his gang of drug-dealing buddies. There was so much more going on than I had realized! My team and I had unknowingly stumbled into a hotbed of spiritual warfare, but that didn’t worry God. He wanted someone of His own in that very dark place to ask Him for help and then be His light. In some ways, it was all very simple, and yet my team and I saw the power of God at work in amazing ways.By now you might be thinking, “That’s nice... but I’m not in Africa.” So what does all of this have to do with your prayer life? Mainly, I want you to see that prayer is simple. It’s like a child talking to His father. Do you care about missions? Do you know of situations in other countries that break your heart? Maybe you are passionate about young girls caught in the sex industry or children in the middle of a war zone - hurting physically and emotionally, but worse yet, so lost spiritually. God cares even more! Talk to Him about these issues that are on both of your hearts. It’s more challenging when you don’t get to see and feel the effects of prayer as strongly as I did in Africa, but it’s very real. The battle is real and you are a part of it.If you can’t go yourself to be boots on the ground in this battle for souls of men, team up with a missionary, find out their needs, and pray for them. Ask God to lay a country or a specific need on your heart. Study up on it and pray. Best option yet: go to another country, participate in ministry, get to know the people there, and you will have a passion for prayer for that country like you’ve never experienced before.
Elizabeth Fox has been involved in children's ministry since 1993 and family and teen ministry since 2000. Currently, Elizabeth works for Global Encounters as the director of operations. She has led mission teams in Romania, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and South Africa and coordinated teams to a number of other locations. In addition to her interests in international ministry, Elizabeth enjoys floral design, volleyball, and spending time with her siblings.