The Invitation is a bit different this month. Instead of asking you to pray on the second Thursday of the month (or whatever works best for you) we are asking you to pray with us daily from June 6-July 5, 2016 for 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World.

The 30 Days prayer focus began at a gathering of YWAM’s international leaders in 1992. They were meeting in the Middle East and in a time of prayer for the region God spoke to them in a powerful way. This time resulted in the Red Sea Covenant (http://www.ywam.org/about-us/red-sea-covenant/) which was a commitment these leaders made on behalf of YWAM. 30 Days was born out of this commitment and began as a small prayer guide, produced by YWAMers largely for YWAM. Since then 30 days has grown each year and now includes an estimated 500,000 participants across the wider body of Christ, including several agencies and churches that gather content, translate and distribute the guide. 2016 marks the 22nd anniversary of 30 Days.

30 Days of Prayer	Muslims
Over ½ Million Participants	1.6 Billion Muslims
23 Primary Languages	4 Million New Muslim Refugees
22nd Year	49 Muslim Nations
350,000 prayer guides	1,999 Muslim People Groups

30 Days coincides every year with Ramadan (June 6 – July 5 this year) which is an important month of fasting and religious observance for Muslims. The purpose of 30 Days is to call Christians to make an intentional and respectful effort during this period to learn about, pray for and reach out to Muslim neighbors.

In the Muslim world today, we see encouraging answers to prayer. In the book A Wind in the House of Islam, David Garrison notes that the greatest movements of Muslims turning to Christ have happened in the 21^st century. Please join us in prayer to be part of God’s work.

Preparation for 30 Days of Prayer:

• Download the 30 Days prayer guide and encourage others at your location to do the same: www.pray30days.org. Also, take a moment to like the 30 Days Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/30daysprayer. When you do so, you will receive short summaries of the prayer topics each day during the 30 days of prayer. You can share these summaries with others in your community.
• Pray to hear from God about how you/your location are being called to participate.
• Schedule a meeting at your location to explain and discuss 30 Days.
• Determine how your location will “remember” to pray each day. Examples from previous years include prayer bracelets and playing drums at midday to call the location to prayer. (Some locations pray at the beginning of their day and others pray just before lunch.)
• Schedule prayer times and meetings. Communicate regularly during 30 Days.

Through prayer, we engage in an act of love for Muslim people around the world—sharing their burdens, understanding their concerns and petitioning God to help them.

30 Days of Prayer website

Suggested Prayer Points:

• Read the page each day from prayer guide or from the 30 Days Facebook or website www.pray30days.org (a content summary is available each day on the website).

• Pray for journeys and movements of Muslims:
  • Pray for Muslims who are questioning their faith, that they will meet others who have walked that journey and found it led them to Christ.
  • Pray for those Muslims who decide to follow Jesus, that they will find fellowship and peace within their new faith.
  • Pray that the millions of unreached immigrants leaving their homelands in search of a new life may find new life in Christ there.
  • Pray for peace in areas where people are having to flee their homeland.
  • Pray for new Muslim believers to grow in unity, encourage one another in fellowship and love and to be lights for others.
  • Praise God for the significant movements of Muslims to Christ in this century and pray that the pace of these movements would heighten and expand.
• Pray for God to reveal his plans for YWAM locations around the world in reaching Muslims. Pray for provisions for ministries that are focusing on Muslims.
• Pray for 30 Days distributors—churches and organizations that translate, print and distribute the guide in many different ways—for wisdom and safety. Praise God for growth in participation in areas known for Muslim/Christian conflict, specifically, Eastern Europe and West Africa.
• Pray for more 30 Days participants in the United States where many Muslims have moved.
• Pray for wisdom, creativity and perseverance for the workers who create the prayer guide.
• Pray for fellow Christians to resist the temptation to exchange hatred for hatred, hostility for hostility.
• Pray that God will lead you to Muslim individuals whom you can love in Jesus’ name.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you . . . Ephesians 5:1 – 2 (NASB)

Take Action:

• Share the 30 days website with others often during the 30 Days The prayer guide is available in 23 primary languages, some with 30 Days apps.
• Talk to leaders at your church about 30 Days and organize a prayer campaign with your congregation.
• Donate to 30 Days (http://pray30days.org/about/donate/).
• Mark your calendar for next year early enough to purchase posters, guides and other resources for 30 Days. Ramadan falls May 27 through June 24 in 2017.
• Sign up on 30 Days website to get emails: http://pray30days.org/contact/
• The 30 Days prayer guide contains a lot of information. Learn more about:
  • The House of Islam and the nine “rooms” – page 4
  • Ramadan and Muslim pillars of faith – page 5
  • Recent Muslim movements to Christ – page 6
  • Muslim “hijra” of faith – pages 20-21
  • Resources – prayer diaries and books – page 29
  • Muslim “Night of Power” and dreams – page 38
  • Practical Steps For Loving Muslims – page 41
  • Write the names of Muslims you know and any Muslim communities near you. Think about how you can bless them and serve them.
  • Share on facebook.com/youthwithamission, post a picture and add a comment about how you prayed.
  • Go to twitter.com; search for #praywithywam and tweet about your prayer time/post a picture.
  • Send an email to prayer@ywam.org.

How We Prayed:

May 2016 – Local – Property

On the global prayer day, Mission Builders International received an unexpected check in the mail for $40,000 to pay down their mortgage.

YWAM Mazatlan, Mexico and YWAM Queenstown, New Zealand posted prayer requests on Facebook regarding property needs due to growth of their ministries.

YWAM Bluefields, Nicaragua was encouraged to pray for their own property even though they are a new location. God has led them to property that costs $195,000. Please pray with them for God to provide as they know they can’t do it on their own.

YWAM Pittsburgh, Pensylvania, USA prayed that they would be led by the Spirit as they plan and prepare for various ministries and programs they will run in a new building that they are purchasing. They also noted, as other locations did, that God’s timing was perfect for The Invitation for May.

YWAM San Diego, California, USA reported that they signed the papers to buy four acres of new land on the global prayer day.

YWAM Nigeria reported that praying for property was very timely for their location.

At the YWAM DNA Europe Infusion Meeting 350 YWAMers from 59 nations started praying on the global prayer day (May 12) and continued into Friday. They thanked God for the properties He has provided and they prayed for 14 properties where finances are needed to bring about God’s plans.

YWAM King’s Kids, Brazil noted they were grateful for the Portuguese translation of The Invitation and prayed for YWAM property.

YWAM San Francisco, USA prayed and requested other YWAMers to give thanks that God miraculously provided initial funds in 2014 for their property. Please pray with them that God would retire their remaining $2.17 million debt immediately. They have ministered from this location for 20 years which they rented prior to purchasing.

April 2016 – Global – YWAM Ships

• YWAM Ozarks, Arkansas prayed in great detail for YWAM Ships. Here are a few highlights:
  • Prayed for crews of ships to be alert in the spirit to enemy strongholds.
  • Prayed that YWAM ships would expect the Lord to do miracles related to providing funding for YWAM Ships.
  • Correlated Jesus as the bread of life (John 6) with YWAM Ships and the provisions they provide to the people they serve.
  • Prayed for the crew to be the right people on the vessel and discussed Paul’s journey to Rome and how Paul had to be on the ship to save lives.
  • Prayed for unity for the crew in dealing with one another in grace.

Upcoming topics for The Invitation:

• July 14 – Global Topic – Refugees
• August 11 – Local Topic – Universities

Don’t Miss The Invitation:

• Sign up for prayer updates. Go to ywam.org, find the “Stay Connected” box on the home page, put in your email address and click “Sign Up.”
• Download prayer updates in a specific language. Go to ywam.org/theinvitation. (Currently available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, or request other languages.)
• Join the conversation about how God is leading in these prayer times. Comment on the Facebook post on the second Thursday at facebook.com/youthwithamission or on Twitter @ywam, hash tag #praywithywam.
• If you sense God giving you a word or a direction for YWAM’s prayer, please contact us: prayer@ywam.org.

What an extraordinary thing God has done in giving us city bases and training centers. It’s a gift we can’t take credit for. . .

Lynn Green

Growing to more than 1,100 locations in over 180 countries since 1960, YWAM properties range from rental spaces of a few meters to ownership of hundreds of acres of land with many buildings. From castles several hundred years old to World-War II era military installations, to just-finished construction, God has blessed YWAM abundantly.

To this day and without exception, every YWAM property acquired and cared for has involved some level of prayer to the God who inspires us to dream, and usually reach for the impossible in order to Know Him and Make Him Known throughout the world!

John Briggs, Mission Builders International

Please join us this month in praying for your local YWAM property. We have offered several specific prayer points for praying for your local YWAM property, as well as for global YWAM property concerns and some specific YWAM properties in various parts of the world. It’s truly an exciting, yet a challenging process to pray, repent as needed, pray more and co-create with the LORD to envision how to acquire, use and care for property He leads us to, to the glory of God

 Preparation for Prayer:

• Consider the YWAM property you are most familiar with:
  • Note how the property was acquired.
  • Focus on God’s role in this property acquisition.
  • Ask one of your property workers for urgent and longer-term prayer requests.
  • Identify future property needs that align with the vision of this property.
  • Pray as you feel led.
• Look at the map of YWAM locations around the world (ywam.org/map). Choose 5 locations for which you have little or no familiarity. Get a sense for their ministries. Pray for them using the points below or as you feel led.
• Consider Hebrews 3:4 (below).

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.

Hebrews 3:4 NASB

Suggested Prayer Points:

• Your local YWAM property:
  • Pray for your location to have the ability to clearly and simply communicate the call of your location and ministry goals over time.
  • Pray for your location’s planning efforts and time spent with God so that the Lord’s purposes will prevail.
  • Pray for wisdom for your location’s leadership and administration to:
    • help steward property acquisition and development in concert with ministry goals
    • help identify and prioritize the issues of maintenance, repair or replacement beforethey become real problems
  • Pray for affordable, safe housing for YWAMers and their families at your location.
  • Pray for your ministry location to be debt free and offer thanksgiving for the ministry locations that are debt free!
  • Pray for the Lord to lead the right people to the right occupations, particularly for harder “property” positions to fill such as maintenance leader, construction workers, groundskeepers, administrator, or operations/property manager.
  • Pray for those who have responded by working “behind the scenes” or in service positions we tend to take for granted, such as: administration, maintenance, grounds, facilities, housekeeping, kitchen, accounting, and hospitality to name a few.
  • Pray that all YWAMers at your location will have a heart of gratitude for those who have served in the past and for those who are currently serving in positions that have contributed to making your ministry location what it is today.
  • Pray for your ministry location to give honor where honor is due by recognizing, appreciating and celebrating the gifts God has brought to us through the people He has sent.

• Needs of specific YWAM properties:
  • YWAM – Berlin, Germany where the ministry team is believing for the release workers and finances to rebuild a ministry center and an adjacent hotel to house hundreds of long-term staff and visiting teams from around the world to reach the heart of Germany for Christ.
  • YWAM – Riga, Latviaand their “Freedom 61” project believing for the finances and Mission Builder volunteers for building a transition center for housing women and girls caught in human trafficking.
  • YWAM – Battambang, Cambodia continues its campus development constructing a training center serving the four remaining Communist nations in the region. Pray for the continued release of workers and the finances for construction materials to continue.
  • YWAM – Jinja, Uganda. Praise God with this location as they celebrate receiving 40% (or $100,000) to buy the building they have been renting. They call this the Time2Own Pray for God to provide remaining funds.

• Global concerns – YWAM property:
  • Obtaining properties in most cities is very difficult due to price, availability, regulations and other factors. Pray for the Lord to provide breakthroughs for YWAM ministries. As an example, that God would stir the hearts of owners to donate their properties, as opposed to keeping the property as an asset. Pray for churches or ministries with available property to be open to offering property to YWAM.
  • Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring revelation and a heart of repentance where we have made our own plans without God or “used” people instead of waiting for the best God may have desired for our ministry location.
  • Pray for the LORD to release tens of thousands of workers (with gifts of administration, maintenance, facilities management, housekeeping, kitchen service, accounting, and hospitality to name a few) into the fields white with harvest – and that He would direct them toward YWAM ministry locations and our partner ministries worldwide.
  • Pray that short-term workers (like Mission Builders!) would be positively impacted by serving alongside YWAM ministry locations worldwide so much so that they would return as students and long-term YWAMers. Pray for the ministry of Mission Builders (missionbuilders.org).
  • Pray that YWAM locations and YWAMers with gifts of maintenance and construction skills will catch the vision to partner with other YWAM ministries by traveling to other locations needing short-term help. (In the USA, those events when family and friends gather to build a barn in a day or two, are called “barn raisers.”) Pray that YWAMers partner together to be “barn raisers” in their region.

Take Action:

Learn more about Mission Builders International (MBI). MBI has been connecting Christians to frontline missions since 1978. MBI averages 900 to a 1,000 volunteers placed in 85-120 locations each year.

• MBI is a ministry of YWAM, celebrating 56 years of Knowing God and Making Him Known. Contact MBI to find out how you or your location could come alongside another YWAM location for a “property” project. MBI@MissionBuilders.net or MissionBuilders.org or 406-844-2683
• Refer someone not currently in YWAM to MBI. MBI connects Christians with frontline missions and serves YWAM by recruiting and placing mission builder volunteers alongside YWAM ministry locations worldwide. missionbuilders.org
• Coordinate appreciation efforts for your location:
  • Send written thank you notes to people who have funded your property.
  • Hold an appreciation dinner for your location’s “property” workers.
• Talk to your base leader or other property leader. Identify a “property” project that you could plan, organize and execute with others.
• Research YWAM locations that have property needs. Adopt one of them and seek the Lord for how your location could pray, provide, partner with them regarding their property.
• Share how God spoke to you.
  • Share on facebook.com/youthwithamission, find the post for May 12, and add a comment about how you prayed.
  • Go to twitter.com; search for #praywithywam and tweet about your prayer time/post a picture.
  • Send an email to prayer@ywam.org.
  • Share with other YWAMers in person or through other channels.

How We Prayed:

April 2016 – Global – YWAM Ships

• Kids at YWAM Medical Ships Australia made cutout pictures of each of the vessels and sailed them around, praying for where they would go and the people they would see!

• YWAM – Georgia (republic of) prayed for a ship for the Black Sea.
• YWAM at Outpost Panama welcomed Making Waves last month: “What an amazing answer to prayer and the joint effort of 5 YWAM bases. We are asking God for workers for the harvest here at Outpost Panama for all departments including Making Waves.”
• A group of YWAM leaders prayed during the recent DNA conference in Missouri, USA. They watched videos about YWAM Ship ministries and then prayed based upon the prayer points in The Invitation for April. They also noted that the Pacific Hope ship was headed to do some fundraising before ending up in Vanuatu (republic of) where there are Bibleless people groups.
• YWAM – Togo, West Africa prayed for a new boat for the Amazon and a boat for West Af They also sensed God giving them Haggai 2:8 when praying for funds and Matthew 9:37-38 when praying for crew.
• YWAM – Chicago, Illinois prayed for the fleet (Habakkuk 2:14) and for Papua New Guinea, specifically for unity among leaders.
• YWAM Perth, Australia prayed for the resources and abundance of the Papua New Guinea ship to be multiplied to all the ships and for even MORE ships with different and unique purposes to be birthed.

• YWAMers requested prayers for these ships:
  • Please pray that we get the M/V Amazing Grace into the shipyard this month so we can get her to YWAM – Mazatlan, Mexicoand begin ministering to the isolated.
  • Next Wave needs short and long term volunteers to help in the boat and with the refugees. Please also pray for Finances.
  • Pacific Link held their first ophthalmology clinic in the Karkar Island region in March. Pray for solid relationships with these people over time.
  • Pray for new training vessel for YWAM Ships Kona.
• YWAM – Åland Islands (autonomous region of Finland, between Finland and Sweden, Baltic Sea) asked for prayer for their vision to start a ship ministry. They note that the Åland islands have a population of only 29 000 and still during the interwar period it had the world´s largest sailing ship fleet. The YWAMers say, “We do believe that this is a part of Ålands’ calling; travel to the unreached people groups by the ships and preach the gospel! So please pray, as we are right now taking our first steps to pioneer YWAM there.”
• One YWAMer noted on Facebook: “The need is obviously greater than I could imagine, and it is comforting to know that our God is much greater still! Thank you for ALL involved in this amazing ministry – for your precious time, love, obedience and willingness to GO!”

Upcoming topics for The Invitation:

• June 2016 – Area Topic – 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World
• July 14 – Global Topic

The second Thursday is just a suggestion. Feel free to pray close to that date at a time that works well for your location’s schedule.

Don’t Miss The Invitation:

• Sign up for prayer updates. Go to ywam.org, find the “Stay Connected” box on the home page, put in your email address and click “Sign Up.”
• Download prayer updates in a specific language. Go to ywam.org/theinvitation. (Currently available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, or request other languages.)
• Join the conversation about how God is leading in these prayer times. Comment on the Facebook post on the second Thursday at facebook.com/youthwithamission or on Twitter @ywam, hash tag #praywithywam.
• If you sense God giving you a word or a direction for YWAM’s prayer, please contact us: prayer@ywam.org.