Start The Day

I'm so glad the Lord has placed a desire in me to start my day with Him.  It is hard to get up so early, but there is nothing I would rather do.  This is the only way I can make sure I will have time to sit with my Savior.  Today I am catching up on Operation World.  I wrote about my prayer time not being as meaningful after doing this for a while and reading about so many countries, but then I read about Columbia...

Columbia-
Very dangerous country, especially for Christians.  There are guerrilla groups that kidnap, assassinate, and infiltrate the government.  They destroy land that isn't theirs for cocaine growing and create a culture of violence.  Pastors and priests are targeted for assassination, so most leave the country.  There are so few leaders and teachers because of this.  Increasingly, there is missionary vision for reaching the Amerindian populations that are largely unreached.

Comoros-
Three small islands off the coast of Africa between Madagascar and Mozambique.  This country is underdeveloped and poor with low literacy.  Most are Muslim.  Believers are gradually increasing.  Pray for more Christian resources to become available.

Congo- I'm starting the Congo today, but will write about it tomorrow when I finish it.  :)

2 Kings 4:18- 5:27
The woman's son (from yesterday) died, but Elisha came and restored his life.  Then some prophets got in a bind with a bad batch of stew.  "There is death in the pot!"  So Elisha put some flour in and no more harm came from the pot.  A man brought an offering to Elisha, but he told the man to give it to the people with him even though there were more people than food.  But everyone ate and had some left.  Then Naaman came from another land to ask Elisha to heal him of leprosy.  Elisha tells him to go wash in the Jordan seven times to be healed.  The man gets angry and goes away, but then his servants convince him to wash and he is made clean.  Then Elisha's servant accepted some of the gifts from Naaman, so Elisha caused the leprosy to go to him and his family.

Acts 15:1-35
A question came up about circumcision so Peter explained to the people that the Holy Spirit came on everyone, not only on the chosen people who had observed the laws.  Then they decided to send certain people to share this message in different towns.