Praying for Believers in West Africa
Pray they’ll live in obedience to God’s Word.
Living as a follower of Christ often contradicts traditional cultural and religious practices in West Africa. New believers face tough challenges like, "Is it okay to have more than one wife?" or "Can I put a charm on my baby to ward off evil spirits?"
- Pray believers can discern and live by God’s Word, even when it’s counter-culture.
- Pray Scripture will be available in their language, ideally in oral form (songs, stories, recordings), since many believers do not read.
- Intercede for missionaries and national pastors as they disciple and train new Christians.
Pray they’ll stand strong in the face of persecution.
When some decide to follow Christ, they are disowned by families, kicked out of homes and fired from jobs. Sometimes houses are burned and lives are threatened.
- Pray believers will remain strong when facing isolation, poverty and other difficulties.
- Ask God to restore relationships with family and community. Pray these new believers will be shining testimonies to those around them.
- Persecution often precedes periods of great church growth. Pray the Gospel will spread rapidly through these believers’ faithfulness.
Pray they’ll faithfully share the Gospel with others.
Many believers are taught using T4T (Training for Trainers), a method that encourages them to immediately share with others what they’ve learned from God’s Word. As this happens, the Gospel can spread rapidly from family to family and village to village.
- Pray West African believers will hide God’s Word in their hearts in the form of stories and songs that can be passed from person to person and generation to generation.
- Pray they’ll be faithful to share Christ with family and neighbors. As they share, pray churches will emerge from these groups of new believers.
- Pray for strong leaders will emerge to guide churches with wisdom and integrity.
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