About 650 Christian leaders from across the USA will gather for this "post" Lausanne gathering being arranged by the Mission America Coalition (MAC).
Paul Cedar, Chairman of MAC has said, "One of the major ministries of the Mission America Coalition/U.S. Lausanne Committee (MAC/USLC) is to convene Christian leaders to focus upon how we can be more effective in ministering together to invite as many people as possible to become disciples of Jesus Christ…We will spend a lot of time around tables praying, interacting, and strategizing together both in our general plenary sessions and in 30 affinity consultations."
Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with great unity and clarity for this strategic gathering. May there be valuable new ministry initiatives to reach the increasingly diverse society of Americans as well as real breakthroughs in spiritual revival and social transformation.
Prayer Concerns:
1. For the eight planning task forces and their coordinators- Program, Logistics, Mobilization (including the Media Strategy Group), Finance, Registration/Website, Youth, Children, and Prayer Support- that they will all be led of the Lord to work diligently, joyfully, and unitedly together.
2. Since the word “world” adds a great deal of complexity and challenge to the planning process- we hope to have 5000-7000 ministry leaders from all 220 nations- pray for excellent organization on the part of the Indonesians and Koreans who are co-hosting the event, for the International Coordination Team, and for the right people from every nation to hear about the WPA and participate.
3. For the WPA Concert of Prayer in Indonesia this year in 100 plus cities on May 17, 2011 that it will be well organized, anointed and blessed. It will also serve as preparation for the WPA that is one year to follow.
4. Pray for protection over the WPA and all of those working on it. The spiritual battle, as you can imagine is intense.
5. Pray finally for a breakthrough in funding- approximately $2.3 million is needed.
Please also help us get word of the WPA out to “ministry leaders of influence” who will represent the “seven mountains” of society (Arts/Media, Business/Marketplace, Church, Development of the Poor, Education, Family, and Government) who should be part of the WPA. Again, for more information, please have them see www.worldprayerassembly.com where they can also register their interest in participating.
Our goal is to mobilize focused, fervent, united intercessory prayer of God’s people in every region of the world on April 14th for the Raising up of a New Generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world.
This September 19-21, several hundred local church leaders, supported by 50 international prayer leaders and intercessors, will gather in Seoul for a special prayer initiative—PINK (Prayer Initiative for North Korea). Goals as mapped out by the Korean organizers are: 1) To see real breakthroughs in the critical issues on North Korea; 2) As one of the stepping stones for the World Prayer Assembly—to connect various prayer networks before WPA and to receive strategies on global prayer issues; 3) To build up ongoing national and regional prayer networks in East Asia. If you are in prayer ministry and are interested to participate, please let our office know.
Robert Park, a Christian human rights activist who was imprisoned for three months last year by the Pyongyang regime, has repeatedly called for concerted prayer and action for the liberation of North Korea. In his April 20, 2011 article in the Washington Post, Park calls on the international community to stop the “genocide” that has been occurring in North Korea. This is also a call to prayer for God’s deliverance since Scripture encourages us to intercede for His transformation of nations. As one theologian has affirmed, “history belongs to the intercessors” (Walter Wink). Let us fervently pray with faith-filled expectation during these months leading up to September’s initiative, trusting the Lord to bring real change inside this deeply oppressed nation.
Here are a few excerpts from Park’s provocative article that should move our hearts to care and intercede:
“Holocaust” is the word used to describe the systematic extermination of millions of innocent European Jews during World War II. In the aftermath of this mammoth failure of humanity, many nations “repented” and declared that “never again” would such inhumanity and absolute disregard for human dignity and life be tolerated.
Yet on Jan. 1, the regime of Kim Jong Il warned that a “nuclear holocaust” would be inevitable if South Korea engaged the North in war. While the world watches peoples in the Middle East and North Africa rise up against tyranny, another people suffers on the Korean Peninsula. And that Pyongyang so irreverently invoked this term to describe its so-called necessary defense is a stark reminder of the genocidal and inhumane nature of Kim Jong Il’s regime and the atrocities it has committed against millions of innocents.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, called on the international community in 2004 to investigate “political genocide” in North Korea. In response to reports of “North Korea’s use of gas chambers to murder and perform medical experiments on political dissidents and their families” and the “chilling image of the murderers coolly watching their victims’ death agonies...all too reminiscent of Nazi barbarism,” the group’s chairman, Avner Shalev, wrote to then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that “the issue is all the more severe due to North Korea’s status as a member of the U.N.”
“An estimated 1 million innocent men, women and children have been murdered in North Korean political concentration camps since 1972, academics believe. Virtually nothing has been done to speed the closure of these camps since 2004, though the testimony of tens of thousands of refugees provides mounting evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide.
Outside observers and nongovernmental organizations estimate that 3.5 million North Koreans died of starvation between 1995 and 1997. They continue to die in huge numbers in a government-organized famine akin to the Holodomor famine-genocide in Ukraine (1932-33), which was orchestrated by Joseph Stalin. Billions in humanitarian aid have been shipped to North Korea, more than enough to feed the nation’s population, but government and academic studies have revealed that North Korea systematically diverted the aid, using it to bolster its military might while millions, for whom the aid was intended, starved to death. “
“North Korea has been considered the world’s worst persecutor of Christians for many years by objective researchers of religious persecution such as Open Doors and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Soon Ok Lee, one of the few survivors of the North Korean concentration camp system, has testified before Congress and later told MSNBC that “since the Korean War—in Korea they call it June 25 War—the No. 1 enemy is God. Kim Il Sung hated God most.”
It is common knowledge among refugees and people who follow North Korea that those discovered to have any kind of faith or religious belief—and their families, to three generations—are executed or sent to concentration camps for life. This constitutes genocide under Article 2 of the convention; consequently, the world has not only the moral duty but also the legal right and obligation, under Article 8, to intervene.”
Please pray with us for the liberation of North Korea and for the effective planning and success of this crucial initiative!
THANK YOU for your prayers during the last 21 days of concentrated prayer for the border!
Here are just a FEW of the praise reports that came in while we were praying:
• April 15 – Prayer Initiative begins
• April 17 – A Zetas drug gang leader was arrested for the worst mass killings in Mexico’s narcotics war.
• April 16-17 – Mexican security forces arrested 32 people during raids in Tula and Tulancingo, Hidalgo state, including 28 suspected members of Los Zetas.
• April 19 – Weekend snare nets a quarter-million dollars worth of cocaine at the border checkpoint south of San Clemente.
• April 20 – Based on a tip, Mexican police raided a house in Reynosa (Nuevo Leon state) and freed 68 people who had been kidnapped from a bus by cartel gunmen. This is the third rescue of its kind in Reynosa in just two weeks. Sate police in Nuevo Leon also arrested 45 local policemen in the town of Cadereyta. The local cops are charged with corruption and having ties to Los Zetas drug cartel.
• April 21 – Mexican authorities arrested Marco Antonio Gomez, an alleged Zetas drug cartel lawyer who in charged with managing ransom and extortion payments.
• April 26 – Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency seized weapons and an estimated 7.7 tons of marijuana from a warehouse in the Magana neighborhood of Tijuana. The cache had a street value of more than $10 million on the U.S. market.
• April 28 – 104 bodies were found in hidden graves since April 11. They had been buried for a minimum of one year.
• April 28 – 29 suspected members of Los Zetas were arrested including 10 police officers, who are suspected of participating in an attack on the Tula security coordinator’s office and in firefights in Pachuca and Zempoala, El Universal.
• April 29 – Benjamin Arellano Felix, the reputed leader of the Tijuana cartel from the 1980s until his arrest in 2002, which was one of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels, was extradited to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges, the Mexican Attorney General’s office announced. Felix is one of the highest-profile cartel members extradited under the administration of President Felipe Calderon. (Mexico’s Senate gave a quick nod to an anti-money laundering law targeting the financial structions of the country’s increasingly powerful drug cartels. )
• May 1 – Security forces arrested 26 members of the police force in Tarandacuao, Guanajuato state, for allegedly cooperating with La Familia Michoacana.
• Numerous illegal attempts to cross the border with drugs, weapons, or other ill intent were thwarted at the gate.
Most notably, Juarez, which is known for having the worst crime rate in the world, closed out the month of April with the lowest number of violent deaths in 14 months.
Yuma is classified as being under “operational control”, and the number of immigrants apprehended plummeted from 138,460 in 2005 to 7,116 in 2010 (The Arizona Republic). The smuggling operations that used to run through Yuma now run through Tucson sector. The topography of the Tucson region, environmental regulations, poor radio communication, and federal restrictions on building more towers have prevented agents from being effective. The mountains make illegal activity easy to hide.
Please pray:
• For the drug and human trafficking, gang crimes, and corruption in government and business sectors in Mexico to continue to be found out, brought to justice, and that order, security, and peace will return to the land.
• For the Tucson/Yuma borders to have continued success in stopping the drug/human trafficking.
• For the places of illegal activity to be revealed.
• For wisdom for the authorities and planning engineers to find effective/efficient ways to monitor, secure, and stop and border regions.
On 11 March 2011 (now often called by the Japanese, "3/11"), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami up to 38 meters (124 feet) in height hit Eastern Japan, known as "Tohoku." These two disasters were followed by a crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant which was hit by the earthquake and tsunami and consequently began to emit high levels of radioactive substances. Over 25,000 are dead or missing and over 300,00 people displaced. As of 1 May, the nuclear crisis is yet to be fully resolved.
Generous aid and assistance has come to Japan. As one small part, in March, Dr. Joe Ozawa led a team of intercessors to Iwaki, Fukushima, near the nuclear exclusion zone of the damaged reactor. and with local residents, they "stood in the gap between the living and the dead," (Nu 16). Joining with Korean and Chinese people of prayer, the Japanese intercessors then prayed over strategic points in Tokyo. Dr. Ozawa also taught many seminars on "Tohoku humanitarian emergency response: Counseling and Healing," to volunteers, NGOs/NPOs, university students, church workers, and those who were involved in disaster response.
Please pray for:
1. The love, life, and truth of Jesus Christ (John 10:10 and John 14:6) to be poured out upon the Japanese people.
2. The “deception” over the Japanese regarding “death” (esp. ancestor worship) to be broken and their eyes opened to the truth of “eternal life” through Christ.
3. Dr. Ozawa’s message that humanitarian crisis and disaster response requires a holistic approach (relief work + emotional / relational healing + spiritual development in Christ) go forth like ripples to all those in the nation to whom the Lord wants to hear this message.
4. In His divine mercy, the Lord contain any further nuclear crises and withhold any future catastrophic disasters from Japan.
Thank you.
A big breakthrough in the fight against child sex trafficking was recently reported by BBC News. Please see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12762333?OCID=fbwin Let’s be encouraged and continue to pray for the protection and deliverance of children. As a law enforcement official affirms in the article: "We will not allow these offenders to carry on committing these awful crimes against young children. We will not rest until we have identified every offender that has been active in this network and others that might be operating on the internet."
Also, in the realm of film making, check out the documentary from Exodus Cry which is releasing in theaters and across college campuses: Nefarious: Merchant of Souls.
“The World Weekend of Prayer for children at risk is held every year over the first weekend of June. This global initiative brings together more than 2 million people across 89 countries. Whether you attend a nationwide event, plan something with your church, got to a prayer breakfast, or simply spend a quiet 5 minutes praying in your own home, we would love you to stand with us in interceding for the children of the world.” Viva, the organizing force behind this special international prayer initiative, has prepared many helpful resources to enable you and your church to pray effectively for the children of our world. You can find them at www.viva.org/world-weekend-of-prayer.aspx
Viva’s CEO Patrick McDonald describes the initiative this way: “This World Weekend of Prayer is a monumental moment, but not a moment to persuade God to get with it—He is there already. This is a time for him to convince us to get with it and take children more seriously.” Viva’s hope for this year’s WWP is to “see many more eyes opened to the needs of God’s children.”