«Make the watch strong!»

 

«Set up the standard upon the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the LORD hath both devised and done that which he spake against the inhabitants of Babylon.»

Jerem.51:12

 

    Prayer tours are not just a nice rest during vocation time or a light interesting trip for those who like travelling and extrem. Though, it is all there too. Prayer tours have particular goals and concrete aims. Some of them are raising of the prayer watches throughout Ukraine, healing of our land from antisemitism, building prayer partnership relationships with other cities and towns, which get involved with these tours, that Ukraine experience real national prayer movement. We long for the change of the spiritual atmosphere in our regions, getting aquainted with the history of the Jewish population in different parts of the country. So that is quite serious. And it is a lot of fun in the same time. Travelling is great experience.

 

So let’s go!

   Last year, in May 24-29 46 watchmen of Kiev Jewish Messianic Congregation and other churches from Berdichev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie, Kharkov, smela, Cherkassy, and Lvov went to the prayer tour  riding on a bus and covering over 500 kilometers. We wanted to share God given vision and get together in prayer with brothers and sisters from these cities. Our itinerary went through Belaya Tserkov, Uman, Nikolaev, Odessa. There were more than 100 people and two pastors participating in the prayer meeting in Uman. In Belaya Tserkov we had 150 people and 4 pastors with us. Three hundred believers joined our night prayer in Nikolaev. Everything started with our simple worship and dance and the Lord was doing something incredible during those hours.

In the end the team of the tour prayed for people that the spirit of intercession would come upon them. Some of these people got deliverance from bitterness. Those bondages that were keeping believers started falling down. Besides Odessa there were 12 different pastors who participated in our corporate prayer meetings and services and over 500 people were reached out to during these days.

     Well, many Ukrainians dream to visit this beautidul tourist city sight. And our team did that. And it is not about simple visiting, we left our spiritual footprint that changed the city of Odessa.

“Blessed are those who keep watch at night”

(night prayer in Nikolaev)

 

And now to the West!

And then our white bus with the sign Shomer Prayer Movement and Ukraine for Jesus went out for another trip to the Western border. There are new city ahead of us: Zhitomir, Berdichev, Khmelnitskiy, Teropol, Lvov. This time we ented two-level bus in order to have all the people willing to join us.  This second prayer tour which was aimed to the West of Ukraine included 64 participants from 15 countries and 19 churches. There were abot 50 other representatives of 2 Zhitomir churches and Jewish Messianic congregation which joined us for a prayer meeting close to their city border. There was also one city council deputy present at that prayer meeting. In Berdichev we lead an evening prayer meeting and there were about 140 people 4 pastors and one messianic rabbi. In Vinnitsa we had over 140 peope from 8 churches and 1 messianic congregation. Among participants there were 6 pastors. In Khmelnitskiy we had  480 people (13 pastors, 14 churches and 1 messianic congregation). In Lvov we hel a night prayer which was attended by 200 people (6 pastors and 15 churches).

       What surprised us the most was God’s breakthrough in the city of Ternool. What we did there was a night prayer on the week day (it was Thursday) and there were 330 people present there. But the most astonishing was not even the number of people but the number of churches involved – it was  20(!) churches and 10 pastors. They were from baptist, christian orthodox, greek catholic, carismatic and penticostal churches. Isn’t it the miraculous unity in the ody of Messiah?!

      Altogeher this second tour was attended by 1500 people from 69 churches of Western Ukraine and 41 of these participants were pastors who particiated in various meetings and services we organized and lead.

 

Evening prayer in Uman

 

One day we missed the service of David Hasavey and our team decided to make a prayer walk around the monument of Lenin on the Kulikovo Polye (which is the central square of Odessa). Even though the people on the streets were watching us doing that and they seemed to be very amazed we kept on marching. And truly it was an unusuail thing to see, when 50 people went on walking around that monument in the city center on Sunday and kept saying something loudly against a Babylon…But the prayer worriors were not embarrased at all. And you know what happened? That monument was destroyed and taken off the square in Septemeber for some reason. We think we do know the reason why?!

Corporate evening prayer for churches in Khmelnitskiy

And who cn share about the tour better than those who participated in it? So we offer the notes and impressions of the participants who made that step of risk and trusted God receiving His call to «Make the watch strong!»:

Valery Nedashkovskaya, prayer ministry of Pobeda church in the village of Kozelets, Chernigovskiy, «During this tour the LORD broke down all the strongholds i still had in my heart. He has set me free. And now i can serve Him in the fulness of this freedom.»

Lev Veksler, the elder of Odessa Jewish Messianic Congregation, «During the tour i experienced the renewal of the sirit of prayer. Thank to the Lord for the abundant blessing, for the prayers, for the people, who ministered. I can joyfull praise God and He gives me the fire of the Holy Spirit.»

Yuriy Nikonorkin, prayer ministry of God’s Embassy church in Dnepropetrovsk,

«The Lord reveled a greater insight of prayer to me, responsibility in prayer, responsibility of the team work.»

Lyudmila Medvedeva, missionary ministry of Kiev Jewish Messianic Congregation, «God gave me meetings with new interesting people. We needed each other and it were devine appointments. He broke many wrong insights in my mind and set me free. I;ve got the compassion to people, and i feel pain for those who do not know God yet and do not live in His freedom. I realized the importance of such tours when i saw what was happening at the prayer meeting during our trip.

Ivetta Rak, prayer and worsip leader of “New Generation” church in Lvov: «During the tour i realized the importance of unity for all the believers, both Jews and Gentiles. God gave me understanding of how i can develop my ministry and He showed me new perspectives. He let me see His deeds and witness the answers to prayers (unity of pastors and all the people of God in Ukraine). I had a chance to rest and get some fresh power and stregnth.»

 

Pastors’ repentance of antisemitism in Ternopol

Stanislava Otyska, women’s and prayer ministry,

Novy Rozdol, Lvov Region:«God has lit His fire in my heart, He filled me with a new power. He gave me a new understanding of His will and streignth to make some decisions – to make all the efforts and to spend time to get people saved, to start night prayer for pastor, to start crying out to the Lord that He would reveal His strategy and what He expects me to do.»

And it was not an end. After two weeks there was a messianic Conference organized in Ternopol (9-10 September, 2007) for all the churches intereste din Jewish issues. And the most amazing thing was not about the main topic of the meetings (for even that is very unusual for this region) or about the fact that the main speaker of the conference was rabbi Borys Gisenko (KJMC). It was not even about the Jewish worship and dance, that all the people enjoyed greatly. The wonder was o witness the fact that the two days fo the conference hosted 24 pastors and 777 representatives of 72 churches from Ternopol region. Dear friends, our God keeps making us wonder and surprises us with His miracles and love. And the greatest miracle is that His children get together with one heart an one mouth worship the Lord and Father in Heaven as one accord. 

South! South! South!

And not so long ago (November 2006) our brave travellers came back from their tour in Crimea. Even thugh it was not a very popular season to go to the south, but nothing could keep those who were on fire from payer and adventure. Sevastopol, Yalta, Feodosia, Simferopol, Chernomorskoye, Yevpatoriya – it was their agenda and itenerary.  They also visited the notorious beach called Kazantip, which is full of youth in summer, and D-Jeys from all over Ukraine and abroud come there bringing thousands of their worshippers. They built a whole tent entertainment country and for two month every year these young people “have fun” taking drugs, sex and music jam sessions. But this time, in November 2006, this place was attended by 46 young prayer worriors, who came to cry out to God and ask Him to show mercy to their contemporaries. These young men and wemen also once “enjoyed” their lives in a wrong way.But the Lord saved them out of all that.  And now they could pray for the salvation o those who live in darkness.

     We had 45 people in the team of the Crimea tour. They were from different cities and churches. And our prayer meetings were attended by 419 people (21 pastors) from 16 churches Of Crimea.

What’s next?

We’re not gonna stop.

We’ve already started preparing for the next tour to the easr of Ukraine. And soon we believe it will be Russia, Hungary,...

Besides that we consider organizing a prayer summit “Call together the archers” to invite the leaders and assistants of leaders of the prayer ministies which we had visited during our prayer tours. Prophet Jeremiah wrote (Jer. 50:29), «Call together the archers against Babylon: all ye that bend the bow, camp against it round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.» God showed us that, so we want to make it happen. We first came to them, and now we want to invite them to come here. «What for?» - you might ask. We do that to see the prayer movement in Ukraine growing and developing and the fire of prayer would burn brighter overwelming the whole nation.

 

 

Shomer Prayer Movement

Please contact our office to receiv e more information: tel. +380 93-394-56-23 (Natasha)

Shomer_24@mail.ru                                                                          shomer@ukr.net