Pray for the Vega family in Panama

Today (Feb 21st) is the birthday of Moises Vega, Jr. He is the son of Moises and Talsy Vega, who serve as the national directors of e3's ministry in Panama. e3 is one of VRBC's mission partner organizations, and they focus on evangelism and church planting around the world. In addition to supporting e3, VRBC directly supports the Vega family as they work with Panamanian churches and pastors.

The family is pictured above. Moises and Talsy have five children: Moises Jr (31), Jose (25), David (20), Ruthie (18) and little Talsy (17).

"Junior" is very involved, as is the whole Vega family, in the ministry. With his wife Delia and children Hannah (2) and Moises III (1), Junior owns a sucessful software business in Panama City. A portion of the profits of this business directly supports the ministry in Panama.

Please pray for:

• Sinus issues that have plagued Moises (Sr) over the past several months.
• The Vegas' truck, affectionately named Lazarus, is currently disassembled and being worked on. Pray that Lazarus will rise from the dead again, as it has several times before (hence the name, Lazarus).
• Ruthie has accepted the challenge of starting I Am Second discipleship groups in her hometown of David and would covet our prayers for that endeavor.

To learn more about our VRBC-supported missionaries, please visit www.vrbc.net/missionaries.

Pray for VRBC's Local Missions Partners

VRBC partners with several local agencies to serve those in need in our community. Today we want to spotlight one of those organizations who has been a valuable partner to our church:

www.parentingalone.org

Parenting Alone is a ministry to single parents and their children. Located in Carrollton, they offer a one-stop resource and relationship center for single parents that will help meet their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.   Free professional counseling, financial crisis coaching, budgeting, grief recovery, legal and career counseling are just some of the many services offered to the community.

VRBC has learned a lot from Parenting Alone in how we can best help families in need who might seek benevolence assistance from our church. They are helping to train VRBC volunteers to serve on a support team and walk alongside someone in need for a period of six months, providing accountability, encouragement and links to resources. We are so grateful they would use their experience and expertise to help our church improve our ministry to the community in this way.

Please take a moment to pray through some of the requests from the single parents in Parenting Alone's ministry:

• A mother whose child had their first seizure
• A mother who needs a washer with five children
• A mother who was in a car accident
• Mother whose sister lives with her and has cancer- she is unable to come to our workshops
• Mothers with discipline and authority problems with their sons
• Fathers with teenage daughters
• Father who is providing for his family, more than just his children
• All our parents with children with autism and other special needs
• At least 5 mothers without a job
• Mothers with car problems
• A mother asked us to pray for her and especially for guidance
• Financial needs
• Father in distress with two young daughters
• A mother about to lose her house and behind in bills
• A mother and daughter living in an unhealthy environment with a violent neighbor
• Grief of a spouse dying with children
• The salvation of some of our clients
• Support systems for our parents
• Mother with mother in the hospital with a lot of complications after brain surgery
• Single mother’s daughter in college for strength and faith through troubling time at school
• Financial breakthrough for a mother who is going to court for more financial support
• Strength and patience for a mother each with three babies (she wants the best for them)

As you see, there are many needs that need prayer.  Being a parent is hard enough, but it's even harder when there is only one parent. Take this opportunity to also pray for the single parents who are a part of our church family, as well as those single-parent families in our community who do not have a church home. Pray that they would have peace, guidance, and comfort.

Pray for VRBC's ESL Ministry

VRBC has been teaching English to our international friends since January 2009. This ministry has grown tremendously since its inception, now with four levels of classes on two days each week, activities and loving caretakers for the students' children, a weekly Bible study on Thursdays after class, and special devotional times centered around major Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas.


Many of our students are only in the United States for a short time--a period of a few years. So our vision for this ministry is that we would be training international missionaries! We hope and pray for opportunities to share the good news of Christ with our students. And then we hope that they will, in turn, share the love and truth of Christ with their friends and family both here in the States and in their home country.


Please pray for our teachers: Linda, Karen, Stacy, Jean, Peggy, Sally, Amy and Angela. Pray for our childcare workers: Katie, Sara, Kim, Krista, Dottie, Johanna, Shannon, Betty, and Willie Nell. Pray for our students: for their language learning and acclimation to a new country and culture, for their receptivity to the gospel, and for the opportunity to develop friendships with them. Pray for our Thursday Bible study: that it might be a time of outreach, that students may come to know Christ and grow in their faith.


Pray also for the opportunities that may soon grow out of this ministry. We hope to soon offer a Sunday morning Adult Bible Fellowship class for our students and other internationals, taught in simple English and covering the basics of the Christian faith. We also hope to recruit volunteers who would be willing to spend time with one of our students and develop a friendship, both for their own mutual benefit and in the hopes of opportunities to share the gospel.


Finally, pray that God would be glorified in this ministry--"that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).

Let's Get It Started

Hey everyone -Like we mentioned in the description to the right, we want to encourage members and friends of Valley Ranch Baptist Church to be praying regularly and fervently for our missions efforts in our community and around the world. Without faithful prayer, we will find ourselves frantically pouring out effort without seeing the kingdom results that can only come from God.

To start out with, though, here's a basic game plan:
Each of our Missions Partnership Teams has been tasked with keeping us up-to-date on how God is working and how we can pray for our various missions partnerships. The goal is that each team would update this prayer blog on their assigned day of the week. If you subscribe to the posts, you should receive daily prayer requests by email. You can then visit the blog if you would like to post comments--write out your prayers, share a Scripture that you have prayed, or write a note of encouragement.

To leave a comment, just click on the comment section underneath the post. If you have a google ID, you can log in using that. Otherwise, just click on the button that says "Name" and it will let you type in your name so we can all see who you are! It's pretty self explanatory - if you have trouble, please let me know. So visit the site, and let's start praying!

All right, I think that is about it. If you have questions, shoot me an email at awilkins@vrbc.net.

Amy