Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Week of Prayer 2014 | Pregnant women become catalysts

The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering® enables IMB missionaries to live and work at the forefront of lostness and extend our witness through their full-time ministry. Southern Baptists send missionaries from their churches, through IMB, to go into the world making disciples in the name of Jesus. In that partnership, Southern Baptists provide the funding to send and support these missionaries and their ministries. The more resources they provide, the more missionaries can be sent.

Women in various stages of pregnancy or post-pregnancy surround IMB missionary Nancy Potter* and some Southeast Asian health workers. They chat excitedly about the discipleship and training classes the day before, while waiting for their weekly health class.

When Nancy and her husband, William,* started these pregnancy health classes to combat the high maternal mortality rate in this rural area, they never imagined it would be the catalyst for starting house churches. The missionaries from Oklahoma combined aspects of a discipleship and church-planting program called Training for Trainers (T4T) with human needs projects. They taught local Christians not only to teach about healthy pregnancies and caring for newborns but to share Christ. The concept resulted in many new house churches in an area previously unreached.

“I’m not sure if it started with the women because when you are pregnant, it’s nine months of uncertainty, or what,” Nancy says. “But if you look at how most of the new house churches started, it’s through women. One came to faith and then started praying for everyone else. Other women then joined her, and they prayed for their husbands.”

After that, husband after husband gave up drinking and gambling to follow Jesus. William says the rapid growth is a direct result of these praying pregnant women.

Pray for an awakening in this ministry, which the Potters feel is on the cusp of a great revival.

Pray for open hearts and more disciples willing to share.
Scripture to Claim:
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.   Acts 1:8

*Names changed

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