March Prayer Update

Dear Prayer Team,
Wow! What an encouragement you have been! You’ve walked with us in prayer as we’ve opened up our new community center and expanded all of our programs. Before we share a few prayer requests for March, here is just a taste of all that God has brought to fruition in the past month:

• The PLACE has welcomed over 100 people per week since its opening—most of these have been newly resettled Afghans. The PLACE is open every weekday, but we’re hoping to expand into weekends and evenings soon as well. It seems like every day we’ve been able to bless an Afghan family in a profound new way.
• Our Open House was attended by over 250 people. Our community is embracing our vision!
• Our mentorship program has exploded! We now have nearly 50 mentors meeting weekly with their mentees, with a majority of these new relationships among Afghans. The impact here is incalculable.
• Our Table Talk program has resumed, and quickly outpaced our expectations. What a joy to watch 30 people connect and share a meal each week. These informal gatherings have resulted in several of our new mentorships.
• Our staff continues to grow. RLP now has seven employees—four full-time and three part-time. One of these is an Afghan man who served our U.S. military for 12 years. What a joy to hire this servant-hearted man to help us better serve Afghans in our community.
• One recent mentee has asked to begin reading the Bible. Another has remarked about how he’s been lied to by Muslim leaders at his mosque in Afghanistan. He said that they claimed that Christians would hate him and fail to welcome him. This man’s expectations have been shattered by the hospitality of Christ. Praise God for these incredible opportunities!

As you celebrate these things, please join us in prayer for four things in particular:

1. Pray for one Afghan man in particular who has asked to read the Bible with one of our team members. We have served this person open-handedly, and he seems impacted by how God has used us to bless him. Pray that we would be faithful to the Lord in this relationship, and that others would also seek the Lord because of our hospitality and love.
2. Pray for new funding! We are seeing ripe fruit growing from our God-given mission. This has led us to expand our programs and grow our staff, but we don’t have the funding to sustain this in the long-term. Will you pray for additional large donors, especially from churches? Will you also pray about several grants we are currently applying for, which would help us to meet our needs at least for 2022. We really need at least $25,000 more revenue this year than we’ve budgeted for.
3. Pray for wisdom! This season of growth that has opened the door to all kinds of new opportunities and challenging pressures. Pray that we would be faithful as a team, never abandoning the people we’re called to serve. We seek to be faithful in the day-to-day journey, even though that often means we will grow more slowly. Pray that we will remain committed to the vision God has given us, and that we will see distractions clearly, while also wisely pursuing opportunities for growth.
4. Pray for reliable volunteers who can help us to expand our community center’s hours. We need committed community members to serve as hosts so that refugees can benefit from our service when they most need it—oftentimes in the evenings and on weekends.

As always, thank you for your partnership in prayer!