There is a room at Heidebeek where the lights are on at strange hours. No lectures happen there. Nothing is produced there that you could put in a newsletter. And yet I am convinced that nothing we do would work without it.

The engine room

Every movement that has ever gone out from this estate — every team, every school, every worker on a far-away island — left on a road that was paved with intercession first. Before anyone gets sent anywhere, someone has prayed. Usually many someones, usually for a long time.

Intercession is not a specialist hobby for the particularly spiritual. It is the engine room of missions. The ship's passengers rarely visit the engine room. That does not make it optional.

How we pray for nations we have never seen

People sometimes ask how you pray meaningfully for a country you have never visited. Our answer: the same way you love a person you have just met — by paying attention. We read, we listen to workers on the ground, we learn names. Vague prayers come from vague attention. Specific love produces specific prayer.

On Tuesday evenings the prayer room is open to everyone, and we take one region of the world at a time. Maps on the wall, tea on the side table, no experience required.

An invitation

If you cannot go this season — pray. Not as a consolation prize, but as the first assignment. Somewhere on an island, months from now, a team will arrive on a road you paved tonight.