Equip Disciples 

Pray for:
*Excellence in preparation
*Spirit's leading
*Wisdom in presentation
*Good Health-both physical and spiritual
*Protection-both physical and spiritual
*One heart and mind
*Communication across language and cultural barriers
*For translators to be accurate and focused

Visit our Website EquipDisciples.org

*New resources under Resources

*Read up on Kenya and Congo in the trip preparation section

Church Leadership Conferences

As you know, we are preparing for a couple of church leadership conferences in Africa this summer.

Pray for the Conference Participants

Kenya - participants are rural and urban church leaders.  This region is 50% Christian and 50% Muslim.  Poverty, sex trade, and drugs are prevalent. The church is weak due to syncretism--the mixing of tribal rituals and beliefs with Christianity. Pray for their strengthening and the bringing down of strongholds. We will be teaching Biblical worldview, preaching, missions topics, HIV/AIDS awareness, sexual abuse and ritual abuse counseling, computers in ministry, Bible Study software (for urban pastors), and SS workshops.
 
DR Congo - participants are rural church leaders directly affected by the violence of militias in their villages. DR Congo is 50% syncretistic Catholic, about 25% Christian, and 10% Muslim, 15% tribal religion. Christianity is largely syncretistic and holds to strong tribal identities. Pornography, drugs, and abuse of women--including rape, wife beating, and abandonment--are common. As a result of many years of civil wars and violence from militias, there is a lot of mistrust, lack of reconciliation, hatred, immorality, corruption, and syncretism that weakens the church. We will be teaching worldview discipleship topics specifically aimed at teaching them to follow Jesus more closely, missions topics, SS workshop, HIV/AIDS awareness and ministry, sexual abuse and ritual abuse counseling, women in ministry, and Bible study topics.
 
Child Soldiers in DR Congo - participants are youth ages 13-16 who have escaped or left the militia life and are now trying to live as citizens. They have already have established contact and relationship with the ministry we are working with there in Congo. We will be leading a youth camp for them consisting of discipleship, evangelism, team work activities, sharing times, basketball, ultimate Frisbee, and woodworking.  Pray for us as we are planning to teach the youth how to cut trees, dry wood, frame a house, and finish it out. Our ministry will be donating hand tools (not power tools!) for them to continue this skill once we leave. The idea is for them to have a source of income, as well as to bring restitution to the people in the mountains who have had their houses burned to the ground by militias. We hope this will not only be a skill, but a means of their restoration back into society, and for the reconciliation of the people together. In addition, we will be presenting studies very clearly defining the Kingdom of Darkness, and the Kingdom of Light...and how one comes into the Kingdom of Light through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray for many to come to know Him.

Pray for Funding

We still need funds for some of the participants, as well as for some of our team members. In each location we will be providing study Bibles, the African Bible Commentary, MegaVoices in some languages, Bible study software for those with computers, and worldview discipleship materials which can be used among literate and illiterate people of all ages. Our equipping is not only during the teaching time we have with the people, but also in the distribution of resources they can use for ministry. Most of these ministers live in poverty (with exception to some in the urban areas), and do not have any resources. Many do not have Bibles. Some resources we will subsidize the cost, some we will give away for free.

A Note on Prayer

Paul was a traveling missionary who went about sharing the Gospel and strengthening the churches. But he knew that this great task required much prayer. What kind of things did Paul pray for as a missionary? Here are some examples. We ask that you pray these things for us and for those to whom we will minister.
 

• Philippians 1:9-11 (HCSB) "And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
• Colossians 1:9-14 (HCSB) "For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven't stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
• 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2 (HCSB) "Pray for us, brothers, that the Lord's message may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith."

 
Thank you for your Prayers!