Believe it or not, many times family members and others will ask overseas Christian workers if they are going to take their children with them when they go. Of course we are! But we appreciate your prayers for them specifically.

Until now she’s been torn between a desire to go and be a part of a really cool culture overseas and staying in Tennessee and returning to a school she loves, with friends she loves (and who love her) and living in a house she loves with a tree she loves to climb. Last Saturday was pretty rough for her, making it rough on all of us. I think reality kind of hit – hard. There’s been a lot more talk about missing “my school” and other things. Hey, I can’t blame her. I’m not excited about the unknown too much myself. So with the biggest change in our family’s life five weeks away, As a followup to part one of praying for overseas Christian workers, I offer the following ways to pray for our daughter (and I think some of these are excellent suggestions for how you can pray for your kids as well as other people’s children.

If you REALLY, REALLY want to minister to families in prayer, establish some pray-ers who will pray for children exclusively BY NAME (also called Third Culture Kids – TCK). Pray:

1. For good national friends
2. For cultural adjustment and language learning
3. For adjustment in dramatically different type of school situations
4. For a love for the people among whom they live
5. For encouragement in grieving over leaving family
6. For adjustments reentering US culture when families return for periodic furloughs (this is an especially important prayer as many leave the States too young to know their grandparents).
7. That they will know Christ as Savior early in life (Psalm 63:1; 2 Timothy 3:15)
8. That they will be caught when guilty (Psalm 119:67; 71; 75)
9. That they will have a hatred for sin (Psalm 97:10-11; Romans 12:9)
10. That they will be protected from the evil one in each area of their lives: spirit, soul and body (Matthew 6.13; John 17:15; 2 Corinthians 10:5b; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Revelation 12:11)
11. That they will have a responsible attitude in all their personal relationships (Esther 10:3; Daniel 6:3)
12. That they will desire the right kind of friends and be protected from the wrong friends (Proverbs 1:10,11,15; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Proverbs 22-24-25)
13. That they will respect those in authority over them: Parents – Ephesians 6:1-3, Spiritual leaders – Hebrews 13:17, Government Officials – Romans 13:1, Employers – Ephesians 6:5-8
14. That they will be kept from the wrong mate and saved for the right one (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)
15. That they, as well as those they marry, will be kept pure until marriage (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
16. That they will learn to totally submit to God and actively resist Satan in all circumstances (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:6-9)
17. That they will be single-hearted, willing to be sold out to Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 6:33)
18. That they will be hedged in so they cannot find their way to wrong people or places and that the wrong people cannot find their way to them (Hosea 2:6; Ezekiel 22:30)

“A few years ago the local witch doctor and Catholic priest mobilized their people to run the Christians off and burn out the church,” the worker told a group of teenagers on a prayerwalking trip to Guatemala. “They haven’t been back.”

The group quickly asked if they could get out and pray on the lot. Boldly – while curious then increasingly agitated neighbors began to congregate – the teenagers asked God to embolden the displaced Believers and asked God to restore the church to that very location. Prayer as a mission strategy takes the pray-er into the realms of spiritual warfare and prayer is the strategy that breaks the power of Satan in the world. Three years after standing among the rubble, that congregation was standing in a new building worshiping God once again.

Through my travels in more than 26 countries I’ve seen Christian workers who were average people yet were passionate about prayer for the people to whom God sent them. I was once in the high mountains of Bolivia and we got caught in a torrential rain. We were 4-wheeling it in an area where there were barely roads and had several river crossings. Literally, the water was up to the windows of the Land Cruiser. My worker friend prayed before every crossing asking for God’s protection and thanking Him for His mercy in allowing us to reach villages with the gospel. I saw another friend in Spain praising God for the single response card he’d received out of the thousands he sent asking if anyone would be interested in studying the Bible. Another friend in Honduras sobbed in prayer as tears soaked the name cards of young men in prison who were all hardcore gang members. Most would die before they reached 25. Many others had already died violent deaths. She begged God to allow them the opportunity to hear about Christ before it was too late.

So, God hasn’t called you to go over sees as a worker but you can be effectively involved in reaching the nations for Christ through prayer. So, how do you pray for missions and the workers who go out? I can tell you praying “God bless all the missionaries” IS NOT and effective prayer.

I’ll offer two posts on prayer focused toward reaching the nations for Christ. The first will be how to pray for “workers” and the second how to pray for the work.

AND BY THE WAY, THESE DAYS WE TRY TO AVOID THE “M” WORD SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY AREAS OF THE WORLD WHERE THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED AND THEIR PRESENCE AS “Ms” SIGNIFICANTLY JEPARDIZES THEIR SAFETY AND/OR THE SAFETY OF THE NATIONALS WITH WHOM THEY WORK.

How to pray for workers – Pray specifically:
1. by name that each worker will grow in the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), but especially for love (for God, for spouses, team members, people group)
2. by name that each worker will grow in each of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11) but especially for purity in heart (5:8).
3. For language learning and the ability to speak clearly
4. For the reinforcement of God’s cross-cultural calling on the days when they are discouraged
5. That God would encourage their spirits when there is no response to the Gospel
6. For physical protection as many are located in extremely dangerous places or live in extremely unsafe locations where driving itself is a life-threatening endeavor.
7. For unity within their families
8. That God will grant them close personal relationships with nationals where they live
9. For grandparents as goodbyes are said and families separate (and for children as grandparents go overseas).
10. For spiritual protection as many of the cultures where workers and their families live are permeated with spiritual evil.