2020 Prayer Guide: January Planning and Discernment

(Dedicating “our” plans to the Lord’s will and leading)

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. (Proverbs 16:3)

God, give wisdom and insight. Open our eyes to the leading of your Spirit as we set plans and goals for 2020.

When we moved to our city, we knew no one. We didn’t have an elaborate plan or people to help us. In fact, we found that we didn’t have much of a plan at all and people thought we were crazy for moving way out of the big city without a plan and without a support system.

What we did have was a glimpse of a very basic plan, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit to step out in faith, despite our insecurities about what the future would hold.

Our very basic plan when we moved had only two simple parts: 1. move closer to M people, and 2. start digitizing the M Bible.

We reasoned that even if we only digitized the M Bible and then moved on to a new project or ministry, that would at least be a contribution to the Kingdom.

But, God! He blessed our connections and our meager efforts. He provided M connections through a random email from a friend in the big city, which turned out to be our first M coworker. The work of digitizing the M Bible started out very monotonous and boring. Daniel’s coworker spent hours and hours every day scanning literally every page of the old M Bible. Not exactly an exciting job!

When that boring work was nearing completion, Daniel and his coworker began trying to use OCR software to recognize the difficult M characters. Also, pretty boring! Despite their many hours of attempts, OCR just wouldn’t work for the odd shaped and complicated alphabet. So, on to another plan: typing in the WHOLE M BIBLE.

But, our coworkers couldn’t type in the M language. And, an M keyboard didn’t even exist for the M language!

So, Daniel developed an M keyboard, learned to type the M language himself, and then taught the M coworkers how to type…painfully slow at first! But, day after boring day, they typed in the text of each book of the Bible.

And now… it’s 2020!

The M Bible is fully digitized!

Corrections are finished on the M Bible!

There is an M Bible App!

There is an M Bible webpage!

M Bible Scripture is being shared on a Facebook Group with over a THOUSAND members!

The full New Testament has been recorded and an audio New Testament will be available for sharing soon!

So, now what is next?

We can’t see the future, or know how God will lead and grow us in the direction he would have us go. We cannot be sure how long we will be able to serve here (Will we die tomorrow? Will the political climate change and force us to leave? Will some unforseen event force us out?), but we know that as long as the Lord wills, we will continue to serve and follow in the direction he is leading.

Daniel and I meet to set goals and visions for the M work here regularly.

We think about what we could do if money wasn’t an issue and we had unlimited resources. We dream about what a Disciple Making Movement among the M people would look like. We see our inadequacies and ask God to send teammates, or give us the skills we need to press on. We think about how can we partner with existing christian groups among the M people, and also how we should pursue starting new groups of seekers to follow Jesus. We plan literacy classes and generate ideas for creating literacy games and materials. We set quarterly goals and yearly goals. We think of time as chunks of time between travel dates and planned 3-year furloughs.

We do work hard, and plan hard! BUT, we know God is doing the leading, guiding, and giving the increase!

We couldn’t have imagined all God would do since we first stepped out in faith and moved to our city. We couldn’t have foreseen how God would have opened doors and brought relationships and connections. We didn’t know the future then. And, we don’t know the future now.

So, WE PRAY!

We ask that you would join us in prayer, praying the words of Scripture over “our plans” and asking God to reveal “His plans” to us. We want to be open and flexible to change and to following God in the direction he is leading us.

Please pray that as we commit our plans to the Lord, they will succeed to the glory of God.

If you would like a copy of our 2020 Prayer Guide with a new topic and new ways to pray each month, please contact us. We would be so grateful for you to join us in our ministry here by the commitment of prayer and petition to God. As you sacrifice your time and energy to pray for the M people, God will hear and listen.