Our hillside apartment has two normal sized windows and a couple ventilation windows. The only one we can see out of has a pretty nice view of the city. I like to look out and pray over it. In fact, I feel like God has given us plenty of opportunities to pray with this new work. I have never really started a work from scratch before; which I guess the church in Recife has laid some ground work here, but there has never really been anyone working in the city. So starting from scratch, the only people I know, I have just met and barely know. In fact, I wrote out all the people that I actually know the name of, in the whole city. I am up to 15 names, 20 with some of the soccer guys from Thursday night.
The other time that is good to pray I already mentioned in an earlier post and that is my early morning walks with Anna Claire. Today we went to another high point that overlooks the back part of our hill. It is a neat view. I noticed another city or major part of this city that is a little separated and wondered about the church status there.
I still think that God could do an amazing work in this region, but I know it is going to take time. Living in our fast-food/microwave world we want everything right now, but reality is that it will take time.
Another time I pray is right after meeting someone. I think about the possibility of them coming to know Christ, or being a potential church member or I wonder how God could work in their lives. That wonder turns to prayer and it is neat to see how natural the thought is even though I do not consider myself someone who prays often. But with the circumstances we are in, it is easier to think about prayer; basically because we feel like if a church starts out here, it is not because of our ability, it is because God has gone before us. This definitely strengthens my faith. Today I met back to back with two potential church members. Both have either made a profession or been in a church before and both expressed interest in someday visiting the church (once we have one, that is a bit far away right now).
Another reason to pray is the water situation here. Last Friday morning we were excited because they filled up the water box and our apartment building had running water. They told us how big the box is and that it would last a while. Well, either it was not filled all the way, or there definition of a while is different than ours, but 6 days after its filling, it seems to be empty again. My prayers go like this: Thank you Lord for a wife that has a good attitude about this, help us to have water soon, help us to put up with this, and let it rain! They say after 3-4 good rains the water problems will stop. They also say that the politicians have promised sometime in March the city will have water lines from other cities and it will greatly improve the water situation....or something like that. Politicians usually are not the most honest...
So the situation here has been good to help me practice what I have preached lately, and that is on prayer. May we not be so dependent on ourselves!
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