How to Pray for Christians Serving in Closed Countries

I once heard a speaker talk about serving in a creative access country. Christians used to go as “missionaries” to spread the love of Jesus, but in creative access countries, Christians would never use that word to describe their role. They are not “missionaries” but “international workers.”

A country might be a creative access country for four reasons.

1) Sometimes the government wants to ensure that all of the people who live in the country have the same religious background.

2) Sometimes the culture wants to maintain their cultural tradition. For example, in the Middle East, religious beliefs and practices help form the people’s identity.

3) Sometimes threats to a church community create a need to be under the radar. Nik Ripken in The Insanity of God went to minister in Somalia, and the Somali believers were systematically killed. That was a heavy load for him to bear.

4) Sometimes a place might be creative access because of previous relationships. Russia and the Ukraine have a long and uncomfortable history. If Russia sent a few international workers to the Ukraine, the Russians would probably not want to be fully forthright to explain why they were there.

Workers serving in creative access countries constantly deal with security issues. Some workers go by pseudonyms. Some have to adjust what they share with their friends in their host country, in order not to compromise their safety or the safety of the people around them.

For a Muslim in a Muslim nation, being a Muslim is part of their identity. Their geopolitical identity intertwines with their religious identity. They have no context for a country where people do not all share the same beliefs. Since they think of America as a Christian nation, and all they know of America is what they see on television and in the movies, they reach the wrong—but still logical!—conclusion.

They have no grid to understand that not all Americans are Christians, and that movies do not portray American life accurately. Through their lens, it makes sense to think that Christians hope to entice people to immorality.

Workers in creative access countries seek to bring people to the truth. Sometimes a worker might have to be a business owner. Their day-to-day life might not even seem particularly “spiritual.” (Of course, nothing is ever “just work.” Not even in America.)

For workers serving in a Muslim creative access country, the month of Ramadan is an incredibly challenging time of spiritual warfare, with an intense amount of oppression.

One worker said that she was flying out of her host country, and suddenly felt the oppression lift. She said, “We just left the African airspace,” and when she looked behind, she saw, indeed, the edge of the coast of Africa.

Oppression, even in the airspace.

What can you pray for this month? Here are some possibilities.

• Pray for a work of the Holy Spirit. For open hearts, for fruit.

Many who serve in Muslim countries work long for little fruit. Pray for those who at enmity with them, and for God’s kingdom to come.

• Pray for safety. For the workers, for the seekers.

Many workers experience significant health breakdown. Among the people I know personally, one family went to Africa, but came back in a few months with broken health. One family returned from the field because of a child’s learning disabilities. Another family returned after the wife experienced repeat bouts of cancer, starting in her late twenties or early thirties. Another because of threats against the family.

I don’t know dozens of workers. I know only a few more than this list.

The world contains more than what we see. Pray against the works of the enemy, and ask the Lord to bless the workers with health, life, peace, joy, blessing, fruitfulness.

• Pray for the children. The children of international workers often pay a significant price.

Pray for their health, pray for their spiritual well-being, pray for freedom from fear, pray for their education.

And their parents would say: don’t pity them. God is molding these children into the people he wants them to be.

• Pray during Ramadan.

“Ramadan is brutal.” As the prayers of millions of earnest Muslims rise, workers experience gut-wrenching attacks. Deep arguments between family members, car accidents, housebreaking, sickness for their children, sickness for themselves … on and on.

Especially during Ramadan, pray for the Christians who work in Muslim countries.

If you know someone on the ground in another country, cover them in prayer.

You can get a beautiful prayer guide booklet here.

You can also sign up for free videos, sent via email daily during Ramadan, and weekly year round.

• Pray for endurance. Pray for times of refreshing. Pray for peace.

Workers in creative access countries live incredibly isolated lives. In some countries, the foreign workers know each other only by their first names. If they meet, they don’t inquire about the rest of their lives, what they do with their time, what organization or NGO they serve with.

Often they live a bit of a double life. How tiring, to be as open as possible but always remembering the vital need to be discerning. The workers would share more if they could, but spies read their email. Not in a vague, “I think Alexa and Facebook are listening” way, but in a specific, targeted, “A person assigned to me reads all of my mail” way.

• Pray for favor with the national and local governments. Workers need visas and open doors. They need permits.

• Pray for discernment. They need wisdom to know whom to speak with and what to say.

Not all the people that they speak to are actually curious about the kingdom of God. They could be government plants, come to spy.

One final comment, passed to me from a worker: “If you don’t hear from someone from a creative access country for a while, please pray harder. Sometimes even asking for prayer takes too much energy.”

We have the power and authority, with our prayers, to lighten the load.

Lord! We cry out to you on behalf of your children who obey the command of Jesus to preach the gospel to every creature. Thank you, Lord, for calling your people, commissioning them, and sending them out. May we remember them in our prayers. Protect them, their work, their children, and the people of peace that they speak with. Comfort them, give them discernment. Stir our hearts to pray more. In the name of Jesus, who is worthy of all our praise, amen.

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you,

Amy Joy

P.S. I wrote a book with a variety of topics related to the Muslim world, evangelism, prayer, and hope: Two Billion Souls.

And in Spanish.