Join us for prayer

We would like to let everyone know about a couple of opportunities to join with our family, the team here, and the local community for some specific times of prayer. At several times throughout the next week, we will be gathering as a community here to pray for the start of the Esther School and for the students and families that will make up the first ever two classes. We thought it would be a very beautiful and powerful thing to have friends and supporters of the school and our work here to join us from around the world to lift up the school in prayer.

Unless you caught it on another blog, you may actually miss the first time of prayer that will be happening this morning. Just down the road is My Father’s House, an orphanage run by Every Orphan’s Hope, an organization with which GEMS has been partnering for several years. This “orphan village” consists of several individual homes, each of which houses two non-traditional families created by bringing 8 orphaned children together with either a “momma” or a couple that serve as the house parents. Not only have our respective organizations been working together collaboratively in the village, but many of the people at the orphanage have become dear friends and allies in our work. Several of the house parents lead in the village church that we attend, they have been indispensable in helping us plan and translate meetings for the school and, in fact, three of the children from the orphan homes will be attending the Esther School.

“The mommas” as they are simply known around here, are also unbelievable prayer warriors. They meet every morning at 4am for prayers over their children, the orphanage, the village and now the Esther School. They can often be heard praying and singing from here during one of their regular all-night prayer vigils. In fact, I have never met a more Spirit-filled and -led bunch than this. Just the other day, they called and asked if they could stop by for something very important. They arrived later in the day to tell us that they felt led to come and pray with us. Today, they have chosen to fast and pray all day for the Esther School, and are coming here again, along with the GEMS club that meets in their church, to pray with us at 9:30am. Again, that means that you will likely not receive this message on time to join us as it will be 3:30am for most of you there (EST), but I would like to invite all of you to join with us in prayer at some point throughout your day today.

I’ll also give a little better advance warning about two other times that we will be praying collectively next week. Next week Wednesday (9/26) will be the orientation day for the first Preschool and Kindergarten classes. parents and students will be coming to explore their new classrooms and pick up their uniforms, but not before we all meet at 8:00am for a time of prayer over the children. Again, the time difference makes this challenging for most of you, but we invite any who are willing to stay up or set their alarms to join us at 2am EST so that prayers can go up collectively from around the world.

Finally, we will be meeting as a team – the staff of the Esther School and a few parents of students – the following morning at 6am to pray for the first day of school which is Thursday September 27th. Those who would like to stay up until midnight or get up to join us are welcome. We would love to let the people and the students here know that they are literally being prayed for or with by people around the globe.

Thanks in advance to those willing to join us and for those of you who already pray regularly for us, the team, and the school. This really does mean the world to us and to the people here. The other day we held a meeting for parents of selected students and there was a question about fees for uniforms and books, etc. When we told them that the costs for these items were being covered by friends from throughout North America they responded with tears and applause. It was one of the more moving moments from our time here. (shameless plug: if you are interested in the child-sponsorship program, by the way, please check it out on the newly launched Esther School website: http://www.estherschool.org or GEMS’s website: http://www.gemsgc.org. For $50 each month, you can be partnered with one of the new students from preschool or kindergarten. Your support covers their uniform, backpack, shoes, daily meal, books and other hard-costs. You will have a chance to see pictures of, correspond with, and pray for your specific child and follow them throughout their progress here at TES)

Thank you all and many Blessings!

In HIM