April Prayer Update
Have you noticed the stratospheric growth we’ve experienced in the last year? Check out some of these milestones:
(1) We opened an office and a community center
(2) Our mentorship program from 14 to 50 active weekly mentorships.
(3) We resumed our weekly Table Talk program, now seeing 50–60 people every Tuesday night.
(4) We grew our English from 4 to 30 people—including one new class taught entirely in Persian.
(5) Our budget has grown by 470% since last January.
(6) We’ve grown from 5 staff members to 8.
We say this because we are grateful that God is using us. Please celebrate what God is doing! This is a miraculous story happening before our eyes. You may not see it, but each of these milestones was accompanied by very real risks. None of this was expected or guaranteed. So we are praising God this month for his grace to bless us so we can turn around and bless this hurting world.
There’s another reason we share this list. We need your prayers to handle this growth with wisdom. Each new bit of success has pulled Ryan into an increasingly managerial role—processing time sheets, overseeing HR & benefits, leading staff meetings, developing budgets, and even providing day-to-day maintenance. As Ryan’s schedule has filled with these important jobs, it’s meant he’s been less and less available for maintaining crucial relationships with the area’s refugee leaders. But it’s those relationships that have led to all the success we see today!
Will you pray with us for Ryan, that he can find a partner who can take the day-to-day operations off his shoulders? RLP needs a generous donor who can understand the importance of this role for the success of our vision, and who would be willing to donate $150,000 to enable us to hire the right person for the job. Will you pray that God would provide us with that special donor?
Oh, and one last thing:
Will you pray for our refugee friends who are struggling to get into higher education or GED programs? Many of the Afghans we’re serving are too old for our public school system but are desperate to further their education. Unfortunately, there are very real hurdles involving lost paperwork, language barriers, childcare needs, and residency requirements. Please pray for the following people in particular: Tamana (far left in picture), Khalid (middle left), Grace (middle right), Bakhtawar (right) & Dawood (not pictured).
