Last week I was about to share scripture with a church in Pakistan when the internet connection abruptly cut. This church was in an area that often lost power at night, and the power was usually not restored until morning. The Pastors quickly organized prayer for the power to be restored. When power came back on 2 minutes later and our internet connection came back, I observed a church praising God for answered prayer.

These outages happen often. Satan often manages to mess with the connection right when we are about to open scripture in Pakistan. I suppose that is to be expected. We are bringing large quantities of the Word of God into a place a great spiritual darkness. We should expect to be opposed, right?

Here is what strikes me though. I am observing people praying to God with an expectation of answered prayer. I’m not sure I pray with the same expectation. How about you? John 14:14 says “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (NIV). Or John 14:26 “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” (NIV)

This is a self-critique as much as a challenge to you. We should be praying, as instructed in scripture, with the expectation of answered prayer. Since we have launched our fresh vision for IBG – after many, many months of prayer – God is providing for the vision at a faster pace than we can even run. The funds for the first year international ramp up are already in, and more is coming. Additional funds to grow the domestic ministry are also flowing in.

We prayed for years for God to provide connections in hard places where the Gospel is scarce. When you look back, God has done exactly that! For example, in Thailand, after 190 years of missionary work, only 1% of the population was Christian. Yet God connected us to an indigenous Thai church planting movement which is seeing many Thai people come to faith. If you come to our August meeting, you will hear more about this exciting development.

It was July of 2009. I was in Honduras at a mission hospital in the rain forest area of eastern Honduras. Just days before, the Honduran Supreme Court and the military had forcibly removed the Honduran president. It was a tense time with a lot of violent protest. I was about to head back to the US and the leadership decided to evacuate 4 college medical interns who were spending the summer at the hospital with my team. Ian drove us and we left in the middle of the night for safety.

It was an 8-hour drive to the international airport at San Pedro Sula. We had progressed well for several hours and the sun was now up when the radio crackled, informing us there was a major protest underway ahead of us at the only bridge crossing over a large river. Ian yelled to us in the back of the truck that we “better start praying because that was the only way through”. We prayed hard for 10 minutes when suddenly my senses were overwhelmed with the fresh smell of a spring rain. One of the interns and I spoke the word “rain” at the same time.

I shouted to Ian to keep driving because it was going to rain and Ian looked at me like I had lost my mind. It was a gorgeous morning – bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. As we started getting close to Tela, where the protest was, we watched a single cloud boil up in a matter of minutes, forming a huge singular thunderhead. We followed a huge downburst as we drove into Tela. When we reached the bridge, the piles of tires were smoldering and we saw thousands of soaking wet protesters who had run for cover off the road. The bridge was completely open for us to cross, and 30 seconds after crossing the bridge, the sun came back out.

So let me ask you again, do you pray with an expectation of answered prayer? God is moving ahead of our ministry, opening doors and resourcing the Bible distributions we have visioned to provide. I am humbled to see God move in these ways. Pray boldly!

Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!

Chuck Hayes