How to Pray for your missionaries

How to Pray for your missionaries

by Karl Peterson

From pgs 12-13 of the April 2012 issue of Missions magazine
(Christian Missions in Many Lands)

A missionary on furlough from India visits a church. The believers ask, “How can we best help you in your work?” “Pray for me,” he or she responds. “What can we really do?” “Pray.”

We know this is the right answer but it seems so predictable and intangible. But since missions is God’s work, the most effective help a partner can give is to implore the Lord of the harvest for blessing. God is and must be the biggest player in world missions.

But how do you pray for missionaries? We often choose a name, pray for God’s blessing on their work, fam- ily and health. Then we pick another name and pray the same things all over again. Our missionary prayer meetings become predictable and, at times, dull. Perhaps the following thoughts, taken from a three-part out- line from Mr. Tom Wells and filled in with my own observations, will be of help to you and your assembly.

Pray for Missionaries as People

Missionaries are not super human beings. They have the same needs that other people have like food, clothing and shelter. So pray for them in the same way you would pray for anyone else.

Food – A missionary woman, accustomed to purchasing everything at her local grocer back home, now may have to grow what she feeds her family or shop for it at an expansive open market. A family often has to change their diet in a new area because they just can’t get what they could back “home.”

Housing – In the Third World your missionary might have to become a plumber, carpenter, or electrician just to move in to a reasonable home. And don’t be fooled – minimally suitable housing in a Third World city can be very expensive. Just ask your missionary!

Health – Living in a new climate can ruin a person’s health. Mozambique has been called the white man’s cemetery. Often hospitals are not equipped and medicines are hard to find.

Crime – This is a real issue in poorer nations. Many people (missionaries and nationals alike) at times have to live behind security bars and high walls. This can become very demoraliz- ing. I recall visiting the U.S. and sensing the relief that I no

longer had to look behind my back to see who was ready to steal something from me. On my first day in Mozambique I was robbed by a group of bandits.

Children – In spite of the numerous benefits of being raised overseas, missionary kids often feel like they don’t fit in to the local culture or to the American culture when they return on furlough. The sense of isolation from grandparents and cousins is, at times, intense.

Marriage – Mission work and life puts huge strains on a marriage. Many missionary marriages have suffered great damage. Some workers have had to come off the field because of a deteriorating home life. Other marriages improve! Pray that your missionary would learn how to bal- ance work and family responsibilities. Your missionaries are “made of but dust” (Psalm 103:14). Pray for them as such.

Pray for Missionaries as Christians

Next, pray for your missionary as you would pray for any other follower of Christ. Intercede for their walk with the Lord. Some missionaries become bitter, hardened people due to their poor response to the difficulties of living in another cul- ture. Some hide from God on the mission field, assuming that just because they are doing God’s work, all is okay when it’s not. Many missionaries give and give and give but have little spiritual input. Living outside your home culture, you face new temptations and may struggle with new sins. At 75 years of age, a missionary to Brazil confessed how difficult living in that country was with all the beautiful and scantily-clad young Brazilian women around. A missionary enters a new living context and discovers how selfish, proud or racist he or she is. Just like you, missionaries fight spiritual warfare, so pray for them (Ephesians 6:18).

Pray for Missionaries as

Christian Workers

In addition to being humans and believers, your missionar- ies have been called to a unique task by the Lord of the Harvest and need special prayer.

Language study – Possibly requiring two to three years of a missionary’s time, language acquisition can be demoralizing and lead to discouragement and a sense of failure. Yet it is cru- cial to speak the language of the people (Acts 2:8).

Their Ministry – Pray for God’s blessing on your mission- ary’s work, whether it is evangelizing, teaching, training, local church leadership, church planting, support administration, medical, or relief and development. Some see little fruit after years of ministry. Others serve in places where people flock to church but evidence very little change in their thinking or lifestyle (Ephesians 6:19-20).

Their Host Country – Pray for God’s blessing on the people and government of the nation they serve (Jeremiah 29:7).

Harmony between Missionaries and National Believers – This is one of the most fragile difficulties on mission fields around the world and most missionaries face it at some time or another. When money or donations get involved it can exacerbate the problem (Romans 15:5-6).

Harmony with Other Missionaries – Missionaries are often ambitious people who have goals and projects and vision and drive. Put a bunch of them together in the same mission station or church and sparks can fly (Acts 15:36-41).

The Perplexities of Cross-Cultural Ministry – All mission- aries make cultural blunders – some small, some serious. But we’ve all done it. Some missionaries throw themselves into the new culture with delight; others can’t understand “why all people can’t be like me!” There are cross-cultural expectations on a missionary’s family, home and time. All good missionaries wrestle with how to make the gospel “come alive” and be truly understood in the new culture. Missionaries often have to do things they have no experience at all in doing. Western mis- sionaries are often frustrated by having to live in a new coun-

try and culture where everything proceeds inefficiently and at a snail’s pace (1 Corinthians 10:32-33).

Choosing the Essential – Some gospel workers walk into or “inherit” very messy situations – churches in trouble, Bible schools in disarray. My senior missionary advisors (Ken Fleming and Paul Logan) left me with invaluable advice: as a new missionary, don’t try to correct all problems in your mis- sion field at once; work with patience. A wise missionary will need to pick and choose the correct battles to fight and prob- lems to resolve. This requires sensitivity, wisdom, and your prayers (Romans 15:1).

Accountability – No matter how much a mission or send- ing church tries, frankly it is impossible to supervise complete- ly the work of their foreign missionary. Assemblies need to commend well-proven servants of God, send them off, and trust them to work well. But without hands-on supervision and accountability, some missionaries (very few in my experi- ence) become lazy. On the other hand, far too many mission- aries become workaholics without the accountability of some- one to remind them not to neglect their family, health and spiritual well-being (Colossians 4:7-9).

Maintaining Vision – This is an acute problem. Like many other fields, there is so much to do in Mozambique – confer- ences, seminars, itinerant preaching, youth and evangelistic work, relief and development. The work never ends. Going into a field where there are so many needs and so few workers, the missionary faces the temptation to try to do everything. And this is dangerous. It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the huge needs and it’s a constant battle to stay focused. Pray your missionary would learn the art of saying “No” to avoid being spread too thinly and risk ineffectiveness and burnout (Colossians 4:2-4).

Prayer is not just the right thing—it’s the crucial thing because the work is

God’s. At times I’ve been in very perplexing situations and been greatly comforted knowing that I have prayer warriors at home lifting me, my family and my work up to the Lord. Choose a missionary or ministry and become a truly commit- ted prayer partner, remembering Paul’s words to the Thessalonians,“brothers, pray for us.” 

Karl Peterson and his wife Glynn were com- mended to the work of the Lord in Mozambique by the believers in Ardsley, PA and Boulder, CO in 1995. (The Petersons are

now serving in Cape Town, South Africa. See “Lines from the Front,” page 16.)