Everyone loves Christmas. There’s family time and festivities. What’s not to like about that? But what is more incredible is the reason behind the season. At Christmas we celebrate God’s greatest gift to mankind — the gift of His Son. That gift was a life-changer for humanity.

The Element of Prayer

God’s greatest gift of His Son is also a life-changer on a personal level. When we reflect on the spiritual and physical gifts with which the Lord has blessed us, it motivates us to give back. Not because it is required of us, but because we want to.

Sometimes giving back is about giving of our resources — of our time, energy and material wealth. But always there is the element of prayer.

The Evidence of Prayer

And we know prayer works. We’ve seen answered prayer. Just this year we saw the completion of the Dom, Bagwido, Waxe and Palawano New Testament translations — and progress made with the Ivanga New Testament and the Higaunon Old Testament translations.

We’ve prayed missionaries like the Lehmans and Shrifts to their place of service — and watched miracles unfold as God provided two of the three Kodiak aircraft needed for Papua New Guinea.

We’ve seen the evidence of prayer.

Our Most Powerful Resource

And so we continue to pray. We pray with anticipation to see how God will provide the third Kodiak aircraft for Papua New Guinea. We pray for candidates to enter NTM’s training program — and then we pray them through the training and onto their field of service.

Through prayer we are team members with missionaries across the globe as they teach through the Bible from the creation of the world to a real understanding of why Jesus died on the cross. We pray with them as they persevere in translating God’s Word into the tribal language, and rejoice with them as they place the finished Bible into the hands of tribal believers.

Prayer is a powerful God-given resource. As we enter the year 2015, let’s consider the impact we can have on missions through the simple, yet profound, act of praying.