PRAYER PATROL Mission –
the whole Story
For a long time we had been closed off to what we should learn about God. Everything that reminded us of religion turned us off and we responded with „Ok, we believe in something, but God is not for us“. Our heart had not been open for God’s work in us. It was not the right time yet.
This changed when my son Dennis came into my life (and later into Markus’, my soulmate’s life). By reason of many painful and dramatic but at the same time wonderful experiences with Dennis, God reached our hardened hearts and ensured that we get interested in His word and what He wanted to tell us. We experienced God’s boundless and unconditional love for us and in response wanted to be his beloved children – and since then we have been. This has been our own decision and it was a decision we made not only with our mind but also a very heartfelt one.
During the first few months in our walk with Jesus we were overwhelmed with excitement and new love for our triune God, and we were thirsty and hungry for His word and we wanted to have a deep relationship with him (and we stil do).
We experience God’s unconditional love
With support of other Christians in our church, little by little, we learned a lot about God’s undescribable love and the grace that He lavished on us through Christ. We realized how great the gift is being allowed to hold the Lord’s hand and to start with him each and every morning. All this has changed our lives and made everything new.
„Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come!“ (2 Corinthians 5.17)
Since then we have had a very personal relationship with our triune God. In the morning we pray „Lord, show us for whatever purpose you want to use us“ and during the whole day until it is evening we may come to him – thankful but still imperfect.
What really impresses us is the fact that we do not need a church building or any other institution to live like this, but a community with other followers of Christ. It doesn’t matter if we meet at a special location as long as we come together in Jesus’ name.
Every moment of the day we are important to God. He is just a prayer away. At any time we may come to him as his beloved children with everything that makes us happy or sad or moves us.
„Through him and through his faith in him we can approach God. We can come to him freely. We can come without fear.“ (Ephesians 3.12)
We experience God’s mercy in our failures
Even before we got to know God He was always with us, supporting us, protecting us and changing situations for the better. The more and more we discover this.
Even through times of pain and need He was with us. And we experienced many of these situations.
We learned that He may not help us out of every situation but that He promises to be with us in each and every situation. In every difficulty He supports us and is full of mercy concerning our failures. He will never let us down nor will leave us.
„You are all around me. You are behind me and in front of me. You hold me in your power.“ (Psalm 139.5) – we experienced this personally.
We think that one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind is His unselfish love and grace. Another gift to us is our free will. But this is combined with responsitbility. If we want to enjoy all of God’s blessings we have to choose a lifestyle according to His word and the values described in the bible.
The bible shows us God’s Wisdom for our lives
We need wisdom and support to make good decisions. Therefore the bible as God’s word is important to us. In the bible we find all the instructions that we need to lead a successfull live.
We enjoy opening our hearts to God’s word, accepting it with our hearts, thinking about it, reading it together, exchanging views and also growing with it. Again and again we learn new things. We will never stop learning about God. And this is a good thing. In our enthusiasm for our loving father and for Jesus Christ as our saviour and the Holy Spirit as our helper, we want to get closer and closer to our Lord and get to know him better. We want to be near him because we love him.
Since then the bible verse „But as for me, it is good to be near God.“ (Psalm 73.28) has got a very special meaning for us.
We can know with confidence that our heavenly father loves us and wants the best for us and we recieve indescribable preace even if we are imperfect. Even when we make mistakes again and again and even if we make some mistakes consciously, in the eyes of God we are absolutely precious. This will remain inexplicable to us.
„The Lord is my shepherd. I will always have everything I need. Even if I walk through a valley, as dark as the grave, I will not be afraid of any danger, because you are with me!“ (Psalm 23.1+3+4+6)
Now we know – God is only one prayer away
A very personal relationship with God is a great privilege. The most important thing in our lives is that we may call God the Almighty „Daddy – Abba Father“. We can also come to Him everytime and ask for advice, like which way might be the right way for us. God doesn’t stop there: We can aks for guidance in prayer.
When we pray we do not want our prayers to be just about us but first to thank God for His endless love and what He is doing for us, for who He is, for his faithfulness, mercy and neverending grace. For by grace we are saved not of ourselves.
„God has saved us. He has chosen us to live a holy life. It wasn’t because of anything we have done. It was because of his own purpose and grace. Through Christ Jesus, God gave us this grace even before time began.“ (2 Timothy 1.9)
Meanwhile, it is important for us to not only praise God for who He is and for his holy character, but to thank Him for all that He is doing for all of us each new day and also to pray for others. Regardless whether we pray with other christians or as a just as a couple we feel Christ living in us. He is our center. We always want to be grounded in this love. All blessings belong to Him and so do our hearts and lives.
„Lord, everything you have given me is good. You have made my life secure.“ (Psalm 16.5)
Therefore, it is so important for us not only to pray to God but also to be still in front of our Lord and to listen to Him.
Pray, thank, ask, receive – this has become an important motto for our every day life.
First impressions
The first signal we got in summer 2016. God wants us to do much more than living completely happy in our church community.
Through countless bibleverses, devotions and sermons God spoke to us again and again. The impression got stronger that we should share our experience of great happiness which we found in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
„When God sends us we mustn’t withhold that Jesus is the way to salvation“ (Neukirchen Calendar)
We both thought about all this impressions with our hearts – first each of us seperately. We prayed for further guidance and where all this should go. We talked it over and over and started to pray together as well as with others to achieve clarity. One of the most important aspects was – and still is – not to „do our own business“ but letting be God our leader.
PRAYER PATROL – the idea
During springtime 2017 the impression became clearer: We should go and pray for others.
„So you must go and teach all nations!“ (Matthew 28.19)
A first idea rose: to start with our Motorhome as a „PRAYER PATROL“ and offer prayer to other people while travelling all over Germany and visiting Dennis in the Saarland. For the future we planned to travel throughout Europe and elsewhere. Our next trip to our friends in the USA should be a first trial.
We produced laminated signs and developed a mobile suitcase-size system. We multiplied wonderful bibleverses concerning the topic „I am God’s beloved child“ (a birthday present from a friend of mine). We prepared little pocket-sized bibleverse cards. All these things we took with us across the Atlantic and were ready to start the first mission.
No sooner said than done: Wherever we stopped with our RV we hanged up our laminated signs with which we offered prayer for other people. In one box there were paper for prayer requests and a pencil. Into the second box people could put their prayers.
PRAYER PATROL – our mission
Suffice it to say: this was our idea. But God’s ideas are bigger and his ways are higher than ours and he is the only one who knows his thoughts and plans for us.
On the outward part of our journey I already feeled the Holy Spirit telling me to go to other people and offer prayer to them. Through our experiences at the check-in desk, during the flight and through other experiences in our holidays the impression intensified: We should offer prayer to others but not only in a passive way at our RV, but in an active way talking to people and explaining why we wanted to pray for them.
„God doesn’t call the qualified – he qualifies the called.“
GO! In our opinion that is the only order we should follow: go to other people directly without any timidity, without beeing afraid of rejection.
„God didn’t give us a spirit that makes us weak and fearful. He gave us a spirit that gives us power and love. It helps us control ourselves.“ (2 Timothy 1.7)
That is the reason why we try to get in contact with other people: at the airport, in the plane, at the bus station or in the shuttle bus, doing the shopping at the supermarket, during our hiking trails, in the visitor center or the wilderness station, on several campgrounds, at the dump station, on parking places, even in the laundry room or in the restrooms – everywhere God showed us people we should offer our prayer.
„The Lord GOD helps me learn, and I have not turned against him. I will not stop following him.“ (Isaiah 50.5)
Since then we have encountered incredible experiences and have been richly blessed. We have prayed for many people and experienced blessed meetings. Our prayer mission (some people at home call it like this) seems to be OUR TASK!
We believe that we should do it this way:
„Never stop praying. Be ready for anything by praying and being thankful.“ (Colossians 4.2)
It is awesome how God guides us by devious routes and rescheduling our plans.
For example: We had to change the campsite because ours was occupied. We didn’t like the new campsite but that was the place God wanted us to stay with our RV: at this place some people filled in a „prayer request“. In the other area they could not have found us. GOD GUIDES. Our God is an awesome God!
PRAYER PATROL – our appointment
We believe that this will be our task and mission for the next time in our life, not only for journeys. Through Christ everything we need will be given to us to fulfil our purpose. He ist our saviour. Through Him we were set free and have been given a new life so that we can live through his love. This love we want to pass on to other people.
God’s Holy Spirit lives in us and He is our helper. He shows us the way when we don’t know the way and he intercedes for us, he protects us and gives us power and love and temperance.
Our heavenly father’s love is unconditional and unlimited. In Him we have faith, love, hope. Our Lord himself is purly love and we may put all our trust in Him. He knows what is best for us.
„For by grace we have been saved through faith. And this is not our own doing; it is the Gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.“ (Ephesians 2.8-10)
Therefore, we want to live consciously and do what His will is. We want to find His ways for us and want to go where He leads us. He is the good shepherd and we know that all good things come from Him and through Him and He is always by our side and doesn’t leave us.
We are not waiting any longer watching what others do just to follow the crowd. We walk, holding the loving hand, make decisions and go forward courageously knowing that we will never be alone. Our God is just a prayer away.
We pray: „Lord, we want to live our life doing only what is pleasing not others but you. We want to go courageously and live a purposeful life. Therefore, lead us, guide us with your wisdom and bless us.“
„But those who trust in the Lord will receive new strength. They will fly as high as eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not grow weak.“ (Isaiah 40.31)
In addition to our natural talents given us by birth or gathered during lifetime God provides us with spiritual gifts. We will be able to feel the power of the Holy Spirit when we recognize, develop and use our God-given talents. All our activities won’t be exhausting any longer but will be powerful and power will be returned to us – even if we were very active. His godly power will be set free in us. If we do the things God calls us to do we will draw strength from this.
„We must let go off the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.“ (Joseph Campbell)
Since we had startet our tour to the USA the following song had been in our hearts:
We don’t fit in this race but we search for new ways.
His peace wants to lead us to truth
full of hope we give him our lives.
His love lives in us and it shines at night.
Brighter than the morning star is the light of his power.
Jesus Christ is Lord. We follow him because he has chosen us to be his fellows.
And he has given us his spirit and has shown us the finish.
Now we are running – for his name’s sake. (transcription from „Sein wie du“/“Be like you“ from OUTBREAKBAND)
We will not stop praying for others. But we also need prayer. Please pray for us so that we can serve many, many people and that we are able to follow God’s ways.
„The Lord GOD has given me the right words, that I may know how to sustain the weary. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen.“ (Isaiah 50.4)