October 1st marks the first day of our fiscal year at World Vision. Every year World Vision sets the day aside for prayer. This year was my first Day of Prayer; I missed last year's by just a few days. It was a great day set aside to absorb, pray, reflect, share, worship and dedicate the year to the Lord as a community. It was very cool to know that World Vision offices all over the globe were participating in the Day of Prayer.
Throughout the day we engaged in corporate prayer, individual prayer, lifting up new campaigns, requests from our field staff and the needs of people affected and afflicted by dire circumstances all around the globe. One of my favorite parts of the day was when we prayed for our donors. World Vision had collected prayer requests from people that financially support World Vision. I think it is so easy for us let people invest into us as a humanitarian organization because we know that our work requires people willing to financially support us, but it is some times difficult to remember that our donors have needs as well. They may not be suffering from malaria or struggle to feed their families, but they still have real needs- cancer, a broken marriage, loss of a loved one, depression. As staff we had the honor of silently working through piles of prayer requests, praying, and then writing a postcard of encouragement to individual donors we prayed for. It was a powerful and humbling experience and I was really encouraged by the whole process. How wonderful to be able to prayer for our donors after they have been praying for our work!
In Richard Foster's
Celebration of Discipline he writes, "To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives" (p. 33). I am so grateful to work for an organization that does not abandon prayer, but seeks the Lord as we are starting a new year. We pray because we know that without His power and might, our work is dependent on merely human effort. We pray because we need change, transformation, not only in our work but in our own lives as well. The Day of Prayer is the beginning, a reminder of our oneness with Christ as His Body, a call to lean into Him as we enter a new year as a community seeking to serve the least of these.
To learn more about how you can be praying for World Vision, visit our
Newsfeed with up-to-date prayer requests.
Photos by Brian Tropiano
Since then I've become completely sentimental over all things fall- the colorful leaves, the crisp air, all pumpkin food products, corn mazes, gourds and apple cider. I've even convinced myself that I like butternut squash when I'm not totally sure my tastebuds are on board. Our apartment even looks kind of like a pumpkin patch right now and I love it. Fall here in DC has been fairly lame unless you walk on Capitol Hill or go to Rock Creek Park (loved a long bike ride there yesterday through the beautiful leaves), but the colors outside the city are even more amazing. Apparently Virginia and Maryland are good for something.
Even though the DC area puts on a good show of the season, I do miss fall in Seattle- something about the mountains accompanying the fall colors. But I can't complain about the view from here. So thank you fall for being so amazing and please don't tell summer that you're kind of my new favorite.
