He was known to stay up late into the night praying, as well as rising very early each morning, crying out to God, “Give me souls, O God, or I die!” He was so gripped with passion for the lost, and he knew that the strongholds the enemy had upon the people could only be broken through prayer. There he labored, not just physically but, more important, in prayer. In the late 1800s, he left his home in Illinois to serve the Lord as a missionary to the people of India. There are many people all throughout Christian history who knew the power of prayer. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (emphasis added). Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 9:37–38? “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. There is a mystery to the truth that God waits to hear and answer the prayers of His people. You see, prayer is God’s method of carrying out His purposes upon this earth.
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Our decision was based on the fact that God was with him and that he knew how to pray. Our decision was not based on the fact that he had started a dozen churches or that he was able to oversee a large region of the country quite well. There was something about him that caused us to make that decision: He spends nearly four hours in prayer each day. But finally we both agreed to trust him with the particular job. Why don’t we think about putting him in that position?” We talked back and forth about this brother’s abilities, his lack of experience and the seriousness of the challenge in this new area of work. I asked him, “What do you think about this particular brother? He seems to be a really godly man. In our conversation we were discussing who might be able to take a certain new position. He was traveling throughout North India to meet with many of our leaders and appoint new workers to projects that had recently been started.
One morning I was talking to a senior leader in our work on the mission field.
This habit began while he was studying in one of our Bible colleges.” I found nothing special except for one thing-he gets up very early each morning and spends two or three hours in prayer and then an hour or two reading the Bible. When he called to tell me, he said, “There is nothing unusual about him. Our senior leader said he would check into it and let me know what he found out. I was more than curious to find out this brother’s secret.
Then, one after another, four more churches were born. The first church he planted began with the healing of a Hindu priest who was paralyzed. All that I knew was that he was from a tribal background and didn’t have any college education, yet regardless, it seemed that God was with him in a remarkable way. Curious of how this young brother did it, I called one of our senior leaders and asked him if he could tell me more about this brother’s ministry. A few years ago, I heard the story of one missionary serving with our organization who, in a short time, had planted five churches in a difficult part of Northeast India.