Bands of Steel

Abraham Lincoln once said, “The friends that you have, bind them to your heart with bands of steel.”  That’s the kind of friendship that holds our Navigators Worldwide Partnership together.  Our partnership is essentially a web of deep friendships and partnerships in the Gospel.  For that reason we are investing in bringing together those whom we believe will be the next generation of international leaders of our work, to begin passing on to them what’s been entrusted to us, and to begin building them into a community of leaders.  We gathered two such seminal communities in Cambodia last year.  This year we planned to gather a third group in Istanbul, but were thankful that 2 months ago the Lord led us to change the location because it was getting too dicey with bombings.  So we moved it to Manila, and we began July 4th.  Please pray as Paul prayed in Colossians 2:2, that the hearts of these emerging international leaders will be “encouraged, having been knit together in love.”
 
Prayer update:  I can sum up our week with 120 of our fellow workers from the Middle East and North Africa with 3 words: Tears, Hands and Faces.  I'm thinking of the tears of joy from the patriarchs of our work in this region as they saw fulfillment of their prayers and sacrifices in this swelling movement of the Gospel.  I’m picturing the hands that were laid on so many fellow workers as we gathered around each of them through the week to pray for healing, encouragement or increased anointing.  I’m treasuring the faces of fellow workers who so rarely enjoy face time with kindred spirits.   (Write to me if you would like to see a precious, private 3-minute video of this gathering.)