prayer snippets

Gunmen attack university campus in northern Nigeria.

Following a recent bomb attack in northern Nigeria, Bala Usman (General Secretary of NIFES) sent us the following message:

’The morning of Sunday 29 April was another black Sunday for several Christians in Nigeria. The NIFES chaplain at the Federal College of Education in Kano passed away in hospital after the attack. Two professors were said to be killed and some students are receiving treatments. Pray for the family of the bereaved.  

‘Pray for God’s divine intervention to stop this incursion. Let’s pray for Christians in Nigeria to be united and burdened to pray for these issues. Pray for the conversion of those behind all these evils, for greater grace for the Church to love, forgive and become a stronger witnessing community.

‘My desire is for us to pray until we see justice, revival and greater visitation of God on our campuses and nation. Pray for encouragements and God’s grace for people who saw this to overcome fear and terror. Pray for all NIFES Fellowships as we also mobilize all associates, councils and students to pray.

‘Thank you for your passion to pray for us.’

School groups in Gabon asked to stop preaching the gospel.

Pray for GBG groups in Libreville. Nesmy Bersot (General Secretary), shares with us:

’Our groups continue to function, despite some difficulties. The school group of Quaben has undergone strong persecution by the school administration in the past weeks: they were told to stop preaching the gospel to their friends! But as they disobeyed to this order, their parents were summoned by the headmistress and one girl, Rufine, was expelled for three days. Their marks have not been very good this year, either. The reasons for this are not yet clear to us – they are studious girls, but we pray that their witness will not suffer from it.

‘Earlier in March all GBG members in Libreville organized a door-to-door evangelistic outing on the university campus to give new life to the work. It was a delight to see even pupils proclaim the gospel without fear to their elders on the campus! What an unimaginable way of being encouraged and to praise God!’

New opportunities in Eurasia.

Praise God for opening new doors of opportunity in a country in Eurasia. We heard from one of the staffworkers on the field:

‘We had a very special event at the end of April at one of the main universities where we work. We were allowed to invite a speaker to give a lecture on a 19th century Russian novel writer. Pray that this will serve to build trust between the IFES group and the university. It is the first time we are able to do such a thing at this university, and thus the outcome of the event will be crucial for further co-working. Until now we had almost no possibilities to work directly at the university, it would be great if this would change for the future.’

Pray for two students, T and M, who have been invited to take student leadership roles within the movement, and as they receive leadership training. Pray also for a female student, M, who recently became a believer. ‘She was very sceptical in the beginning, and told us just two weeks ago that she is a believer now. Of course we had a great ‘birthday’ celebration!‘

International training consultation to take place in Ghana.

Pray for final preparations for the upcoming IFES Consultation on Training and Staff Development (7-15 May).

The goals of the consultation are to:

• examine and reflect on the philosophy and pedagogy of training within IFES mission;
• reflect on how to strengthen training processes to best fulfil our ministry vision;
• examine training and staff development that strengthens pastoral care for staff;
• explore ways of sharing resources for mutual benefit.

Please pray for participants, and for the outcomes of this consultation; that this event would benefit the wider fellowship in practical ways as we seek to properly equip and care for those engaged in IFES student ministry.