Prayer Summit Turns Its Attention to the World

Prayer Summit 2017 presenters and participants on Tuesday asked for God’s grace and the Lord’s healing hand to touch the persecuted Christian church in the Middle East and to bring comfort and an end to widespread drought in Africa.

Meeting through today at Ttokamsa Mission Church in Los Angeles, speakers and attendees also called on God to help the people of North Korea cope with an oppressive government and to bring peace to the country of Pakistan, where terrorist attacks occur frequently.

“I believe God will show up in amazing ways today as we learn and pray about the church and the challenges it’s facing around the world,” said Joel Hogan, retired director of international ministries for Christian Reformed World Missions, as he introduced the first speaker.

The name of the speaker, who has worked for several years as a missionary in the Middle East, is being withheld for security purposes.

Opening his talk, the speaker observed that the Christian church is facing persecution in, and Christians are fleeing, the Middle East. But the vitality of the church is only growing stronger in the face of these struggles, which include ongoing violence unleashed by groups such as ISIS.

“God has allowed people to experience these difficulties, and this gives them power,” said the missionary. “Being faced with persecution helps them to grow deeply in prayer and to love Jesus -- so much so that they are willing to die as martyrs for
Jesus.”

At the same time, he said, hundreds of Muslims are coming to see that the violent acts being perpetrated by ISIS and groups like it under the banner of Islam hurt everyone and solve none of the pressing problems in their countries.

“We see Muslims coming in droves to learn more about Christianity,” he said. “Many feel they are now in a position to know God. They were in darkness but are now in the light.”

Mwaya Kitavi, southern and eastern Africa regional director for Christian Reformed World Missions, used his time to talk about Global Prayer Safaris that he has led, stopping in dozens of places in Kenya and Uganda to pray with people.

Over a 10-day period, Prayer Safari participants stopped in each country to pray with teachers and students in schools, with police in their stations, with politicians in their offices, with inmates in prison, and with doctors and nurses in hospitals.

 “We pray on-site with insight,” said Kitavi. “We believe it is important to be there with the people to feel, to touch, to see the needs.”

Stopping in as many as 10 places a day, they gather around people and pray for many concerns, from health or financial struggles to the ravages of drought in Kenya and throughout eastern Africa.

“As we are doing this, we believe the Holy Spirit will come down and our world will be saved. Prayers will be answered,” said Kitavi.

Very rarely does anyone, regardless of whether they have a religion or not, refuse prayer. It is a universal language. “It is a gift we all have. We can all pray,” said Kitavi. “People desire prayer wherever they are from.”

Prayer Summit participants also heard from Chan Choi, a pastor emeritus of Ttokamsa Mission Church who was among the first missionaries sent out by the Korean Presbyterian Church to South Korea in the bleak years of rebuilding after the Korean war.

A brief film showed Choi, now 90, working with young people in a devastated village during that period. Reflecting on his many years as a missionary in South Korea and elsewhere, Choi said he believed it was always important to pray “with a contrite heart because it is when we are humble that the Holy Spirit has an opportunity to come into us.”

Choi also spoke about how he has become a “golden missionary,” one who forgoes golf and other games of which retirees are fond in order to continue speaking to groups about the gospel. “I am now part of the golden missionary movement,” he said.

Ken Choe, longtime pastor of Ttokamsa Mission Church, wrapped up the day by speaking about the significance of his congregation’s taking up the call by Christ “to make disciples of all nations.”

For many years, his church has devoted up to 90 percent of its annual multimillion-dollar budget to overseas mission work. They have worked, for instance, shipping thousands of tons of food every year to North Korea, a country known by some as “the hidden kingdom” and for which Choe’s church constantly prays.

They also work closely with and send assistance to Christians in such countries as India and Pakistan, where a politician who was a close friend of Choe’s was assassinated in 2011.

That highlighted for him, said Choe, the sorrow and sadness that such deaths bring, and yet it also reminded him of how others are blessed by God to take over the work others have left behind.

“I couldn’t sleep for two nights after my friend was killed, but on the third night I had a dream of Christ telling me he has received him -- and this gave me comfort,” said Choe.

While shipping goods overseas is important, that is only one aspect of the mission work at Ttokamsa.

“We don’t just send money,” said Choe. “We get involved with mission. Many of our people go overseas every year to work with people and bring them the gospel.”

For instance, several groups will go at one time to India to present traditional Korean dance, featuring dancers in colorful, authentic costumes, to people in schools, churches, and other settings.

After the dance performances, they take time to share their faith, said Choe.

And behind their widespread mission work, which also involves the inner-city L.A. area around their church, are prayers — intense prayers, often spoken in the traditional Korean style in early morning in the church sanctuary. This style of prayer involves speaking out loud, often with words that flow unchecked from the heart.

“Prayer is sensing where God is leading,” said Choe, who served for several years as a missionary in the Philippines before becoming a pastor at Ttokamsa.

“In prayer we are not only offering our requests; we are hearing from the Lord, who works many mysteries in our lives.”