Prayer Requests for Summer 2012

Reconciliation calls for repentance and forgiveness. Now, the word repentance is a word increasingly banned from modern language. For the over two years and nearly three, we have received the vision of a vessel of prayer and repentance for the reconciliation of peoples related to trade in black slaves. This is not an easy task! We met and still meet much opposition in this area. But we are assured that what God says, He does! We also know that He sent this message to many servants from North to South, and from East to West and one day they will join together to fulfil the will of God because the Lord wants to bless these people. Let us be instruments in His hands for this blessing!

So it is with joy that I will relay in this message, information that concerns the journey in Jamaica. In the message entitled “The Project goes on” published on this blog in July 2011, exactly a year ago, I did express my conviction that I had to join other movements which act in the same direction, and that then the doors would open. So I thought it was time to join first of all the “Life Line Expedition” movement. Again a door was open with my connection to Jacques Vigouroux, who had already participated in the various reconciliation walks with “Yokes and Chains” of this movement. This connection was made thanks to Brother David Pott, the initiator of the movement. This collaboration will be realized this year with the trip to Jamaica where Jacques and I are travelling from July 24 to August 9, 2012. I will join Jacques at Mâcon on 23^rd, and then we will fly together from Lyon the following day very early in the morning to join the team in Montego Bay. We need your prayers.

Reconciliation of the people involved in the trafficking of slaves is not an easy task. Experience shows that this is a hard fight and a long haul fight. All those involved must know that this is so and they need a special spiritual strength to persevere. The expedition in Jamaica is unique in that it coincides with the celebration of Emancipation Day and the jubilee (50^th anniversary) of the independence of the Country. It is a grace for us to be there at that time!

Prayer requests for June July and August
Our prayer requests for this month and the coming month will therefore concern our mission with Life Line Expedition to Jamaica.

Thank you to pray:

1 – That all whom God has chosen for this mission will be able to get to Jamaica.

2 - That the Lord makes us a team well balanced that represents the issues we are dealing with.

3 – For the Body of Christ in Jamaica to be united as one man and to have one voice in this jubilee season, to move in humility and grace in this critical season.

4 - For the protection of each team member, their families and all that belongs to them.

5 - That we will have Jamaicans on the team with us for the whole time, that the church will give us “a hand of association” during our mission there.

6 – That a Spanish person will be able to come as Jamaica was Spanish until 1655.

7 - For white Americans to join the team since American slave ships were the most common after British ones and for white females in team.

8 – Especially for some Africans like Dayo and Antoine who hope to come. This is a particular challenge as their flight costs are very high. Finances are a big challenge for many on the team

9 – For provision and that each member of the team will be well supported in both prayer and funding.

10 – For good personal preparation in the coming days. Our mission is sensitive, controversial, and spiritually tough and we do not want to deal lightly with this issue.

11 – For healing for Clarrie Mendy (recovering from an operation) and Brenda Smilie.

12 – Some have reservations about our actions. There is probably also some fear and suspicions too.

13 – That the pres release going out this week will be well received and will generate new an appropriate level of interest and some new contacts.

14 – For the right solutions for local transportation for the team

15 That we will find the right people to receive and respond to our public apologies in particular places.

16 – A letter has gone out from us to the Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller who has said she would welcome an apology for slavery from Britain. If we are meant to express our apology before her, pray that God will open her heart to that.

- That the Lord opens doors, especially for this mission, that lead us to do His will at all times and closes those intended to divert us

God bless you abundantly

Prayer Request for March April May

Reasoning that many Christians hold us over the issue of slave trade are the source of this reflection on their responsibility and the need to get involved in reconciliation efforts that some of us lead.

Why should Christians be involved in the reconciliation process in relation to the salve trade? It is not about to accuse any particular church, but we can say that the Church as the “Body of Christ” sometimes was involved in an incredible way for Christians today, in the scourge that in some extend, destroyed part of humanity. While the slave trade began between 1503 and 1510, during which the business is quite embryonic and sporadic, it is nonetheless true that it is the Catholic priest Las Casas who systematizes it from 1516. This is also the finding of a greater resilience of some blacks from Africa that allowed him to infer that the massive importation of these populations could be a salvation for the conservation of indigenous Indian population. That year, according to Lesly Pompey in his book “Spectral Analysis for the Caribbean History” on page 53, “together with the commission of the Order of St. Jerome sent by Charles V recommended the development of the practice as an alternative way to spare the natives.” Indeed, the Indians were practically decimated by both the forced labour that had compelled the West, and the diseases they had introduced in these populations. According to Jean Ziegler in his book “The Hatred of the West”, when the West invades America to colonise her, the Indian population were approximately 90 million. A hundred years later they were only 9 million.

There is no question of stigmatizing a religion, Catholic for example, some major Protestant families of Bordeaux to name a few, have distinguished themselves and have prospered from this trade. Jean Ziegler cites a few names in the same book in pages 97-98. Let’s just say that as Christians, then this inheritance is ours. May we recall that in the Bible, when God asks the Israelites to confess their sins, they also confessed sins of their fathers, in other words, of their ancestors? This is the condition that they could get through. This is what Daniel did when he discovers the books containing the words of the Lord to Jeremiah (Daniel 9). Then he enters repentance, recourse to prayer and fasting and implores the grace of God to His people. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever!

Thank you to pray:

- That our churches are aware of the need for them to get involved in this reconciliation process that involves repentance and forgiveness, banished from the modern vocabulary.

- For the Lifeline Expedition journey to Jamaica planned for the month of August (July 25-August 9). That the Lord provides for all of us, all the needs of this mission, financially, spiritually, morally and in terms of health.

- That many Christians are won by the passion for reconciliation and engage in these movements for the reconciliation of peoples and thus exercise the ministry of reconciliation according to 2 Corinthians 5:18.

- That the discouragement that constantly strikes at the door finds no hold on us and that our zeal for the Lord as part of this project is constantly renewed.

- That the Lord opens doors that lead us to do His will at any time and for any occasion and closes those that are intended to divert us.

- That He prevents us from any precipitation and gives us the patience to await the fulfilment of this vision that works towards an end and that will certainly take place according to Habakkuk 2:3. That HIS WILL BE DONE!

Let’s keep on praying for all the subjects mentioned before and for which we must still intercede.

God bless you abundantly

Prayer Request for January and February 2012

When you receive a prophecy, a vision or a word, you want it to come true right away, very quickly and there appears the risk of forcing things and the desire to do his own will and not God’s. This is the school that I’m drawn today and the word of God in Habakkuk 2:3 makes sense in my mind. Added to that the negative reactions I face both by our African brothers and European, sometimes insults, dropping and release from some Christians, discouragement is often at the door.

But on the other hand, we are encouraged by the word of God. Indeed, from reading the Word we find that the prophet has often brought the prophecy in his flesh: to one it is asked to take to wife a prostitute, which was an abomination for a man of God, and he does it (Hosea 1:2). To another it is asked to make a cake and bake it with human excrements (Ezekiel 4:12), yet another to buy a beautiful belt of fine linen and go to hide it, days of walking, to the Euphrates in the cleft of a rock and then return after several days search its remains that were good for nothing (Jeremiah 13:1-11)… In addition, many people have received prophecies and visions they have not seen the realization. This leads us to be humble and content ourselves to simply and humbly do what God asks us to do.

What is encouraging is that the more we advance in this vision, the more the Lord shows us that we are not alone and I’m convinced that when He wills, many converge for the realization of His plan. I was very encouraged by the letter I received a few days ago from Brother J.R. Spencer whom I met in Georgetown Guyana. Here is an excerpt from his letter: “A couple of weeks before the meeting I for the first time felt free to share the part of the vision with a brother from South Africa and to my surprise I found he and a select few had portions of the same vision in their minds and hearts. On the way to one of the meetings I sat next to a woman on the bus. She was from Jamaica and worked with one of the Bishops… and behold before I said a word she told me of portions of the vision the Bishop and she had been given. Then at the meeting you shared the vision the Lord gave you and others and it completed all the vision the Lord had shared with me. All this concerning all that I pondering on for a number of years all was affirmed in two weeks by disparate people from differing locations.” It is instructive: I received this letter at a time when I was still facing adversity on this project. Thank you Lord!

Thank you to pray for:

- The contacts made with different movements, brothers and sisters in Christ who have received this vision here and there, and for the coordination of these movements in accordance with the will of the Lord.

- That the discouragement that constantly strikes at the door finds no hold on us and that our zeal for the Lord as part of this project is constantly renewed.

- For the invitation we received to participate, from 15 to 22 May 2012, in Martinique in the national days of memories of human trafficking, slavery and their abolition, with a delegation from Lifeline Expedition. This will give us an opportunity to share more widely the vision.

- That the Lord opens doors that lead us to do His will at any time and for any occasion and closes those that are intended to divert us.

- That He prevents us from any precipitation and gives us the patience to await the fulfilment of this vision that works towards an end and that will certainly take place according to Habakkuk 2:3. That HIS WILL BE DONE!

God bless you abundantly.

Prayer Request for November and December

My trip in the Caribbean made me more accountable to the reality of the project in which the Lord led me. Before this project, I did not consider the impact of the slave trade on the planet demography and its consequences on relationship between black and white people, with the specificity of those between black populations from this ugly trade and white populations on the one hand, and black population of the forced Diaspora and black populations from the continent on the other hand. Until that vision, it is a subject that never interested, nor questioned me.

In my youth, I knew there were some were oversee, brothers called “sugarcane” with whom cohabitation was difficult or even sometimes impossible. Some families advised their children not to bind into the marriage with them because this was always doomed to failure, and for me it was a simple exogenous data which all African travelling to Overseas should take into account and I never questioned why that? When I arrived in France for my studies and faced them for the first time, I realized it was the same for them: we were likewise as concerns that state of mind, but we shared at least one thing, our apprehension of white people.

So it is only from this view that something has changed my view of this situation. It is as if suddenly the Lord has opened my eyes to a world I could only see through a veil. I became interested in this very story, and like miraculously I was put in contact with people, videos, books and events relevant to the slave trade and its consequences in geopolitics, economic and commercial relations, cultural and social relations in the world.

When I started the implementation of this project and I realized that the Lord had entrusted similar vision to other, Western like African, I asked myself why to me too, since a considerable amount of work had already been done in this direction. What could I make more by the vision that I received? The response I received during my trip in October in the Caribbean.

When I arrived at the Hotel where we stayed, the first observation I made is that the ladies at the reception were behaving exactly as our sisters in Africa. They had always attached their faces as if they had something against the whole world. The second is after my speec at the Congress of Evangelicals sin the Caribbean Georgetown 2011 (CONECAR 2011). I realized the bad feeling of black people. It would certainly be relevant to the colonial and slavery situation that this population had experimented: it is when a pastor of Barbados approached me and said this: “brother, until now, I had resentment towards the African who sold us as slaves to whites, but now, after your presentation, and following the call you have just addressed us, I realize that we should and can be Joseph to Africa and give her a helping hand to finish the task and do any other things together.”

I knew the Life Line Expedition had visited the Barbados and made a welk with yokes and chains there, but that a pastor of this country comes to me and tell me what I have heard, this made me realize that there was still much to do and the adventure was worth it!

Thank you to pray for:

- New contacts that were made at the CONECAR to coordinate actions to the reconciliation of peoples involved in the triangular trade and its consequences. Pray that they are successful and that the will of God be done.

- The authorities of Nantes, that they accept our proposal to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the Memorial for the abolition of slavery.

- The Churches of Nantes that they are convinced of the need in the interest of their involvement in the movement for reconciliation. God has given us in Christ, the Ministry of Reconciliation.

- For us. That the discouragement recedes from us and that the Lord renews us in our zeal to serve Him, to obey Him and to put into practice what He commands us.

- That the Lord opens doors that lead us to do His will at all times and closes those intended to divert us.

Prayer Request for October

I'm traveling to the Caribbean from October 12. to 24., 2011. I had to pas through Jamaica, but as with the Life Line Expedition that did not work. I personally believe that it was not the Lord's will. But everything was set up for a mission in Martinique where I will be hosted by the Evangelical Baptist Church during the two weekends of this period. Meanwhile I'll go to Georgetown in Guyana to take part from October 17. to 20. in the Congress of Evangelicals in the Caribbean (CONECAR 2011). I pray that the Lord inspires me in how to communicate the vision of the reconciliation boat.

Thank you to pray for:

- Pastor Paul MOULIN who is hosting me during my stay in Martinique, that he is blessed, him and his family. May the LOrd bless His Church in Martinique.

- That the contacts at the CONECAR with Church leaders, associations and evangelical movements in the Caribbean are drivent by the Holy Spirit and lead to combined actions for the Ministry and for the organisation of the future expediton.

- That the Lord opens doors that lead us to do His will at all time, and closes those that are intended to divert us.

- His protection thoughout the trip in the Caribbean. Pray that He preserves us from all evil and that His will be done!