Jan and Tabitha Kieviet are missionary diaconal workers (MDWs) in Senegal. Tabitha writes about the importance of prayer and asks us to pray for her and the team.
It was a working day full of discouragement at the clinic in northern Senegal. That night I slept restlessly: I dreamt I was being attacked by evil forces, I wanted to say the name of Jesus, but nothing came out of my mouth. The next morning, I realised that apart from technical and social, the quarrelling among staff, the absence of pregnant women from birth care and the difficult board meeting also had a spiritual cause. The goal of the clinic is for the local church to be able to serve the people and reach them with the compassion and good news of Jesus, but that mission is not without controversy.
After the section on the spiritual armour in Ephesians 6, Paul asks: 'Pray also for me, that I may be given the right words when I preach, so that I may boldly reveal the mystery of the gospel of which I am an ambassador' (verses 19 and 20). Although Paul often begins his letters with a prayer for the churches, here he himself asks for prayer. As a missionary, sent out by the church in the Netherlands, I am an ambassador of Christ in a place where the good news has not yet been proclaimed. As in Paul's time, there is struggle wherever God's kingdom dawns, not against people, but against the rulers of darkness (verse 12).
I submitted my dream to some prayer warriors. A few days later, I had a special meeting with a patient I knew. I shared with her a song about Jesus that I had learned in her language. In tears, she confessed that she loves Jesus and follows him in secret. It humbles me: God is at work, through all the struggles and discouragements. Will you stand beside us in the struggle? 'When praying, then, be guided by the Spirit' (verse 18).
