Prayer requests

Prayer requests for the Micah Project:

1.) Please pray for David while on his missions’ trip to Panama this week. David, who has been with the Micah Project since we opened our doors in January 2000, has been studying psychology for two years at the Universidad Latina in San Jose, Costa Rica. He is extremely active in his church, and is accompanying them to Panama for this missions’ trip. (See David's picture above: in the purple shirt while on the streets, and a recent photo in from of his university). Also pray for Jarvin, who went down to Costa Rica last week to see if David’s university might be a good fit for him as well.

2.) Please continue to pray for Erick and Darwin as they struggle to overcome the bonds of addiction in their lives. We have been praying and fasting on Tuesdays throughout the past four weeks that they would begin to seek the help they need to begin the long process of healing. I had an interesting that experience this past Tuesday that helped me to identify with a little of what they must be going through. I woke up that morning with an extreme case of food poisoning. For most of the day, I was wracked with fever and severe pain and cramping. Helpless, I lay on my couch most of the day, unable to find the strength even to pick up a book and read. Several times, I wanted to will myself up off the couch, but was unable to do so. As I feebly tried to pray through the pain, I began to realize that addiction must be something like this. One’s body is totally taken over by the need to consume. While one’s mind knows what the right thing to do is, the body is so powerfully dominated by the addiction that it is almost powerless to raise itself up beyond the addiction. As I lay there, totally overpowered by my illness, I knew what our two guys must be feeling who are totally overpowered by their addiction.

In his amazing book, Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption, Cope Moyers writes about the craving of his drug addiction even after he had been clean for several years. He writes about waking up after having a dream about using crack: “Oh God, please help me, I thought, because that dream reignited the cravings that seemed to heat up the very furnace of my being. Where did the cravings come from? How could I stop them? I knew the basic facts about craving—how drugs physically change the brain, altering the molecules and the chemicals, even modifying the basic structure and shape of the nerve cells. I knew that craving isn’t a mental “want” but a true physical “need” that arises from deep within the network of cells that have been permanently changed by drugs. And I knew that the really dangerous moments come when your defenses are down and the world looks bleak. That’s when the addicted brain fires up these euphoric memories that whisper to you in the night or in the morning when you are taking a shower or in the late afternoons when the day is coming to an end: Remember how good it felt? If you just go back there, you’ll feel good again.” (page 181).

Cope Moyers was able to beat his addiction when two things happened: 1.) He hit rock bottom and, 2.) he turned his life completely over to God and let Him handle the transformation process. Although it is extremely painful for us to see any one of our guys hit rock bottom, we know that it may have to happen before they stop relying on their own strength and start looking to their heavenly Father for healing.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills— From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121)

3.) Please pray for Brian and Natasha Wiggs and their children, who are coming to Honduras this Thursday. They will spend a week with us, as part of their process to eventually join us a long-term missionaries. Both Brian and Natasha have amazing testimonies of how God breaks bonds and liberates His children. To learn more about Brian and Natasha, click here: http://www.mycogwear.com/info.html.

4.) Please pray for the health and safety of the 24 teens from the Central Presbyterian Church who will be joining us this Saturday, March 22 for a week of ministry. This will be our youth group’s eighth trip to Honduras!

5.) Prayer and praise for Becca Haver, our director of operations! Becca celebrated her fourth anniversary of service with the Micah Project yesterday. We praise God that he has brought this talented woman to serve with us. She is an invaluable part of the project! Please pray for her as she prepares to spend several weeks in April in South Africa to spend some time with her sister Sarah, who is a missionary there.

6.) Please pray for Dan Paul, our ministry coordinator from Toronto, Canada. Dan is currently in Colombia, South America visiting a special friend and making some pretty important life decisions!

Michael