A missionary himself made a list of suggestions as to how he would like his friends to pray for him.

Pray for essentials. It is not so essential that you ask God to give us good health. The important thing is that He gives to us only the measure of health that will best glorify Him. Who knows but what it may be to His glory that we should be sick, and thereby demonstrate to those about us that we have a God who can keep us in perfect peace and joy, even in the midst of pain and trial.

We do not want you to pray that God will give to us an easy path on the mission field, but rather that He might give us grace sufficient to be over comers for Him.

Do not pray so much that God will answer all our prayers, but that God will keep us from being too busy to pray. Haven’t you thought of the fact that it is just as easy for us missionaries to be too busy to pray as it is for you in the homeland to be too busy to take time with God?

We’re not so anxious that you pray that God will remove the obstacles as that He might give us an unconquerable determination to go all the way with Him.

It is not so important that you pray that God should bless our activities as that God should censor our activities, for how easy it is for a missionary’s time and energy to be spent on second best things.

Please do not pray for us as though we were saints, living up on high level, because we are missionaries. We who go as missionaries are subjected to temptations. Satan will determine in one way or another to hinder our testimony to rob our lives of power or make our witness futile. We need your prayer that God will give us grace and strength to resist temptation.

Won’t you remember please that missionaries can become lonely; we can become discouraged; we can become irritable, sharp and impatient with other missionaries and family members as well as the nationals. Above all, we want to tell you we can do a great deal of missionary work without being on fire for Christ. It’s easy for us missionaries to be busy about everything without really being on fire for Christ. So we covet your prayers that we may ever live with our hearts aflame with a passion for the lost, and aflame with the love of Christ.

When do we pray for missionaries? This is very difficult to answer. However, we all agree that we should pray for OUR missionaries. Here is a suggestion. Locate the names of our missionaries @ 60 of them and place a couple of names on each day of your calendar. Two missionaries’ times 30 days are a total of 60 who ask for our prayers. When we pray probably will be different for each of us.

Why do we pray for our missionaries? The above 7 things written by the missionary tells why in a great measure. Just a closing thought: we are told that where our heart is there will be out treasure also. I am convinced that those who pray for missionaries will have a part in getting them to their respective fields and keeping them there with their financial needs. How long has it been since you inquired of our missionaries and still further how long has it been since you wrote a check for the needs of our 60 missionaries? Does it cost that much? Yes, the cost is several thousand each month.

We are presently living in a period of time in our society when the word debt or debts in on our hearts, minds and lips. We hear it constantly from the media and from our friends. We are told that our government and individuals are experiencing more debt than ever before. One reason and perhaps the main reason for the concern is the fact that seemingly it has become very, very difficult to meet these obligations.

One of the chief glories of the gospel message is that acceptance, by faith, of the redeeming Lord sets us free from the entanglement of the debt which it was ever impossible for us to meet—that which we owed to the law.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
There are few references to the words “debt” or “debtor” or “owe” in the pages of scripture. It is therefore the more remarkable that the Epistle of Romans speaks of four special debts that we owe.

Romans 1:14
We will take them in order. The first is in Romans 1:14, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise”. That glorious free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord is not given to us for our own sakes alone. We are debtors to all men everywhere for the sake of the Lord who has bought us with a price.

Paul list four names or groups of people that we are indebted to. See 11 Cor. 5:18-20.

Romans 8:12
The second passage is Romans 8:12, “So, then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Here is a debt we owe to God rather than men, through truly it will affect the influence we have upon men. It is expressed in a negative fashion in this passage but carries an emphatically positive message. First, let us notice, “We are debtors, not to the flesh.” When the flesh comes knocking at the door demanding payment, we are to treat it as an imposter to whom we owe nothing. Boldly we must answer its knock, in the power of the Lord, the power of “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. But “we are debtors” All Christians, and not an exceptional few, are called to meet the debt of a life of holiness. Read and mediate on the verse again.

Romans 13:8
In Romans 13:8, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. We are debtors to our fellow members in Christ. Over and over in different scriptures, we are admonished to love one another as fellow Christians. But in this verse we are also admonished to love all expressed in this thought, “owe no man”. This is not an easy debt to pay.

Romans 15:26-28
“For it pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are…”

People have different ways to settling their debts. Some repudiate them, some ignore them but others are never happy till a debt is paid and hastens to meet it. God has placed before us some debts. We must consider them one by one. Jesus paid it all, yes, but all to him I owe. Look at Proverbs 3:28. Someone has said, “There is no entrance fee to the Kingdom of God, but the annual subscription is all that I have.”

I am the United States. I was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal in the sight of God. I am the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I am freedom for all men. The blood of the world runs in my veins. I am over 300 million living people, and the voice of many other million who have died for the freedom for which I stand and which I still make possible.

I am sleepy, rustic villages and surging, roaring cities, fruitful vines and fertile fields, magnificent mountains and dry, dusty deserts. I am 3 ½ million square miles, 4 ½ million farms, 10 million small businesses. I am 200 thousands schools and colleges and over 300 thousand churches.

I am Paul Revere’s “The British are coming.” I am Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.” I am Washington in prayer at Valley Forge, Lincoln in sorrow at Gettysburg, MacArthur in return at Manila.

I am the Defender of freedom. In answer to its call, I left my heroic dead in Flanders Field, Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm. I am the voice of freedom, and freedom is my breath and my blood. Without it I’d die. And God willing and helping, may I always possess the integrity and inner strength of unity to keep myself unshackled and to remain forever the citadel of freedom, a beacon of hope to all men everywhere.

I am the American flag—13 stripes to remind all of my humble beginning and 50 white stars on a field of blue, showing the strength of unity with integrity, as captured in those immortal words of Lincoln, “The union—at any price.” If you have ever known the feeling of seeing me unfurled over a stronghold of evil, stormed in the cause of right or waving proudly in the breeze in a foreign land to the stirring sound of “Retreat” or “Taps,” then you know why men are willing to follow me and to die for the freedom for which I stand.