Prayer is not as easy as it used to be. We pray for someone not to be jailed (they are later jailed). We pray for vias or passport miracles (they are usually denied). We pray for open doors (they stay shut). We pray for sick missionaries to be healed (others wind up sick).

Gone are the days of praying for some remote aunt, uncle, or their distand cousin’s issues. Gone are the days for standing for someone else’s miracle though you couldn’t for one moment believe the same prayer for yourself. Gone are the days of praying for a mall to allow distribution of tracts. Gone are the days of praying that the doors we knock on will be opened by receptive hearts (visitation is not done among the people we try to reach). Gone… well, it could go on.

Now don’t take me wrong. Missionaries are real folks with real needs. We have mothers, dads, children, aunts, uncles, etc. We have sicknesses amongst ourselves and our family back home. We have houses in the States that need to sell. We do have needs.

Prayer is now about life and death; whether families will survive or risk demise. Oh yes, I remember reading about those types of events in magazines like “Voice of the Martyrs” and the like. But now you don’t just read about them. These people have faces and they live just around the corner, not on the other side of the world.

We are daily involved with some of the gutsiest people with some of the greatest faith imaginable. Names are changed to protect their identities. But they are real people with real needs in a very real world.

So pray for us as we relearn prayer. It is much more difficult now.