The Results of Bended Knees

A message came this week from a dear Pastor friend who has given and prayed for us in Missions.
As a Missionary going to India for the first time our last service was at Central AOG in Yakima, WA. Though Yakima is my home, The Stone Church is my home church. In preparing to go to India, taking three small children and working hard to raise the needed pledges to go to the field had brought an awareness of the need of people praying for us as we were going. If you take your family to India, you should be prepared to participate in the life of India. Malaria, Dengue Fever, Typhoid Fever, and other diseases can easily see around you in normal living.
I knew that my mother had been a faithful intercessor for missionaries, and those whom she prayed. She would often be awakened in the night to pray for people, sometimes with a specific name- a name she did not know. Our pastor C.L. Hobson, had told about mother relating to him the story of praying for a man named Paul Finkenbinder. We had never heard of this man. All we knew that even during a period of time that my mother had cancer and was bedridden that she prayed through the night for a man she did not know.
After mothers death, our pastor met "Hermano Pablo" who Chrisma Magazine calls Paul Finkenbinder, "Latin America's Most Loved Evangelist" at a General Council of the AOG where Paul related that on that night of prayer God had spared him, his wife and children during a coupe that took place where they lived. One of those who tried to kill them said "huge men in bright white stood around the house all the night through and would not let the bullets or the men in to harm the family."
As a missionary going to India I knew that my mother had been used to pray. On that last night of service I told the story of my mother and her prayer and my appeal was to ask for prayer partners who would stand with us and pray for our family, ministry and lives as we worked in India. It was at this service I met Rev. Lowell Van Vleck. I had heard of him and knew his father, mother and brother but I was a boy when Lowell went away from Yakima into military service. After the service Lowell introduced himself and said "God spoke to him to be in service that evening, he was from Florida just visiting town, and now that he heard me speak he knew why." He was to tell me a story- about my mother and prayer for him.
Lowell reports "In many sermons, I have referred to the faithfulness of your MOM to intercede in prayer for me, especially when I was on the Ticonderoga Aircraft Carrier way back in 1955 and 1956 -- and God spared my life because your MOM was holding me up in prayer in the wee hours of the morning. There were 13 of my shipmates killed that night and I was spared by just taking just 3 steps away from where they were killed. I will always be grateful for her prayers. " Lowell and Margie Van Vleck know and understand personally the power of prayer and what it means to living in ministry in difficult situations.
I hope that we will be men and women of prayer. Lowell's testimony is that prayer brings results.

Knees Needed - Still - Dengue Fever in SE Asia

I hope you will "Take a Missions Moment and pray for S.E. Asia and our friends Roland and Kieng Heck in Cambodia, who ask for prayer specifically in regards to dengue fever in their nation.

Dengue fever is a flu-like illness spread by the bite of an infected mosquito.
Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a severe, often fatal, complication of dengue fever.

Pray for the stop of the spread of "Dengue Fever". It has hit hard in S.E. Asia: These are figures in June for the following area. It has not peaked out yet as they have just started their rainy season.
11,000 cases and 14 deaths in Thailand
20,000 cases and 48 deaths in Malaysia
68,000 cases and 748 deaths in Indonesia

Dengue affects 50 million people per year. There is no vaccine or treatment. It involves high fever, debilitating lethargy and joint pain. That is why it is called break bone fever.

A dengue epidemic last year nearly put a Cambodian Hospital out of business. Some 7,500 sufferers of the life-threatening fever sought help at Kantha Bopha. Many required emergency blood transfusions, and each one had to undergo blood tests--at $50 each. At the end of 1998, Richner was left with a $2 million budgetary shortfall. What to do? A talented cellist and a celebrated comic musician in Switzerland, Beat Richner, 53-year-old Swiss pediatrician returned there to make media appeals and to play in charity concerts. The short trip generated enough cash to save the hospital. Richner takes a number of fundraising tours each year, but cannot be away too long. "They need me here, but if I have no money, what will I do?"

The Kantha Bopha Children's Hospitals in Cambodia report that in April 07 they hospitalized 1200 severe Dengue cases. In May 07 it jumped to 3200 severe cases. The first week in June 07 there were 1254 severe Dengue cases. They report the mortality rate of dengue cases in their hospitals at 1.2%.

When our daughter Jamie had dengue fever we were concerned for her life as five other deaths were reported in the Sidapet area of Madras where we lived. Very high temperatures, raging fever, bleeding from the nose and ears and hair came out in handfuls but after a month or so she recovered and was well. She can tell you first hand how terrible the experience was. There are, I believe, three or more strains of dengue fever. A person could get it again (even though they may become immune to one strain). Fasting and prayer were an important part of the recovery.
"Every child should have a right to the best possible treatment. Instead, [international bodies] promote a policy of poor medicine for poor people in poor countries." "We should not treat poor people like this. It is just like the Titanic, where they blocked the exits of the third-class passengers so that the first-class passengers could save themselves."

We do well in saving ourselves. It is a lost world needing Jesus, and without hope and healing they may not be saved. Think about it?

Praying for Missionary Children

It was amazing what God did to bring our family through health crisis issues that threatened to take the lives of our children. Each of our children were spared by God's intervention, and by fasting and prayer. God responds when righteous men and women pray. We are made righteous by and through Him. This is the issue we must remember.

As we returned to the States, it was always surprising to me the ways in which Satan had intended to destroy our children. Living on the mission field in India exposed us to the various diseases of Indian life: typhoid fever, malaria, dengue fever, and other diseases.

Living in this United States has that same potential for both good and evil. There is a sense that darkness lurks, "seeking to devour" kids and young people who know the Lord. I have the feeling Satan would be "seeking to devour" missionary kids and pastors' children even moreso. He does this through temptation to join the crowd, alcohol, drugs, yes, all the stuff that kills, maims and destroys. Why? To stop those who are called, to hinder the vision, mission and life of those who have been sent and feel a burden for the nation and people they are called to. To strike the children, results in the life and calling of a missionary being hindered.

Prayer for missionary children is a vital part in your prayering for missions. Protection, encouragement, and the move of God on their lives is so important to the success of a missionary family being on the mission field and preaching the gospel. In your praying for the children, marriages, and homes, it strengthened the work of God and the lives of the missionary families going and living in mission fields of the world. Please pray for missionary children!