An attack on 28 November by Boko Haram terrorists on farmers working in rice fields in northeastern Nigeria killed at least 110 people. ‘The incident is the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians this year. Many women are also believed to have been kidnapped. Security forces and volunteer vigilante groups are searching to find people still missing. Locals say they recovered 43 bodies in villages near Maiduguri, the capital of the restive Borno state, which has been plagued by an armed campaign for over ten years. A local resident said, ‘Nobody knows the exact number of people killed. We can’t account for farmers who were there; we don’t know if they are hiding in the bush or if they were kidnapped.’ Pray for God to comfort the mourners. See also
Indonesia: terrorist attack
03 Dec 2020
On 27 November, around 7:30 am, Nei was having breakfast with her husband, Yasa, and saw about ten unknown people visiting Naka, at a nearby house. Soon after that terrorists Ali Kalora and Jaka Ramadan entered the house and took Yasa and Nei outside. Yasa was tied up, stabbed in the back, then decapitated with a machete. One of the terrorists, near Yasa’s house, gave a signal to villagers to flee, allowing several witnesses and children to escape. Naka and his son Pedi were set on fire, as was their house and eight other homes. Terrorists also torched the Salvation Army house of worship. Another Christian, Pinu, was stabbed to death. Approximately 750 people fled their homes after the attack. Police suspect militants with allegiance to IS carried out the violence, as the leader of the outlawed group was seen at the scene of the crime.
Turkey: Kurdish region injustice continues
03 Dec 2020
The police forces in Turkey’s Kurdish region resemble occupying armies. Government-appointed mayors, police brutality and armies of imams have altered society’s fabric. Allegations against Special Forces of rape and sexual harassment are ignored. If such accusations are publicised, officials will dismiss it as affairs between soldiers and girls who want to marry them. A former mayor commented, ‘It is better that they are involved in prostitution than protesting the government.’ A young Kurd who photographed a policeman killing an innocent Kurd in 2017 now faces twenty years in prison, while the policeman goes unpunished. Also recently hundreds of army officers, pilots and civilians were jailed for life for taking part in the 2016 attempted coup to overthrow President Erdoğan. The acquittal of the police officer and the hundreds jailed comes when Erdogan is trying to attract foreign investors. Even the simplest reforms would demand drastically altering the way Turkey polices, prosecutes, judges, and imprisons its residents. See
US election 2020: Trump challenge
03 Dec 2020
Electors from each state meet on 14 December to nominate the next president formally, but Trump wants to overturn the result, and challenges the Pennsylvania result. His legal team claims voters in Democrat-leaning areas were given more opportunities to correct mistakes on their postal ballots than elsewhere, and over 680,000 postal ballots were counted without proper oversight from poll watchers. They lost the case but then took it to a federal appeals court where it was also rejected. The judge said, ‘Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and proof. We have neither here.’ The team intends taking the case to the Supreme Court. The government's top lawyer, William Barr, said, ‘We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.’ Challenges are dropped or settled in most other states as 14 December looms.
India: fighting malaria
03 Dec 2020
India has made ’impressive gains’ in its fight against malaria. The number of cases and deaths caused by the mosquito-borne disease has seen a marked drop, according to the WHO. From nearly 20 million cases in 2000, there were just 5.6 million in 2019. In the past two years India has reduced cases by 18% and deaths by 20%. Malaria is now limited to some hilly parts of India, with most of the districts able to reduce it to almost nil. While nearly a billion Indians live in malaria-endemic areas, 80% of cases are reported by just 20% of the population living in the forest-fringe, tribal, and foothills hard-to-reach areas of the country. The people in these places have low awareness of disease prevention and access to health care. India’s prime minister has pledged to eradicate malaria by 2030.
Greetings!
We are pleased to bring you IPC Connections for December 2020.
In our Editorial article this month, Dr Jason Hubbard brings us an inspiring Advent devotional entitled ‘Rekindling the Glory of Christmas’ which takes us through the greatest love story of all time, when God’s own Son shed his garments of glory to become Bethlehem’s Lamb. It’s a compelling read. The full eight-part series is available for download HERE.
On 1st January 2021 we will be launching a Global Family 24/7 - 365 Online Prayer Room in association with several of our partner organisations. The vision is to host worship-saturated prayer around the throne, around the clock and around the globe for the whole of 2021. Read more below about the plans and our invitation to Prayer-leaders to join us from around the world to host the 168 hourly slots each week.
We have heard encouraging news of breakthroughs with the development of vaccines for Covid-19 this last few weeks. The pandemic has now affected 63.5 million people worldwide with 1.47 million now losing their lives. We bring you up to date information on the situation along with prayer points and links to various resources.
Let’s continue to be in prayer for the United States as the results of the recent Presidential Elections are finalised. There are a number of legal challenges to the ballot counting procedures, systems and security that are still going through the courts including allegations of voter fraud. The results will be ratified by the Electoral College on December 14th. Congress will be sworn in on January 3rd 2021 and will certify the winner of the election on January 6th.
This year, November 11th marked the 400 year anniversary of the signing of the Mayflower Compact, 11-11-1620. While still aboard the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, risking their lives on a perilous ocean crossing, agreed to foundational principles for the new community they would form when they went ashore.
This document, which became known as the Mayflower compact, stated that they had come to the new world, ‘for the glory of God’ and to ‘advance the Christian faith.’ They agreed to govern themselves in a ‘civil body politic’ that would frame, ‘just and equal laws’ in the best interest of their community. May God grant to us mercy to continue in this calling and legacy. Please pray that God would bring forth justice, expose corruption in every sphere of society, and prepare us for a 3rd Great Awakening!
John Robb’s Retirement as Chairman
We are sure that you will want to join us in honoring and thanking John Robb as he steps aside as the Chairman of the International Prayer Council at the end of this month. John is a remarkable man of God who has led us tirelessly over these last nineteen years. He was one of IPC’s founding members back in 2001. John shares some of what has been achieved in his ‘Time to move on!’ article below.
We cannot let John move on quietly!! We will be following this up aptly in the New Year and would welcome receiving your short videos and / or emailed messages of appreciation of John!
Please send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 20th December.
In the meantime, we all extend our sincere love, prayers and best wishes to John and Lori for a long, happy, healthy and blessed life as they focus on other ministries they are involved with and any future ones the Lord calls them to undertake.
Dr Jason Hubbard’s Appointment as Director
Jason Hubbard will be formally taking on the leadership as our Director from January 2021, along with the Executive Team under the guidance of our newly elected Board. We will bring some further details to you all in January.
Thank you for continuing to partner with us in mobilising and informing united prayer across nations, denominations, movements, and generations for the fulfilment of the Great Commission.
May we express grateful thanks to Andy Page and the IPC Editorial Team who put this email together each month.
Wishing you and your loved ones His continued blessings at Christmas and for the New Year 2021,
Jason Hubbard - Executive Coordinator
John D Robb – Chairman
International Prayer Connect
Please use this link if you would like to sow into our ministry with a donation
Disclaimer…
The views and opinions expressed in IPC Connections and the articles on our website are those of individuals and our partner organisations. They do not necessarily represent the policies or views of IPC or its individual leaders.
We aim to respect the diversity within the prayer movement and yet embrace our unified calling to mobilise prayer for the nations. (2 Chron 7:14)
If you wish to discuss the appropriateness of any articles, please contact us.
Bethlehem’s Lamb
To rekindle the glory of Christmas is to take a fresh look at the greatest love story of all time, when God’s own Son shed his garments of glory to become Bethlehem’s Lamb. This is the story where the author of the book steps into his own tale. The Word became flesh and dwells among us. He will make himself vulnerable to pain and human suffering. He will discover the feeling of a tear rolling down his cheek. He will lay his life down as a Lamb, conquering sin and death and giving eternal life to all who believe! Oh, it’s the wonder of the ages. The glory of the incarnation, God himself now with human skin! The Creator has become a created being. Staggering! He who made man is made a man. The infinite has become an infant. The Shepherd of eternity has become Bethlehem’s Lamb.
"Your mother is a cause for wonder; the Lord entered her and became a servant; he who is the Word entered her and became silent within her; thunder entered her and made no sound; there entered the Shepherd of all, and in her he became the Lamb, bleating as he came forth. Your mother's womb has reversed the roles; the Establisher of all entered in his richness, but came forth poor; the Exalted one entered her, but came forth meek, the Splendorous One entered her, but came forth having put on a lowly hue. The Mighty One entered, and put on insecurity from her womb, the Provisioner of all entered and experienced hunger, he who gives drink to all, entered and experienced thirst; naked and stripped there came forth from her he who clothes everyone."-Ephrem the Syrian
Why Bethlehem? As the prophet spoke, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in 3 Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
(Micah 5:2)
Just seven miles outside of Jerusalem, these were the same hills where David tended his lambs. After God’s announcement came to Mary and Joseph, he sent angels to the shepherds. They were “keeping watch over their flocks by night,” which was only done during the ‘lambing season,’ when the baby lambs were being born in Bethlehem (March/April).
The only people lower than the shepherds at that particular time in Jewish history were lepers. These poor, lowly, unkempt shepherds, the last people on earth you would ever suspect, have seen what no other man on earth was privileged to see. To these lowly men an angel gives them the highest theology! These despised shepherds are the first to receive the announcement of the gospel! These men are the first to learn of “great joy for all the people.”
They understand that the gospel is not just for Israel but for all the nations that all may have this joy that comes,
“through the birth of a Savior, who is Christ-the Messiah, the LORD!” This the only time in the gospels that this phrase is used.
It’s the only time we see these 3 titles of Jesus come together, Savior, Messiah, and LORD! He will save his people from their sins, Jesus is the Christ the promised Messiah to Israel and, most staggering of all, He is Lord, He is God!
The angel not only gives the gospel to the shepherds, he reveals the true identity of Christ!
It seems God believes that high theology should be given to low people!
They saw the heavens roll open as the glory of God exploded through the night sky. They watched thousands of angels in glowing splendor declaring the glory of Christ! As Hughes writes and envisions,
“A heavenly flash and suddenly the bewildered shepherds were surrounded by angels. A great company is literally a
multitude, not 50, not 150, not 1500—but beyond count. I think every one of God’s angels was there because this
was the most amazing event that had ever happened in the entire universe…Job tells us that at the creation of the
world, ‘the morning stars (angels) sang together and all the angels shouted for joy (Job 38:7). Now the angels
again joined voices at the greatest creation of all—the birth of the God-man—perfect sympathizer and Savior”
And they heard the voice of an angel declaring the birth of a Savior. “This will be a sign to you. You will see a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)
These shepherds knew that mangers were used as feeding troughs and were found in shepherd’s caves, the place where baby lambs were born and wrapped in swaddling cloths! I can only imagine as these rugged, scraggly bearded men, approached the cave, they began to tremble and weep like babies as they looked into the face of God! I can imagine these shepherds, those who carry lambs, laying them down one by one as gifts at the foot of the manger.
But these were not just any lambs. These were Bethlehem lambs, born and bred for one purpose; to be sacrificed at the temple. Because the city of David was just outside of Jerusalem, these lambs born in the hills of Bethlehem, were born to be taken to the temple in Jerusalem and slain for sacrifice. A manger, this humble crib for a king, was the perfect place for a Lamb.
Why must he be brought forth among sheep and lambs? Because he is God’s Lamb, and a shepherd’s cave is a fitting place for a lamb. Why must shepherds be first, among all the people on the earth to attend his birth? Because shepherds always attend the birth of lambs. That’s their job. That’s their calling. And most of all why must he be born in the little town of Bethlehem? Lambs set for sacrifice were born in Bethlehem. Even as young lambs were
slain in the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus-the lamb of God- would be taken to Jerusalem to be slain.
That’s why in the greatest love story ever told, Jesus was Bethlehem’s Lamb.
Dr Jason Hubbard – Executive Coordinator
International Prayer Connect
Download the full devotional series: Rekindling the Glory of Christmas
Watch the amazing series of videos of inspiring #teachustopray 15-minute devotionals by Dr Jason Hubbard, documenting ‘The wildest stories of the Praying Church from Acts until 2020’
Brothers and Sisters who have partnered in prayer with the IPC,
It has been a great joy and adventure to be on the same journey with you these 19 years since the IPC’s formation in December, 2001. Thanks for your loving, sweet fellowship in the Lord as members of His eternal family and all that you have done to extend the international prayer movement around the world as partners in IPC.
I have been planning to step aside as chairman for a couple of years now but have wanted to make sure the IPC is in good hands for the future. Jason Hubbard and Andy Page have proven to be very capable and committed colleagues, who have faithfully demonstrated their abilities and provided good leadership along with our executive team. Also, Jason is in the process of forming a non-profit foundation to fund the IPC, so that will be a good step forward to make sure this ministry is well funded for the future. If you would like to provide financial support, it will be effectively used to continue building up the prayer movement around the world.
I will therefore be stepping aside as chairman at the end of this month to focus on other ministries and both family and personal pursuits.
I am essentially an old missionary whom the Lord began to show the power of prayer and the amazing things He can do if we practice “the ministry of availability” to Him. Starting as a mission activist who gave lip service to the importance of personal and united prayer, I was arrested by God during a personal retreat 30 years ago. As if with a megaphone in my heart, He told me to “get out of His way” and that if I took Him as my “Senior Partner”, I would see His wonders. I must testify that His word has come true in a multitude of wondrous ways as I have been privileged with others to watch Him over and over again do truly extraordinary things. Usually, they have happened when His people come together in special initiatives characterized by desperate humility -- to seek His face, often in the midst of hopeless situations of war or other intractable situations in which horrible wickedness is having its way in their nations. As God promised Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:14, our prayer facilitation teams have witnessed His staggering breakthroughs in ending wars, bringing about reconciliation among ministry and political leaders, and igniting spiritual revival that has brought about significant healing of their lands.
Such astonishing socio-political and spiritual breakthroughs were all His doing since our ministry teams and I felt so much like dependent children, often echoing an overwhelmed King Jehoshaphat in praying: “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on You.” Those experiences, much of them before the IPC was formed in 2001, were what convinced those of us who formed the IPC that the Lord wanted to bring about a global network of prayer ministries and networks that would multiply the practice of this kind of transformational prayer. Since that time, with the help of those on our leadership team, both present and past members, as well as that of many thousands of other ministry leaders and intercessors, we have seen that happen through His grace and for His glory.
Here are just some of the many things that have come about through our joint efforts with the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit:
- IPC launch in South Africa in Nov. 2002- almost 300 prayer ministry and network leaders from every region of the world came together to connect and further develop the international prayer movement.
- Prayer summits held and networks formed in virtually every region of the world (some still continuing strongly to this day).
- National prayer initiatives in countries experiencing civil wars or other serious threats with remarkable breakthroughs in many.
- Three international prayer initiatives at the United Nations with hundreds of prayer leaders and praying children along with ambassadors, praying for the U.N., its humanitarian development goals as well as other global issues.
- Children in Prayer international network formed and three global CiP consultations held.
- IPC Connections, our monthly prayer journal, published to inform and connect the world prayer movement.
- International prayer alerts to focus prayer on urgent and needy international and national situations.
- The World Prayer Assembly (2012) conducted by the IPC and the Indonesian prayer movement leaders connected several million within Indonesia and internationally in united prayer. The WPA theme, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14), continues to be felt in various follow-on initiatives made possible by that much anointed and blessed event.
- Go 2020- the IPC helped coordinate and lead the prayer mobilization that connected hundreds of thousands (both online and offline) during those World Prayer Together calls. Many prayer leaders in every region of the world played a crucial role. This world evangelism initiative which is still ongoing has so far reportedly involved an estimated 50 million believers taking the Gospel to more than 600 million, with over 9 million who have accepted Christ. (Please see the report at Go2020.world)
- We continue to connect the international prayer movement with the Go Decade (continuation of Go 2020) and other international mission/evangelism efforts towards the goal of reaching every Unreached People Group and every person with the Gospel by 2030. (Please check out www.godecade.world to find out how you can get involved.)
Thanks be to God for all the wonders we in the IPC have been able to have a part in, pooling our meagre efforts (loaves and fish) with many, many other brothers and sisters that the Master has multiplied exceedingly!
The strength of the IPC has been its close and loving relationships, much like a family which indeed we are as members of Jesus’ Body, with Him as our Head and CEO, who gives us one heart and mind as we seek Him together. Let’s pray that the IPC itself, indeed the whole prayer movement, will continue to function that way. May the best be yet to come! Certainly, “He is able to far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine” Eph. 3:20.
As long as the Lord gives life and breath, may we all be involved in a “ministry of availability” to serve as He leads.
Personally, I would still like to be one of His watchmen on the wall, trying to discern what God is doing and saying as well as what the dark realm is up to at this crucial time in world history.
Among other things, I will continue to help with the Go Decade prayer and mission effort for a while longer and possibly share articles or prayer concerns in Connections from time to time.
May our gracious Lord guide, encourage, and bless each of you in your lives and ministries and may His best be yet to come for each of you!
Yours in Christ,
John
John D Robb – Chairman
International Prayer Connect