Category Archives: Please Pray

Update on Ministry of Todd & Angela Owen

post

Please Pray: December 10, 2013

Posted on by

December 3 we asked for special prayer, noting that the level of spiritual warfare had greatly increased since beginning this 40 day season. This week we ask that you continue to pray with increased fervor. We are indeed beginning to experience some relief from the intense onslaught, though admittedly it feels as though it might be the deep breath before the plunge into deeper water. Please pray.

P1070734

As you pray:

  • Ask God for victory over the deceiver who desires only to kill, steal, and destroy.
  • Ask God to empower and thoroughly equip us spiritually to stand in the evil day and to overcome the enemy by our testimony and by the blood of Jesus.
  • Ask God to give us wisdom and boldness to invest ourselves in activities and strategies that will accomplish God’s purposes for this ministry.
  • Ask God to provide for the needs of our ministry, that we might be able to leave for Papua New Guinea in July 2014.
  • Thank God for his mercy and kindness to us in providing a $100 per month ministry partner this week.
  • Thank God for providing new prayer partners this week.
  • Thank God for carrying us through trial and tribulation and bringing us safely thus far.

Thank you, friends, for your ongoing prayers.

 

post

Please Pray — December 3, 2013

Posted on by

P1070734

By now you expect to see a photo, a story, a plea. I’m laying aside all these today in lieu of a call to prayer. Today is Day 12 of 40 days of asking God for 40 new monthly financial partners, 40 new special projects partners, and 40 prayer partners.

Rather than seeing scores of new prayer partners and financial partners, we’d say we’ve seen an increase in spiritual warfare 40 times greater than normal (how does one quantify this sort of thing?) we’ve seen the enemy attack at any and every weak spot we have and we’ve seen a hate-filled, bare-knuckles beating occur. It has been brutal. . . we can’t say that we’ve enjoyed any of it. Once upon a time we might have thought of finding the next boat to Tarsus (and away from Nineveh.)

The sheer intensity of attack is telling. We are on the road to something transformational, foundation shaking, and spiritually significant in heavenly places.

Please pray for us as we endure the challenge before us:

  • Pray that God will cause us to stand in the evil day.
  • Pray that God will give us spiritual wisdom, understanding, and discernment to know how best to overcome in this season of opposition.
  • Pray that God will indeed raise up 40 new mature and wise prayer partners to stand with us in the gap.
  • Pray that He will grant us victory in this intense spiritual battle that is being waged.
  • Thank God for mercies extended already.
  • Thank God for giving us the power to plod through intense opposition.
  • Thank God for what He is already putting together to get us from here to there.
Prayers and Provision
Of course, if you’d like to join the team of intercessors partnering with us in this spiritual battle, click here to drop us an email letting us know of your desire to join the team. If you’d like to add dollars to your prayers and invest in foundation-shaking ministry, click here to visit our Donate page.

Thanks for praying!!!

post

Day 9: Finding Rest in the Daily Toil

Posted on by

The notion that a rooster crows when the sun comes up is largely rubbish. All the roosters I’ve ever shared real estate with are early risers that take some perverse pleasure in crowing at 3 a.m. under my house (which is on poles). The more I became accustomed to living in Uria Village, though, I realized that the insomniatic chicken was really awakened by some of our village neighbors, up and around, stirring the fire, making an early breakfast for their children, some of whom might walk two or three hours to school (and back again at the end of the day). When their kids would head off to school, they would head out for their mountainside gardens, which also might be a few hours’ walk away. The Somau Garia are mostly subsistence farmers and they must work or they will not eat. Period.

There is another toil that my friends labor under. Though I will write in more depth about it in coming posts, I will say here that my friends labor under the weight of a worldview that keeps them bound to appeasing ancestral spirits, animistic rituals, and consensus in society. This labor is exhausting to the soul and only adds to the heaviness of life. It adds a fatalism and desperation that cannot be removed short of divine intervention.

Jesus spoke to this kind of toil: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.

Aruamu Child Sleeping in a Meeting

How can any of us come to Jesus for rest without having access to his word in a language that makes sense to us, that speaks to our hearts? How can we begin to know or love or follow him if we cannot know objective truth as it is proclaimed in the Scriptures? Pray for the Somau Garia translation committee and for the Owen family, too, that God will see fit to bring us all together around the task of Bible translation–that we might, together in Christ, finish the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament. Pray for divine intervention for all of us involved in this process. Pray for the Owen family, involved in building a prayer and provision team to partner with Pioneer Bible Translators in sending them out to get the job done. Pray for rest for all of our souls. We are in desperate need of Jesus’ yoke, touch, and power. Pray . . .

Join the Prayer and Provision Team!
During the remainder of 2013, we are asking God for 40 new provision team members to financially partner with us monthly, for 40 provision team members to contribute to special projects, and for 40 new prayer team members to join us. For those of you feeling called to join the provision team, click here to visit the Donate page. For those feeling called to join the prayer team, click here to drop us an email letting us of your commitment.

Rest well, today. Allow the Lord to wash over you and to heal and restore you. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace.

post

His Dream, Our Vision

Posted on by

If our dreams are intensely personal, they are also intensely fragile. But whisper a dream and the whisp might snuff it out. Our dreams are choked by the weeds of life: health or sickness, good relationships or bad ones, opportunity or lack, that which we can control and that which we cannot. Our dreams are intensely fragile.

His Dream

His dream–singular, piercing, soul-wrenching, awe-inspiring–is woven with different fabric. His dream evades capture, overcomes obstacle, penetrates enemy territory and liberates the heart of man, freeing it from enslavement to sin and self, offering life and love, even power, in its place. His dream is revealed little by little from the earliest syllables of Genesis through to the end of the Book.

It is John’s uncovering (Apocalypse) of God’s dream that speaks most powerfully to me, revealing ultimate things. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ “

In that day, man in all his variety and uniqueness, will be represented before the throne–praising God for salvation. Not for money or ease or convenience or entertainment. For salvation.

His dream pierces my right to be selfishly indulgent. His dream rips me from my excuses and forces me to consider the 6,877 languages and language groups of the world. His dream fixes my gaze on today’s 209 million people speaking 1,967 languages that do not have adequate access to the Bible in a language that speaks to them. If only His dream allowed me to look at faceless masses representing vast numbers of people–then I could ignore it, overwhelmed by the size of the group–but NO!!! His dream paints familiar faces on the canvas of my mind. This canvas is alive. These faces are tribal people, uttering exotic words in the mountain jungle where they live. They are our friends with whom we’ve had many adventures, joys and sorrows, victories and losses. They are our loved ones with names like Lim and Torenimas and Natika. The are people without the Bible in their heart language. They grow the coffee you drink in the morning and the chocolate you eat at Christmas. They cultivate vanilla which goes in all those wonderful holiday treats. They are people that God dreams of standing around His throne–wearing white robes, clean before his eyes. Their eyes are fixed on the Savior, on the throne, on Him.

Following the Dream

Close friends from Uria Village, Lim Auwi and his family.

Close friends from Uria Village, Lim Auwi and his family.

His dream compels us to do the same, to step forward in promise, eyes fixed on the Lamb that was slain, wavering between falling like a dead man or crying out with the throng, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. . . Here we are, Lord, send us! We will go!”

Ahead is forty days, friends. When you drink your coffee in the morning, think of the Somau Garia people, without the Word in their language. When you eat your Christmas chocolates, dream His dream and see those people gathered around the throne, eyes fixed on Jesus. When you mix up a cake or bake cookies for your loved ones, remember our loved ones on the side of Mt. Somau. When you celebrate family during these remaining forty days, take your buoyant celebration before the throne of God and cry out for the people of God’s dream. As you pour out your love to friends and family over these forty days, remember us, too. Forty new financial partners. Forty new prayer partners. Forty special gifts for getting the Word out to the Somau Garia. Pray. Love. Give. Dream. Envision.

To respond in some tangible way to this challenge, click here to visit Donate page on this website or click here drop us a note at prayer@shakethegates.org and let us know of your prayer commitment.

Blessings!

post

Please Pray — November 19, 2013

Posted on by

Passionate prayer is often motivated by desperation. Let us just say that Angela and I (Todd) are offering a lot of passionate prayers these days. My trip to Papua New Guinea (in September) was a stark reminder of the condition of my friends living in the foothills of the Finisterre Mountains of Papua New Guinea–without the Word of God in their heart language and desperate to get it. I saw their need starkly contrasted against the fruit and power of the New Testament being available to another language group–a people with a vibrant faith, passionate about the Lord. The difference was . . . sobering.

Reunion of Todd and close Garia friend, Lim

Reunion of Todd and close Garia friend, Lim

The Somau Garia have waited long enough. Neither they nor we can wait any longer. Desperate to get to Papua New Guinea and engage the task of finishing the translation of the remaining 26 books of the New Testament (Mark was dedicated Easter, 2007) we have put together a 40-Day campaign, 40 Days to Getting the Word Out . Beginning on Friday, November 22, we will be sharing vital information, writing emails, making phone calls, making a huge end of the year push to sign up 40 new monthly financial partners, 40 special gifts partners, and 40 prayer partners to join the team. During these forty days of the holiday season, we will be sharing podcasts, telling our story on Shake the Gates Radio (here on the website), and telling the kinds of missionary stories that help inform, inspire, and mobilize the people of God.

Please, friends, join us in prayer beginning even today.

  • Ask God to open the eyes of many new partners to the needs of this nearly forgotten people.
  • Ask God to use this 40 day campaign to awaken the hearts and minds of His people and mobilize them to address the Biblelessness (there’s a word!) of the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea.
  • Ask God to grant us favor and influence with those whom He is asking us to challenge in this way.
  • Thank God for his generosity in caring for both our family and the Somau Garia people in this interim that we’ve been away.
  • Thank God for what He will do in this forty days.

I also ask you to pray for the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in our life during this forty days. Only He can convict and woo and deeply call the hearts of His people to this kind of partnership: impactful, transformational, lasting. Only He can draw the hearts of those whom He desires for this calling.

This is a desperate hour in the history of this people–pray fervently and passionately!

post

Please Pray — 24 October 2013

Posted on by

Thank You for Praying

Many of you prayed along with our family through 40 Days to Freedom. I can’t thank you enough for the commitment, the kindness, and the impact you made in making that sacrificial journey with us. Since returning to the States I’ve taken time to process and reflect on the lessons learned and to thank God for his kindness in taking me on that journey with Him. He helped renew many things, one of which was joy, the kind that is born of purpose and in walking consistently with the way He made me. This rediscovered joy has ignited fresh passion and vision for God and his Kingdom.

The 40 day season of prayer has come and gone. (For an audio update, click here .)  Now it is time to do the harder work of asking God for power to complete the passion, to drive the vision, to bring us once again to Papua New Guinea for service. Would you pray with us regularly toward this end? If you pray for us regularly or would like to do so, would you drop me a line at prayer@shakethegates.org ? In the mean time, would you lift these things heavenward?

Ask God

  • Ask God to provide many, many opportunities for us to share the story, invite others to join the team, and to encourage the saints.
  • Ask God to raise up partners for Bible translation among the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea.
  • Ask God to ignite our passion, empower our spirits, and catalyze our actions in order that we might get to the field as soon as possible.
  • Ask God to provide for our physical, social, spiritual, and financial needs.

Thank God

  • Thank God for going ahead of us in all things.
  • Thank God for providing each month for our needs.
  • Thank God for his provision of righteousness through Jesus Christ, without whom we would have no opportunity to be reconciled to God.
post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Epilogue

Posted on by

Thank you for praying with us during the last 40 days. Please pray the next few days as you remember; my travel won’t conclude until late Sunday night. Pray also, friends, that we’ll be able to tell the story well when Todd gets back from Papua New Guinea. Blessings!

Be watching for photos and updates in the coming days. It’ll take a few weeks to get things organized (after some significant sleep) and get the stuff up on the site. Thank you and blessings!

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 40

Posted on by

September 19 (Day 40) — Two days until return travel. Pray for safety in transit, for travel mercy, for much to be learned and gained through this brief foray back into Melanesia. Pray that our family will have a clearer idea of how to proceed from this point forward. Pray for the Father to move in our hearts that we will have the courage and resolve to re-engage this challenging call. Pray for a clearer vision to grip our imaginations about the coming days.

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 39

Posted on by

September 18 (Day 39) — Pray that Todd’s stamina will hold out. Ask God to give him wisdom as he finalizes details and has final conversations regarding a return to PNG with the family in 2014, the sorting out of the mission station at Uria, the translation work, checking, etc. to be done in the intervening months. Pray that Todd will have wisdom in choosing what to bring back to the U.S. and what to leave. Pray that there will also be lasting blessing for the Somau Garia left in the wake of Todd’s visit.

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 38

Posted on by

September 17 (Day 38) — Tuesday. Heading into Madang, God willing, today to rest and prepare for the journey home. Much has been accomplished. Pray today that Todd will have good conversations with the missionaries he has yet to get acquainted with, with old friends, and with co-workers. Pray that Todd will have strength, clarity, and ability to wrap up responsibilities in Madang before leaving on Saturday. Pray for God’s grace and mercy to rest on each word, each conversation, each encounter, that Todd will be a blessing and encouragement to all that he encounters. Pray for the Aruamu today, that the experiences of the crusade—the workshops, celebration, worship, and preaching will leave a lasting imprint on the heart of each attendee. Pray for a powerful move of the Spirit in each life.