Amy Herbel 0:00
There was two security people, one on the bus, one outside the bus. He says, okay, come on, we’re running out of time. We gotta go before they check them. I have goose bumps. I have goosebumps. Yes, literally, the last row of the bus are two workers praying, please, God help because they had these materials. They knew what it was going to mean for them, and in that moment, God intervened and security just moved on.

Jeff Nichols 0:35
Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven™, a podcast from Child Evangelism Fellowship® for the Christian community. On this podcast, we dive into the world of child evangelism and discipleship through interviews and discussions with ministry leaders and thinkers. Welcome Fellowship One:Seven. Today’s episode is a little special. We’re taking a little break from our conversations that we’ve been having with our partners to talk to some of our CEF® family that we here have here in our CEF headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri, our World Day of Prayer takes place on the first Wednesday of November every single year, and it’s such a meaningful time for our ministries. It’s an important time for our ministry. So even though the day has passed, we want to take a moment and look back at that day and talk about why we do it, why it matters, and how God continues to unite our ministry and bring our global CEF family together. Today I’m sitting down with Amy Herbel. She is the communication specialist for International Ministries for CEF, and we’re going to talk about our World Day of Prayer. Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven, Amy.

Amy Herbel 1:44
Thank you so much.

Jeff Nichols 1:45
It’s great to have you here. I look forward to this conversation with you today, because the World Day of Prayer is a very special day for our CEF ministries. Is a meaningful time for our ministries. We all come together from all over the world. We’re talking 3000 staff members around the world and over 200 countries coming together for that 24 hour prayer focus. You know, prayer is our, is our number one way that we’re showing our dependence upon God and not on ourselves. We’re saying, God, we can’t do this without you. We got to have you. You’ve got to do it through us. And thankfully, for 88 years, Child Evangelism Fellowship has been built on the ministry of prayer. So it’s very appropriate for us to take an entire day and just concentrate on prayer and fasting around the world. So let’s look a little bit at the heart behind this day. First of all, Amy, what’s the heart behind CEF World Day of Prayer?

Amy Herbel 2:42
Absolutely. So you already mentioned a couple of the points. It’s really an opportunity for the CEF family around the world, who normally, you know, sometimes it can be difficult to connect, because there are cultural differences, there are language differences, time zone differences. So it’s an opportunity for us to come together as one CEF family, just to remember that we are all on this mission together. And as you also mentioned, it is prayer is really our foundation, so much so that it is one of our culture points.

Jeff Nichols 3:18
So to the people that don’t know, we have six culture points as a ministry, and we really consider these one of the foundations of our ministry, not just posters that we put on our wall, but we really try to live by these culture points. And prayer is one of these. So you’ve got that culture point now, right?

Amy Herbel 3:33
Yes, and you just reminded me one of the things I was thinking about when I was preparing to have this conversation with you, is lots of times in the world, even in the Christian world, people say, Well, all we can do is pray. And it almost sounds like a last resort, or like we don’t know what else to do, so I guess we’ll pray. And here at CEF, it is absolutely it is built into our DNA. It is a foundation.

Jeff Nichols 3:58
We like to say, it’s our it’s our first priority, not our last resort, right?

Amy Herbel 4:00
Exactly.

Jeff Nichols 4:01
We want to turn to God first, not make our plans and then ask him to bless it in prayer, right?

Amy Herbel 4:07
100%

Jeff Nichols 4:08
Yeah, yeah.

Amy Herbel 4:09
So yeah, our culture point says the importance of prayer is our foundation. It is not the work we do, the meetings we hold or the decisions we make that bring the greatest advances in the work, it is the time spent before the throne of God in prayer, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that brings power, laborers and resources into the ministry.

Jeff Nichols 4:33
That says it perfectly, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re saying that prayer is vital. Prayer is important. For 88 years, it’s been so important, because, let’s admit it, we’re not the most well known ministry. A lot of people say we’re the biggest secret in the world in ministry, best kept secret in the world. In ministry, we’re not the most well known, but we reached 27 million kids around the world last year. There’s a reason for that, and. I think it is built upon so many people around the world begging God to open up doors, asking God for the volunteers, asking God for the laborers, to reach the boys and girls for Christ, because that’s his heart. That’s that’s what he wants. We don’t even have to pray about that, really, whether or not we should reach kids for Christ, but we do need to be a praying about open doors and and very difficult places around the world. And that’s the cool thing, that this World Day of Prayer for us, it lets our entire ministry around the world hear about what God is doing around the world and praying about those things. Now, how have you seen prayer impact you? Let’s get a little personal with Amy. How have you seen prayer impact you personally, as well as what God is doing around the world through CEF?

Amy Herbel 5:44
Yeah, absolutely. Well, my entire coming to CEF is very much a God story. I had my own business for about 12 years before coming here, and I kept praying to God and saying, God, I want to do something for your kingdom. I want to really have a career that glorifies you, that has an impact. I didn’t want it to just be so, quite frankly, self centered anymore. And so I had been praying about, you know, show me what to do. And of course, I thought it was going to come one way. But as God does, he blessed me with not only, within about two weeks, not only did I end up at this job, which is obviously serving in a children’s ministry, I also ended up with another job, being the director of children’s ministry at a local church. Oh, wow. So within two weeks, after praying and petitioning God and really listening and seeking him for about a year, within two weeks, I ended up with two jobs in children’s ministry that, of course, you know this, the CEF materials and training helped me with my other job. And you know, it was one of those only God could do, that I could not have, I could not have planned that.

Jeff Nichols 7:02
I love God stories like that. Like you just said, there’s only one explanation, right? Yeah, there’s only but it took you turning to Him and you petitioning Him and you obeying Him once the opportunities came up. So I love that story. I love your I love your story. Amy, and we’ve got, we’ve got instances of God stories all around the world, don’t we?

Amy Herbel 7:22
We do, we do. And I’ve got a couple here I want to share with you. Actually, one I wanted to share because I just heard about it recently was even so talking about prayers, our foundation, and of course, Jesse Overholtzer, our founder.

Jeff Nichols 7:39
That’s right.

Amy Herbel 7:39
He was known as a very, very prayerful man. Now maybe you had heard this story before, but I just heard where he would spend hours sitting with a globe, and he would put his hands on the globe, and he would talk about wanting to reach children across all nations, and reach children to the ends of the earth, and one of the places on the globe because he was in the United States. One of the places on the globe that he would put his hands was Fiji, because it seems so far away from where we are now in the United States. And he would put his hands on the globe and and just pray and say, you know, God, I want to reach the children in this country. Well, now Fiji has a very robust ministry. They have over 450 Good News Clubs today.

Jeff Nichols 8:29
In Fiji?

Amy Herbel 8:30
Yes, yes. Amazing, very specific. And I think that’s one of the things about World Day of Prayer, is that it’s so intentional. It’s very you know that was another thing about coming to CEF, is I had understood the power of prayer, but everything in CEF again, because it is our foundation, it is an incredibly intentional practice. So I can tell you one of the other stories I really love is a couple of years ago, we had two workers in a country that we call a sensitive country. It’s one of the countries that’s challenging that it’s not very safe for our workers to be there and to be seen with ministry materials. And they were traveling for Christmas Party Club® ministry, and they were on public transportation. They were in the very last row of a bus, and there’s two of them, security stops the bus, and they start going through the bus, row by row, passenger by passenger, checking their bags, looking what is in the bag. And that is one of the things that happens, right? You know, in these other countries, and looking for all kinds of different things, but specifically also Christian materials. And our two workers are in the back of this bus, and they are praying, and they are praying and they are saying, God help so as the security guard is. Moving through the bus, checking every passenger, every bag they get to their row. And the guy outside of the bus. There was two security people, one on the bus, one outside the bus. He says, okay, come on. We’re running out of time. We gotta go.

Jeff Nichols 10:16
Before they check them?

Amy Herbel 10:17
I have goosebumps. Yes, literally, the last row of the bus are two workers praying, please God help because they had these materials. They knew what it was going to mean for them, and in that moment, God intervened and security just moved on.

Jeff Nichols 10:34
We could take the rest of the day and tell story after story after story. It’s not as much about CEF as it is about God, and God’s desire for boys and girls to hear about him, right? And just the way God protects the people who are doing that, that’s an amazing story for people to understand the importance that prayer does. Because we want to cover the world in prayer, cover these kids in prayer. 2 billion children in the world today, and the Bible says that God desires for every single one of them to come to repentance, not a single one of them to be lost. And so it’s a big task. And our theme is every child, every nation, every day, we want to reach every one of those with the gospel, if possible. So a day like this is a time that we we kind of seize ministry a little bit. We kind of kind of shut down our ministries in order for the staff to take time to do this for the entire staff around the world. In World Day of Prayer, we step aside from the ministry. Try not to have any meetings and normal things that go on here at headquarters and around the world. For somebody that’s never experienced that before, what does the day actually look like from the outside looking in?

Amy Herbel 11:46
Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said everywhere around the world, CEF staff take the whole day to set aside and pray very intentionally. So for us here at headquarters and around the world, we begin with a message from our president, Jeremiah Cho where he really sets the tone of the day and really prepares our hearts for going into prayer. And then we have a really special time where we at headquarters pray with each region via zoom. So what that looks like is, for instance, those in our East and Central Africa region.

Jeff Nichols 11:46
So we have eight regions of the world, eight different regions, and we’re going to pray for every one of those regions during the day, right?

Amy Herbel 12:10
We do absolutely. And so those regions, they can get on Zoom. And then here at headquarters, there are people with them praying so that we are truly spread throughout the globe, and we are praying for every region. And so that’s a really special time. So we all do that together. And then for us here at headquarters, we also have other prayer for, again, the countries of the world. We raise the flags of the different countries, which is also something we do each week.

Jeff Nichols 13:06
Right.

Amy Herbel 13:07
Where countries will send in very specific prayer requests. So again, it’s very intentional, the prayer that we’re that we’re doing. So we have flag raising. Then we also pray for each state. We do a the same thing happens with USA ministries, where we do a similar flag raising. And then while we are doing that here at international headquarters, each region and each country has their own version of how they do things. So for them, I’ve heard, you know, everything from having different meetings to just this morning, I heard a story about, you know, it’s not only CEF workers and staff participating, it’s also volunteer. That’s right? Well, our, you know, 1000s of volunteers across the world, they have other jobs, so they might actually be working that day. But I heard a really neat story of a country that every hour they would send an email to everybody in their country, and it would say, you know, okay, for this hour, this is our focus, and we’re praying for this. So then, if you’re a volunteer and you have a full time job, you can be going throughout your day, but yet you’re still very intentionally connecting with what that country is doing in the ministry. So it kind of looks different based off of how each region and country wants to participate. But again, I just keep coming back to this word intentional. Yes, yeah, around how we choose to pray and going to God, you know, really interceding for the children around the world.

Jeff Nichols 14:51
That’s right. I love the I love that word intentionality. And the other word that comes to mind is it’s consistent. It’s consistent with the way. That we do ministry the other 364, days of the year, right? I’ve been in ministry almost 40 years now, church, ministry, different ministries. I’ve never been a part of a ministry that values prayer as much as CEF. And we don’t just talk about it. We actually do it here at headquarters. We’re as departments. We’re praying every day. We’re encouraging everyone to pray. I know of local chapters around the USA and state chapters around the USA on on the World Day of Prayer, they’re opening up their offices that anyone can come by anytime during that day, during the breaks, lunch hour after work or whatever, and be praying for the ministries around the world to do this. It takes a lot to pull this off. I mean, you’re coordinating all of these efforts from offices all around the world. Let’s talk a little bit about how it’s done and the type of preparation that goes into planning this day, to coordinate all of the resources, all of the people, all the planning that goes into it. That’s a lot of preparation, right, Amy?

Amy Herbel 16:02
It is a lot of preparation. And I just want to make sure that people know, just because I am the one having this conversation, it is not me doing that. There is actually a team of people led by the President’s assistant who works on this day, months ahead of time, one of the key aspects of preparing for the day, again, that intentionality is they send out the call to all of our workers and ask them to send in their prayer requests. So from every country we are receiving prayer requests of what are they specifically asking God for, or praising God for? On this day, all of those are gathered from again around the world, from headquarters staff, we do different departments as well submit their prayer requests. So then everybody is receiving a book that has all of the prayer requests in it. So as you can imagine, there is a lot that goes into that process. And not only that, but many of the regions, they receive the book ahead of time, and then they’re doing translations, right, so that their staff, you know, were obviously not a completely English speaking ministry. And so we’ve got people all over the world again, you know, with literature and translations working on that. And then we’ve got, I’m trying to think, what else? Oh, and then the regional zooms, like I mentioned before. We’ve got people speaking who are planning their processes. We’ve got Jeremiah planning his message. So again, just a very intentional process for the day.

Jeff Nichols 17:50
A lot of preparation, a lot of intentionality, trying to provide as many resources. There’s nothing wrong with praying a generic prayer for Senegal or Spain or whatever, but when we can pray specific prayers for exactly the needs in Senegal or Spain, and the needs of the workers and the and the challenges that the children have in those different places, that’s different. Like I say, you’ve never prayed about something that you don’t know about, and once you know about it, you can pray about it more specifically, right? And those the all of the preparation that goes in allows us to pray very specific prayers with names attached to those prayers, right about the country leaders and the regional directors and what God is doing in and through this amazing amount of preparation and resources that are being provided. The big question is, why? Right? Why? Why spend so much effort? Why kind of, kind of sort of shut down ministry for the day once a year to do this? Why does it matter? Why? Why do we think it is such so important to do this for our ministry family around the world to pause and pray like this?

Amy Herbel 19:00
Well, I think a couple of things. One, just on a on an individual level. I mean, we are called, as Christians, to pray, right? And the Bible even calls intercession. It uses words like laboring.

Jeff Nichols 19:19
That’s right.

Amy Herbel 19:19
And wrestling, and so just as individuals, and of course, we care about the ministry, but obviously we also care about each CEF worker. And so just from that aspect, I mean, as Christians, this is really what we are called to do. I think again, it’s that foundation of the ministry. But even beyond that, it’s also the ability for us to unite as a family. So like what you were just talking about, is when you can see specifically a country and a name, and you can go, oh, they need a vehicle.

Jeff Nichols 20:06
Right

Amy Herbel 20:06
Or oh, they are praying right now that the Christmas Party Club materials will get through security without being stopped by, you know, the shipping or customs of that nation.

Jeff Nichols 20:17
That’s right.

Amy Herbel 20:38
For one, it’s intentional. Two, it gives you the perspective to remind you of what’s going on in these nations, and there’s really something to that.

Jeff Nichols 21:10
That’s right.

Amy Herbel 20:29
For us to have that perspective of what is going on in those places. Number one, it it may help you, depending on where you are, it may help you understand like, wow, you know, like, wow. Like, I have brothers and sisters at CEF going through this hardship. The other thing it does is it helps to get to know them again, even over, like, cultural lines or language differences time zones, it just immediately creates this bond where you get a more understanding of what people are going through. And we really are all on the same mission field. We are all rowing in the same direction to reach 100 million children a year.

Jeff Nichols 21:12
That’s right, yeah, that’s right. And prayer. Prayer is one of the main ways that we’re going to get there, covering the entire world in prayer. I know there’s a lot of lot of answered answered prayers and stories that we’ve heard from since last year’s World Day of Prayer that have come to us. One that I just was able to witness firsthand was I went to a state this summer, and there are Christian Youth in Action students there. We’ve partnered every state with a country around the world, and they’re really getting to know those those countries and what’s going on there. This is a restricted access country, so we can’t share you know which which country this is, or even what that staff workers name is, but I saw them do a zoom call with that worker in that restricted access country, and when that worker was sharing with them how limited their public ministry can be, like they just can’t go do a Good News Club®​ out in a park where they can’t they can’t do that, and how limited the ministry has to be, and how this man had converted from Muslim to Christianity. And I remember the student asking him, what happened to your family? Do you still have connection with your family? He said, family? He said, No, I have no connection to my family anymore because of my decision to be a Christian. The teenager’s jaws dropped, and it made me realize they never would have prayed for that particular country if they if those needs hadn’t been shared with them, but now that they know they can pray, and they’re going to pray very specifically for that country. So that’s a big part of what this World Day of Prayer is right sharing individual, specific needs that we have. So what are some of the stories that you’ve heard about since last World Day of Prayer that we can share with everyone?

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Amy Herbel 23:27
Well, another one I remember from last year that came out of Christmas Party Clubs was there was a worker in Latin America, in our Latin America region, and she attended what we call our CPC seminars. So she learned about Christmas Party Clubs and how to do them. And she really felt convicted. She wanted to do one. It was her first time, and but she had no idea of how she was going to do it, right? And we hear these types of stories all the time, but it was, you know, I don’t know where I’m gonna do it. I don’t know how I’m gonna get the resources to do it. I don’t know who’s gonna even be able to help me do it. I don’t know where are these children going to come from. And the story that she sent in that that happened, it was maybe a month after a World Day of Prayer about how God provided every single thing it was, I mean, in truly open doors. And that is something we pray for a lot, right? CEF, is that these doors be opened that we absolutely know we cannot do it on our own. But the way that God opened those doors, I mean, it was just one thing after another. And, you know, this person came in and said, Well, why don’t you do it, you know, at the school library. And then, you know, and then the question of, well. Will the principal let you? And then it turns out, you know, she knew somebody who knew the principal. And yes, of course, come do it. And then, okay, well, you know what about snacks? And then somebody, you know, randomly, as you know, we laugh at that, right? Randomly, came in and said, I want to donate to, you know, a Christmas Party Club. And so then that need was taken care of. And it’s just it was like going through a checklist, Jeff, of every single piece of the puzzle that God provided for her. And what a reminder for us that when we are praying, you know, for things like open doors when we were praying for certain countries, when we are praying for provision, just to know we really have to have that, that mindset of, here I am, send me and allow God to come in and and tell us how.

Jeff Nichols 25:58
Yeah, yeah. Because if we had it all figured out we wouldn’t need God. But when we would just say, God, you’ve got to do this. You got to do this. And I love that when that happens, because then after it happens and good things happen, then he and he alone can get the glory for it. We’re like, God, you did this. We didn’t do anything. We just showed up. I love that. I love the emphasis that we’re I mean, the whole thing is about the emphasis that we’re placing on prayer. I know I talked to a local chapter member one time. I went to their local chapter committee meeting and said, Well, what brought you to CEF? Why are you serving with CEF in this capacity as a board or committee member? He said, I get a lot of invitations to be on other boards and nonprofits and that kind of thing, he said. And honestly, I came and visited this board and committee one time, and just really wasn’t thinking that much about it until I came to the committee meeting, and the first 30 minutes of the committee meeting was prayer, and he said, This is a ministry I want to be a part of that places that much importance in a committee meeting on prayer. I think that’s true in so many places around CEF, and I think that’s one of the reasons that we’re seeing so many kids being reached this world. Day of Prayer. A lot of preparation going into it, a lot of details. But Amy, what do you hope people take away even from this episode of Fellowship One:Seven and talking about this. But what do you hope that people take away from our emphasis on prayer in our World Day of Prayer celebration?

Amy Herbel 27:28
Yeah, absolutely. I think for anyone listening right now, maybe, you know, maybe there’s someone out there that their prayer life hasn’t been as strong lately.

Jeff Nichols 27:39
That’s a good point.

Amy Herbel 27:40
You know. And maybe this was just an encouragement to them. Maybe they’re feeling convicted to get more intentional with prayer as well. Of course, we always encourage people to pray for CEF, you know, in the general sense. But again, maybe just opening their eyes to see what’s possible and how connected they really could be with CEF ministry around the world, if they get a little more intentional in their prayer life. And I think for our workers around the world, it is a really great encouragement to them to know that we truly are praying for them. I think specifically talking about like international headquarters and to the field staff. I know that when we raise their flags at flag raising, they’re very encouraged to know that they might be out in the field somewhere. And quite frankly, we might not know where it is on a map, but we absolutely are praying for them. Yes, I think it’s great to remember, I mean, ministry is so challenging, and it truly is so incredible and moving and truly miraculous to know what our workers are going through. So So I, you know, I really hope our our workers in the CEF family around the world, they’re encouraged, they’re edified, they’re reminded of their why they’re not alone, like there is an entire, you know, 1000s of people standing behind them, standing with them, that’s right ministry, and just a reminder that we aren’t doing it in our own strength, and that, you know, if, if someone out there has gotten a little you know, you’re you’re feeling like, how am I going to do all this? And really, just feeling any kind of burden in ministry that they’re reminded you’re not alone, because not only do you have all of us behind you and with you, but God is really, you know, God is really the one doing it all, and they don’t have to carry it all.

Jeff Nichols 29:54
That’s right. Ministry is challenging, and here in the States, we have challenges. Yes, but when we think about our CEF family around the world, the challenges they have is just They’re unbelievable. And sometimes you think, God, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And I would say to them, you’re right. You can’t, you can’t do this. But God can. God can. And that’s really what this entire emphasis on prayer is about, that we want people to be encouraged to pray. We want to make it possible for people to connect to CEF prayers, and so they can go to CEFonline.com, and you can find a local chapter near you in the chapter finder there on our website, and to get connected to what God is doing locally in your area, we have 353 local chapters around the United States and that are supporting what God is doing around the world, just a small part of what God is doing around the world. And so we’re excited about this day and and look forward to next year when we tell more stories about the answers to prayer from our the current World Day of Prayer. Thank you, Amy, for being with us today on Fellowship One:Seven. Thank you. I love your heart for ministry. I love your heart for the Lord, and I’m so glad that the Lord brought you to CEF International Ministries. Thank you for being with us today.

Amy Herbel 30:57
Thank you so much, Jeff.