Welcome to our Prayer-raiser! This year, instead of having a fundraiser, we have prayer request that we would like to share with you. Many of these are praises, and others are concerns. However, all need to be lifted up to God. Instead of trying to raise funds, we are taking a bold move to raise prayer support for our organization. We hope you enjoy this letter, and reply with a commitment of prayer. In other words, we hope to raise your prayer support!
Taken by Danielle Herrera Auman
Our first praise is a big one. We recently had a photo contest for our new look of our website elijahstree.org. We asked people to take pictures of trees and post them to our Facebook page from May 15th – June 10th. As we had lots of great entries, we gave several updates through Facebook, and reached around 450 people! However, on June 15th, Danielle Herrera Auman won the contest with this beautiful photo. It will serve as our banner for the ministry. Congrats Danielle! You can see all the photos here.
Both a praise and a prayer request is for July 23rd – 26th. We are sending a couple on retreat. This is a pastor and his wife who have been and is instrumental in the Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. Matter of fact, there will be a hurricane recovery group at their church right before they leave for their retreat. In addition, this man is also a counselor for at risk teens, and assist in the community in many other ways, so please be in prayer for them.
With Hurricane Harvey, we see an added busyness to those in ministry, where they feel they can’t leave or take time for a retreat. We have actually offered several retreats, but those who need it can’t get away. In the long run, this just leads to greater stress and burnout. However, this isn’t an unfamiliar story to us. When starting this ministry, we talked with lots that believed this ministry was much needed. Yet, getting someone to commit to going on a retreat can be difficult. Please pray that they will realize the need.
Last on the prayer request is direction for Elijah’s Tree. Kelly and I were displaced four months dues to Harvey and are just now being able to redirect the majority of our attention to the ministry. Finance of a small ministry is always a concern. Years 3 – 5 are generally known as the make it or break it years of a ministry. It’s where up to this point, support has been giving by a close group of family and friends. It’s in this time their support tends to wean, and support needs to start coming from others outside this group. We plan on making it! In two years we’ve done four retreats, and have one on the books for this third year, with plenty of opportunity for more! If you know of grants or other options for support, please let us know.
Thank you for taking the time to read through our prayer request. Please reply with your commitment to keep us in your prayers. We look forward to serving those in need, standing on the foundation of prayer. And as always, to God be the Glory!