SOUTH KOREA
In South Korea, most churches have daily
dawn prayer meetings around 5:00 a.m. During
this time, they hold a short worship service, and
then people remain to pray individually. Churches also have Friday night prayer meetings that
go late into the night. A common prayer methodology in Korea is “Tongsung prayer,” in which
people all pray out loud at the same time.
Lisa Hwang of the OMS Korea office says,
“Prayer is a key to open the gates of heaven.
We can meet our heavenly Father through
prayer, so we pray eagerly, spending more time to pray (dawn prayer every
morning, Wednesday prayer meeting, and Friday night prayer meeting). Prayer
is an expression to talk with God concerning our life and needs.”
—Susan Truitt, OMS Korea Field Director
UNITED STATES
At the OMS World Headquarters,
we have regular times of prayer,
like our monthly half day of
prayer on the first Wednesday
of each month and every
Monday morning when each
department prays together
for about an hour for both
ministry and personal
requests. We enjoy
chapels every Tuesday
and Thursday in which we are encouraged from the Word or hear reports of
God’s goodness around the world. We also have several groups that meet at
different times during the week to pray for a specific country, ministry, or need.
For example, one concerned group meets every Friday at noon to pray for our
missionaries with special funding needs. Our Men for Missions team leads a
prayer time every Monday at noon for Ecuador, every Tuesday at noon for Haiti,
every Wednesday at 11 for the Caribbean and at noon for Mozambique, every
Thursday at noon for Japan, and every Friday at noon for Colombia.
MFM also has prayer champions for Ecuador, Haiti, Japan, Mozambique,
Spain, the Caribbean, Uruguay, Israel, Mexico, South Asia, Colombia, and
Uruguay, who also lead prayer times for their country at various times and
locations throughout the week.
—Shirley Carlson, Director of World Intercessors, One Mission Society
“Everything vital in missionary work,
whether at home or abroad,
hinges upon prayer.”
—Lettie B. Cowman
14
Prayer Results on Our Fields
Richard McLeish
Extented Missionary Service
Ever since One Mission Society Preside nt
Bob Fetherlin unveiled the One Opportunity
Vision, I have been wondering, “How does that
happen, and where are the 1 billion people?” But
before we can consider the how and the where, we
need to fully commit to the who.
As Bob shares more information each week, I have
been reflecting over the last 10 years of the Men for
Missions prayer initiative.
When Operation Saturation started in Haiti in 2000, the goal
was to distribute 250,000 fixed-tuned solar-powered radios. We
didn’t reach that goal, but because we saturated the country in
prayer, we saw God draw many people to Jesus, and that has
continued in the years since. When we started doing prayer walks
in Spain in 2005, OMS missionaries had labored for more than
25 years, with limited results. But since then, we have seen an
explosion of church growth with many decisions for Christ and in
ways we would have never anticipated. When we started to focus
prayer on Uruguay, our OMS missionaries were new in the country
and had become discouraged. But through concerted prayer, they are
now thriving, and many people are finding the hope that only Jesus can
bring. The dramatic growth of the church in the Caribbean
has come as the result of years of prayer seeds being
sown in the midst of persecution. All of these results came through faithful prayer warriors
not telling God how and where to work, but
by faithfully proclaiming his name over
these nations and people and asking for
his kingdom to come and his will to be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
What a privilege to lift up the
name of Jesus over nations and
watch God work in his way. After
all, it is his work and not ours, his
vision and not ours. He knows best
how and where to bring that about; we
need to walk so closely with him that we
hear clearly his direction in which to go.
He has a plan. It may not look like what
we envision, but it will be the best result. We
must move forward on our knees, singing the
name of Jesus over the nations.
15
One Mission Society
photo, above: A Haitian man receives
a solar-powered radio. below: Prayer
champions pray for Spain.