Today is the National Day of Prayer in the U.S., and I want to share with you the importance of prayer in our ministry.

I felt wildly unworthy to write on this topic, so I sought wisdom from Eleanor. She is our Prayer Ministry Manager.

At first I thought I would share with you some of her insights, but I think I will keep it simple and share with you an example of the power of prayer.

Every day in our contact center, we speak with sponsors who are going through difficult times. When we receive a prayer request, we send it to Eleanor and she compiles a weekly brochure.

This brochure is passed out to every employee at chapel on Wednesdays and we take time to pray through the prayer requests listed.

On May 2, 2001, we prayed for Cindy’s* 16-year-old daughter, who had run away from home. We asked for God to protect her and lead her back to her family.

Ten years later, Eleanor received this letter from Cindy:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

It’s been many years since I received this amazing letter from you. It so overwhelmed me to know there were others out there praying for my daughter when all I was able to put before Him were tears and an occasional ‘Jesus, help us. Jesus, be with her.’

From that I have a framed verse on my desk: Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who built it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep (Psalm 127:1-2).”

The letter continues:

I know it was such a small thing compared to the parents whose child had bone cancer and needed to have his leg amputated, or the lady whose husband had died, but the moment we discovered our child was gone is a realization I’ll never forget.

We must live with the fact that she so badly wanted to get away from her life here. Once, the police called to let us know she’d been picked up for hitchhiking and scolded us for being bad parents. We also had to listen to what other ‘Christians’ said to us. Ouch.”

But God is good, and He answers our prayers.

My daughter and her husband now live in California and she made me a first-time Gramma last year. Although her husband told her to ‘get rid of it’ when he heard she was pregnant, she kept the baby.

She told me that she loves God and is through making mistakes. She is now taking very difficult university classes and is excelling with a 95 percent average. More importantly, we are a family again. Thank you and love to you for your prayers.”

How has the power of prayer changed your life?

*Cindy’s name was changed to protect her identity

LINK UP: If you write a post about the National Day of Prayer or about the importance of prayer in your life, please link up with us so we can all benefit. Thanks.

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We encourage you to pray.

Talk to God about our country.
Talk to God about your sponsored child.
Talk to God about poverty.

Just talk to God.

In fact, if you want to share your prayer with the rest of the blog readers, hit us up in the comment section. Then we can join you in that prayer. Let’s move some mountains, people!

Join our Prayer Partner Network.

Read prayer requests from the countries where we work.

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