Thank you for praying for our island sister Rachel. Here is an update from this past weekend. The judge told Rachel that she needed to go to the Justice Department on Saturday with her paperwork. So, she went. Long story short, the Head of the Justice Department said that no one has a right to take her property and if anyone comes, her father or her father’s brother or anyone else, and tries to claim the property or tries to intimidate her into leaving, Rachel is to take a photo of the person and send it to the Justice Department and that person will be arrested. Also, the Head of the Justice Department said that she is free to follow Jesus and share her faith. This was all incredible news, but the Lord wasn’t done. An hour or two after Rachel shared this news with me on Saturday, she called me and said that the Justice Department had called her. They said that her father had gone to the Justice Department since she’d been there and he told the majority faith judge that he has dropped all charges against Rachel and as far as he is concerned she is free to do whatever she wants. Praise God for defending his daughter!

Please pray for a local man, Uhaju, who at one time made a commitment to Jesus but has struggled without community. We prayed for him and his wife to get pregnant, which happened, but now their newborn baby has died. Pray for comfort and somehow something good to come out of this. Ask God to draw Uhaju and his wife to Himself.

Our partners from another organisation have made some videos with stories
from our Book to go on Facebook. People will be able to contact someone if they
want to know more and it will connect them to a local brother/sister who has been
trained to connect with people over messages/calls. Please pray for these videos to
be well-received and lead many to Jesus.

Some of the i2 lady believers have continued to persevere in meeting on the 1st and the 15th of every month. Pray for the momentum to continue. Pray for Jesus to become the most important thing in the lives of all the local believers. May they be transformed by the Good News.

Pray for our island sister ‘Rachel’ whose father is threatening to tear her house down and take her land after hearing she has become a believer.  She continues to choose Jesus over worldly possessions. Pray for a radical change in her father’s heart. May he have an encounter with Jesus and be transformed. Pray for Rachel to lean into the Sprit’s wisdom regarding this whole situation and may she have patience to wait on the Lord’s timing for her next steps. Pray too for other islanders watching what’s happening with Rachel to feel emboldened to ask questions about the great treasure that Rachel has found in Jesus.

On the medical team on the plateau, team member J has been helping local believer
‘Harvey’ to lead a seeker through Romans. This weekend J asked the seeker if he
believed Jesus died for his sins and if he followed Him, and he said yes! Thank Father with us for this wonderful news, and ask for wisdom for ‘Harvey’ in leading him through next steps, as J leaves on home assignment this weekend.

Pray for a translation workshop on translating epistles happening this week. Translators from across the three islands will be coming. May the Lord grant patience, clear communication, and insight as so many different languages and cultures will be present. Pray also for S’rg as he leads the workshop, for peace, protection over logistics and technology, and for fellowship as workshops like this one offer a chance for greater bonding between the translation teams who don’t often see each other in person.

Down in the capital the local sisters were meeting monthly to read together and
support each other, but this hasn’t been happening since the main leader ‘Esther’ and
some of the other more confident women travelled. Please ask that, now more
people are back, they would get back into meeting regularly.

Pray for the saved on our island to grow in service to one another and in the knowledge of God. May they grow in using their spiritual gifts in love, patience, and humility for the good of the whole body. There are many different small expressions of the church around the capital region. May those who teach and shepherd teach and shepherd with the measure they have been gifted, encouraging all to serve with the gifts Jesus has given them that they may grow in the full knowledge of God, being mature in Christ who is the head.

The believing couple that got married a couple weeks ago are planning a celebration service
with the local body today. May the Lord be honored, the believers encouraged, and
the couple properly celebrated. Believers marriage celebrations are still very rare here. May
this service inspire future believing couples in how they approach marriage. Another believing
couple are considering marriage, having only expressed interest in each other
recently. May the Lord grant that they can hear Him through their emotions for one
another. Proverbs 15:22 “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they
succeed.” And also praise that believers are wanting to marry believers!

Pray for the distribution of audio listening devices with Scripture in the local language
on them. Pray for wisdom in who to give them to. Pray for the Living Word of God to
transform the lives of islanders as they listen and engage.

Translation work continues. Please pray for a new local translator who joined the project this week. Pray for wisdom to translate well. There are multiple open doors for Bible study with locals. Pray for the Lord to reveal Himself in His Word.

Translation teams are hard at work across the islands. Each island has its own language and the Word needs to be translated into each language to make it easy and comfortable to use. We praise the Lord for every person who has helped translate the Word into island languages so far.
Each island has a portion of the Word printed, and more available on phone apps.
Please ask the Father to encourage and protect our translators, and use His Word to
bring many to salvation.

The Vanilla Island believers had a meeting last week with ‘Esther’, a believing leader from Clove Island. She challenged them to be in the Word regularly and to be meeting together regularly. The men and the women split up and each group made plans to meet bi-monthly. Pray that they would follow through on their commitments. Pray too that each one who truly claims the name of Jesus would be transformed by the Good News in such a way that other islanders will see the difference and be drawn to the Lord.

We rejoice with a believing couple on this island who got married this week. The
husband is from this island and it is still rare to have local believers marrying other
believers. (Just last month a Christian leader was married to a Muslim.) May the Lord bless this new marriage and grant it to be an example and light to other local believers as they walk out their singleness/married lives in faithfulness to Jesus.

Ma Fiona is the wife of ‘Aiden’, a brother on the plateau. She has never shown an
interest in learning more about Jesus. She is a quiet lady but keen for friendship, and
recently we’ve been able to have more spiritual conversations with her. Please ask that her heart would be open to studying the word with us, and that she would see the reason for Aiden’s hope and join him!

On the plateau, medical team member J had been having encouraging meetings with
two seekers, but both have pulled back recently. Pray the Lord will stir their hearts and give them courage to continue seeking after Truth.

The local lady believers are planning to study together on the 1st and the 15th of
every month. Also, the ladies have been paired off by our island sister, ‘Rachel’, with the hope that each pair will connect throughout the month. Pray for this new endeavor to go well. May the ladies be excited and motivated to meet together. May they begin to thrive through more regular fellowship.

One team member will start studying the Word with a family (a man, his brother and
his wife). They have watched The Chosen show with French subtitles and want to
know more about the man in the show! Pray Jesus will reveal Himself to them.

A couple of women who work with local brother ‘Harvey’ are very close to accepting Jesus as Lord, or may already have done so. But they are isolated out on the south coast, not near either of our teams. Ask for wisdom in how to support them best. Praise the Lord He is the Good Shepherd and cares for His sheep.

Pray for the Word apps to continue to be shared, especially the books of John and Mark. Pray people would be excited to read the Word in their heart language and that their hearts would be open to the Truth.

We are doing a version of the Alpha course with some interested islanders. So far 8 islanders (both men and women) have been faithfully coming. Pray that this course would bear fruit in their lives and that they would share what they are learning with others.

On Saturday we are recording some new praise songs with new singers. Pray that it is a blessing to many people and that the message is understood and causes many to seek to know the God we sing about!

Please pray for Bo (a believer) who is currently in Madagascar but has not
connected with Jay and Zina who used to mentor him. He seems to be avoiding them. Pray he would seek fellowship and grow in his faith.

Mama A’s daughter has been having trouble sleeping. It seems like she may be being disturbed by evil spirits. She believes in Jesus, but some in her family do not. Please pray for protection for her and salvation for her family.

Pray for the cholera epidemic ravaging our island (daily numbers are still around 150 new cases each day on i3). Pray for the workers on i3— the past couple weeks have included several difficult circumstances. Pray that the kingdom work would continue unabated.
The i3 believers hosted a prayer meeting on Sunday for the big problems on the islands
(cholera, economy, government, the good news to spread). Pray that their prayers would be answered!

Thank the Lord for allowing the youth camp to take place! The camp was very positive! Pray for these young people, that what they have heard will impact and transform them.

We want to start a Bible study group with women but it has been difficult to organize- there is always a “problem”. Pray for a breakthrough in finding a good time and for people to commit to coming.
We also want to share once a month the good news with our neighbours through a Sunday morning brunch. Pray people would come.

A close friend A (a believer) has recently moved back into our village. He has been estranged from his family and village community for many years. Pray that relationships may be restored and that he would work out how to live out his faith in the village.

One sister talked this week about feeling sometimes she has to hide (especially in the increased pressure to conform this month of fasting). But she senses that, before too long, the body won’t have to hide at all, will be able to meet openly and tell everyone who they are! Pray that it would be so! In the meantime, pray that God would give the body wisdom and discernment about when to be cautious and when to be bold. Pray for them as the island celebrates the end of fasting this week and some scrutiny lifts.

Please pray for our local sister, Rachel, who is in West Africa for training. She thought she would be away for 1 month but it turns out the training is 2 months long so she will not be back until the end of April. Please pray for her children who are still here being watched by other folks. Pray the training is worth it!

Pray that the seeds planted during Easter conversations would grow and lead to many islanders knowing the Risen Savior. Pray for the i3 body as they decide the best day and way to meet as a larger group and whether to wait for the fasting month to end before doing so. May the Spirit guide!

Each evening islanders will spend up to several hours completing extra sets of ritual prayers. Pray that these prayers would leave them feeling empty and dissatisfied. Pray that they would long for a relationship with God. Pray that they would begin to pour out their hearts to him in their own language and own words.

The Island national anthem declares that they are one people, one religion, one blood – to be an islander is to be a Muslim and islanders are very proud of their Islamic heritage and identity. However, recently a controversy stirred when an Island historian showed that the original wording did not include ‘one religion’ but was rather one tongue or language. Words shape us and the national anthem is sung regularly (particularly by children). Pray with us that this month the winds of change would really blow through these islands and long held ideas and beliefs would be uprooted. Pray that a new chapter in Island history would begin and ask God to reveal himself through the power of the Holy Sprit.

One team member is getting to share with a group of men in his village regularly. He has been able to use recently translated and recorded scripture as he meets with them. Praise Him for this opportunity, and also for the newly created resources that are being used. May their hearts respond.

‘He will quiet you with his love’. This is a particularly testing month for local believers as they come under extra scrutiny and pressure to conform. Many are isolated from one another and walk a lonely path. Pray that the additional pressure would only serve to press them ever closer to Jesus, and that He would quiet them with his love.

Pray for the social media accounts that have been created to share verses and songs in the local language. Let’s pray that God uses this channel to reach many people. Pray for all the resources in local languages to be widely shared and thoughtfully read.

There are 3 new believers on our island! 1 couple and 1 single! All led to Jesus by our sister “R” (same one from last week who is traveling for training). Pray for them as “R” is away and for their hearts to grow in love and devotion to Jesus!

Please pray for the situation on the island: the island is paralyzed by blockades of demonstrators against different things (insecurity, illegal immigration, educational level, etc.). As a result, the hatred grows more and more. Young people can no longer go to school, and many young people are fighting in the street. Pray that in this chaos people will truly and sincerely seek God, and that they will discover the Christ who liberates.

Let’s pray for the demonstrators: That they may become aware of their even greater problem: the wrath of God and his coming judgment.
– Let’s pray that God reveals himself to people through dreams, through visions, and reveals to them the real Jesus. Let’s pray that all the barriers and lies that Islam has produced here will be destroyed, and that the truth will be revealed.

Please pray for our local sister “R” as she is traveling to Central Africa for a 40 day training by an African Christian group. Pray for her children that she is leaving behind with family and pray for the Lord to bless this training and prepare her for fruitful ministry.