Please Pray With Us for West Africans in Europe

In two days, I will be leaving on a diaspora missions trip with a team of students from the seminary for Europe to engage West Africans with the gospel. There are several cities in Europe, just like North America, where large populations of unreached peoples are settling into communities. Our team will be working alongside long-term missions personnel to assist in two primary ways. First we will be discovering areas of the city where there are large populations of West Africans. Second, we will be engaging these pockets of people in order to both share the gospel and gauge spiritual openness.

Today, I am writing to request prayer for our time. Below are a few specific requests for our time in Europe.

• Pray that we will have a Philippians 2:5-8 attitude of Christlikeness on this trip. Pray with me that our team approaches this task as servants. That our goal is to serve the missionaries who are on the ground, laboring every day with these people. That we serve the West Africans we encounter by sharing the gospel and extending hospitality and Christian love. That we will serve one another and defer to one another. Finally, that we ultimately serve Christ. That our actions are done out of obedience and love for our savior.
• Pray that our logistics will run as smooth as possible. Anyone who has led a short-term trip knows that things never turn out exactly as you plan. That is fine and expected, but do pray that the details work out in such a way that we are able to maximize our time and effort on ministry. Unexpected cancellations and layovers dig into ministry time on such a short trip. Also pray that our team is flexible and rests in God’s plans and his timing, no matter what happens.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit prepares hearts for the arrival of the gospel. Behind the multitude of reasons for migration, God is ultimately the one who brought these West Africans to Europe. He is the one who decides when and where people live, and it is for the sake of his name. Pray that we will be quick to share the good news of Christ with those who have little (or no) access to it back in their home country. Also, pray that God is working, even now, in the hearts and life circumstances of those we will encounter. Our task is to faithfully proclaim the good news, but it is the Spirit himself who opens the eyes of the blind.

 

Please pray with us as we go.