As we are excitedly anticipating the arrival of some good friends from Chad this evening, I’m reminded of the importance of prayer.  When we were living in Chad, we would always let friends know of our travel plans so that they could pray for our trip.  And we likewise did the same for them.  Travel was not an easy thing, with rough roads, sometimes breakdowns, and sometimes also rebels.  Thankfully we had few breakdowns and no personal encounters with rebels during our time in Chad, but those are very real possibilities, and it could have been the prayer of friends that God used to spare us and others of that.  Even when we had our vehicle carjacked from our family at gun and knife point, we felt incredible peace during the incident.

Obviously prayer does not just go to the safety of colleagues overseas, it’s all for the purpose of bringing the good news of new life, new hope through Jesus to people who have never heard of Him and are hungry to know.  There are many situations that missionaries go through each day, and probably many more that they and we are unaware of, that God has used or spared us from because of people praying.