30 DAYS OF PRAYER | DAY 3 – Praying for All Nations
“My House Will Be Called a House of Prayer for all Nations.” -Mark 11:17
Susana Franco and Fanny Mena live in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a tough city of maybe 3 and 4 million souls on the Pacific coast.
Susana holds degrees in dentistry and theology. A decade ago God called her to a special ministry and Susana gave up what could have been a lucrative profession. She now runs a foundation serving the very poorest AIDS patients of Guayaquil. The hospital calls her when they admit an AIDS patient with no husband, no means of support, and usually with children to be cared for. The foundation, consisting of Susana, Fanny, and Sarah just gives, gives and gives more to serve those families.
Many of the children are HIV-positive. Susana’s team loves on the children, finds homes for them when they lose their mother, and trains the grandmothers in micro-enterprises to help them buy food and clothing. She travels the country teaching the Christian principles that can prevent this tragedy from happening to others and teaching tolerance of the poor HIV-positive kids who are often sent home from school if they have as much as a cold!
Susana also has formed an organization to help young females grow into strong Christian young ladies. The foundation has summer camps for the children when funds are available and help organize my mission trips and serve with us on our trips.
Fanny works with us and the foundation, but has another amazing work… a church in her neighborhood, one of the poorer barrios of the city. Some 12 years ago or so, Fanny decided that the only thing the kids in her hood saw as a way out was the drug culture. She asked God to provide them a better choice and immediately began plans for a church in the neighborhood. At first it was children meeting in her modest home for Sunday school. As the group grew to sometimes 70-80, she had to expand and added teenage and adult groups in other homes in the area. Then she began plans for a building. She spent 10 years paying for an old lot across from her house and now is building, brick by brick this church house, as God provides a few more dollars week by week.
My prayer is that God will put on the heart of every member of Redemption Church the desire to serve with these ministries and to search out others of God’s works to join until Redemption is serving in every nation. God is actively preparing these works and others for US now (Ephesians 2:10). Pray that God will give Redemption church a huge vision. God can do this! Let us be a house of prayer for all nations!
This post was written by Duane Lawrence. Duane has been blessed with mission ministry for 25 years in several countries and in the U.S.