Derek's Calendar

*****UPDATE*****

After writing this post last night, another earthquake struck Haiti this morning. Please keep that whole situation in your prayers.

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About 2 years ago, our church supported a member, Derek, who was going to serve at a MTW project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During his first trip, our missions team published a monthly prayer calendar with specific, daily prayer requests. Many were people–both on his team and patients with the project.

Around the same time, I was looking for a way to increase our kids’ understanding of how BIG God’s church is–ya know, bigger than the people we saw every Sunday. I also wanted their worldview to grow to include the needs of others…not just themselves. Perfect, a prayer calendar, I thought. We can incoorperate it into our nightly prayer time. It will spark great conversation. We’ll look up Ethiopia on a globe. We’ll follow his blog. We can invite Derek over to dinner when he gets back to hear more stories and see more pictures. The kids will really connect to this.

Thus was born “Derek’s Calendar.” At first, PJ (who was really the only one of our two kids who was praying intelligibly) was a little hesitant. But soon, we couldn’t skip “Derek’s Calendar” if we wanted. Every night, before he prayed, he would (and still does) expectantly ask “Derek’s calendar?” During the months Derek served in Addis, the people for whom we were praying became like friends. We were excited when a staff member welcomed a new baby into his family, we mourned when patients passed on, we rejoiced when patients heard the Good News. We learned a lot about the culture and not a lot about correct name pronunciation.

PJ far surpassed my expectations and his compassion and faithfulness for my little prayer project floored us. When Derek came home for a short furlow, PJ, unprompted by us, emptied his piggy bank (all $27) and presented it to Derek–a baggie full of coins–to buy supplies for his project. I stood across the sanctuary and cried.

You’re probably wondering, so that was almost 2 years ago, why blog about it now? I’m so glad you asked.

Derek’s been home from Ethiopia for almost a year now. We haven’t had a fresh edition of “Derek’s Calendar” for quite sometime. Instead, “Derek’s Calendar” has become the part of our nightly prayer time that we pray for all kinds of requests that don’t have to do with us. PJ (and, now Mia) still starts his prayer with “Derek’s calendar?” But now we pray for other missionaries, sick friends, sick friends of friends, men serving in our military, families going through tough times, and, yes, we still pray for Derek on occasion and all the people he encountered during his time in Addis.

I bring up “Derek’s Calendar” now because we also pray for great disasters…like Haiti. A couple nights ago we asked the kids to pray for a specific orphanage I had received an email about. They had lost a nanny, had no potable water, were being raided, and were running out of food.

I know some families choose to shelter their children a little more than we do when it comes to things like this. Yes, they get sad and ask hard questions, but we can comfort them with the great truth that God is in the midst of the destruction, death, and dire situations. We can help them identify needs and figure out how God’s calling us to help as a family. We can also tell them the awesome miracle stories that always emerge from events like this.

If you look up in the menu, I’ve added a new page called “Derek’s Calendar”…duh. Would you be a part of “Derek’s Calendar” with us?

Here’s how:

1. When I know what our “Derek’s Calendar” prayer request is for a day (sometimes I don’t know until we sit down to pray), I’ll post it. We’d love it if you would pray with us.

2. If you have a request (specific to Haiti or not), please use the contact page to let us know. We’d love to add it to the calendar and have others pray for you as well. If you send a request, please let me know if it’s date sensitive (i.e., someone’s having surgery on a certain date). That will help me spread the requests out. Don’t forget to share how the requests were answered.

3. If you have a blog, let others know about “Derek’s Calendar.” The more praying families, the merrier. You can grab a “Derek’s Calendar” button below.