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So, as I spelled out the title of this post, I was 100% positive that it was what our team needed to ask for. In so many ways, our team has been praised, complimented, and looked at as “top-notch”, and while it can feel really good and encouraging to hear these things from people that we know love and believe in us, it would be ignorant of us to refrain from asking for prayer. On the another hand, I also believe it can be healing and relieving as well to confess to one another in an effort to gain prayer warriors.

Therefore, we beg you to hit your knees on our behalf.

I realize the word beg might seem like a strong or possibly harsh way of expressing our need, and yet, it is how we feel. If there is one thing that we learned as a team in the last months of 2008, it was probably that prayer is a necessity. When we arrived in Costa Rica as a team, we did not have any clue as to what the months of August through December would bring. In the midst of some fun times, opportunities to meet great, new Christians, and learning a beautiful new language, we experienced attacks from Satan that we had not seen coming. As a team, we have prayed, and we have solicited the help of outsiders. As a result, God has been faithful. In most of our situations, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope, and where we are still struggling to find that hope, we continue to pray for one another. This has been our story.

When we came together to make “Team Lima”, we were aware that our future would hold struggling and strife. After all, isn’t that what the life of a Follower includes? Despite this, we each feel that our ultimate goal of reaching lost souls in Peru is worth these struggles. This is the exact reason that we solicit you all as prayer warriors. We have had moments, and we will continue to have times in which there are some of the 9 of us that feel lost. We might feel like our goal is out of reach. Our passion for Christ might only be at a simmer. We will miss comforts of the home we used to know. Peruvians might disappoint us. Our marriages will be attacked. And the list could go on. Without a group of prayer warriors, we might never make it.

God calls us to call on him. We are learning as a team and as individuals about the power of prayer. We have experienced both lack of desire to pray as well as desire to do nothing else but pray. We hope that we will learn to do the latter more and more as we grow in Christ, but we also know that we do not have to be the only ones petitioning our Lord to hold us up in times of trouble as well as praise Him for his endless blessings.

As it stands, we are not completely out of the clear as a team when it comes to struggling. I don’t know that we will ever be. There are just too many of us to be honest. But, you know, this is not a complete discouragement to us. We realize that we have chosen a life that makes Satan unhappy. We also know that no matter where we live in this world, we are not promised a life without hurt. All we can do is continue to hand over our fears, our frustrations, our praises, and our lives to the One Who Promises Never To Leave Us! Praise Him for that!

Please join us in prayer. We beg you.

A Start to some of our Prayer Lists:

Yoakums:
-Strength as they seek counseling and healing for their family
-Opportunities for the Yoakums to continue practicing his Spanish despite being away from language school

Davidsons:
-Safety in their move to Peru in a week
-Strengthened desire and commitment for their relationships with God

Mark Clancy:
-Wisdom as he leads the student body at ILE as President as well as continued learning of the spanish language
-Encouragement as he begins to be involved in new ministries here in CR.

Fletchers:
-Strength as they grieve the loss of two sweet babies and try and make sense of their hurt
-Wisdom as they seek God’s plan for their entrance to Peru in a few months.

Thompsons:
-Commitment to the spanish language as they continue language school for one more trimester
-Strengthened desire for time in God’s Word