"Prayer Priority" Request for Monday, October 31, 2005
BRIGHT AND MORNING STAR, we unite our hearts to pray for Bill Bray's niece, Kati Bray, as she faces very serious cancer surgery tomorrow. Lord, send your angels to comfort her every minute and strengthen her faith as we pray for the best outcome and total recovery. We also ask that you help us budget wisely, spend carefully, and meet every need in our personal finances and in the ministry as we plan toward the end of this fiscal year. AMEN

SITTING in my car to pray, outside the Hindu temple here last night, I sensed the joy of the Indian children and their families getting ready to celebrate the Hindu festival of lights. A great love came over me for them?God was loving them through me as Christ wept over Jerusalem and prayed for the people there who were rejecting Him.

I do so want them to know the true light of the world?Jesus who casts out the darkness they fear. While I hate their idolatry and demon worship, I have to love the Indian people. I do love them, and God loves them.

Lord, give us all love for the people enslaved in darkness and open doors for us to reach out to them and demonstrate the love of Christ. Help us not to fear them but welcome them as our neighbors whom God loves through Christ who died for them while they were yet sinners.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Sunday, October 30, 2005
LORD OF LORDS, bless the Bray Family Support team with finances, health and freedom this week. Bless them with both a heart to give to Christ's mission and the ability to do so. May they be joyful givers and receive a 100-fold return for everything in this life and in the next. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Saturday, October 29, 2005
LORD GOD ALL POWERFUL, without you we can do nothing. Come to our rescue this day and everyday. Come to Dr. Sam, Bishop M.A. and those who are in danger and in need of a visitation of your power in Kota, to those who need inspiration to write and create, to those who need healing and courage in the face of disease and sickness, and to those who need strength for the work. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Friday, October 28, 2005
KING OF THE NATIONS, we praise you for all you do bringing even one new Hopegiver or 10,000 to the team--and we give you glory for every answered prayer and the strength to connect with people beyond our normal reach whether it be a waitress or President Kaczynski. Help us grow both beyond our circle of influence and within in own family and home churches. We praise you in all things for nothing is possible without you and anything we do without you is sin. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Thursday, October 27, 2005
LORD JESUS, by your Spirit, use the Hopegivers Emmanuel Ministries convention now in convocation to mobilize a great spiritual army of leaders and missionaries who will proclaim God's love to India and protect them from all attacks of the anti-Christ this week and always. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Wednesday, October 26, 2005
LORD GOD, use bill Bray to write compelling copy that will attract a new generation to the Hopegivers Website and attract masses of donors to help us save the needy. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Monday, October 24, 2005
ONE WHO MADE THE SKIES, without your miracles we cannot reach our goals; glorify yourself in our lives and ministry by meeting our impossible goals. Lord we would not dishonor you by asking for small things or taking on tasks that we can safely accomplish with our own abilities, talents and power. Only the impossible goals glorifies you and therefore we ask you for many miracles in this last quarter of 2005. AMEN.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Sunday, October 23, 2005
LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH, just as you took authority over demons when you walked on this earth and taught your disciples to do the same, we now take authority over all their hellish plans to start a Hindu temple and start idol worship here in Columbus on Halloween weekend. Strong Lion of Judah we also ask you to keep up a strong wall of protection around Dr. Sam, Bishop Thomas and the Hopegivers staff in India as they go out among dangerous religious fanatics and terrorists to do your will. Protect them always we pray. AMEN

DEMON spirits are coming to American with the new tide of Hindu immigrants working here in the data-services industry. Even though there are only 150 Hindu families living here in this Bible-belt city, they are starting a temple to worship their gods on October 30. I sense this is part of Satan?s grand plan to attack Christians and Christian culture in the United States.

This week in India, some fanatics tried to invade the property of our orphanage in Raipura to set up an idol. Same kind of Hindu thinking. Once they poach on public or private property in this way, the new shrine they have set-up somehow becomes a ?holy site? or a foothold from which they can expand their influence. This squatters-rights religious behavior is quite demonic.

No wonder the Old Testament prophets and lawgivers dealt with it so harshly.

It works in reverse too. When Christians try to worship or even start a prayer meeting on a Hindu?s property, it usually results in persecution and even eviction. Although Christians don?t see themselves as invaders, Satan and his demons have an exaggerated sense of property rights. They want to protect their property, even the bodies they have possessed. However, we Christians need to legally claim and defend our territory against spiritual as well as physical attack?and realize that we have to press the battle against the gates of hell, and that those gates will not stand against us.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Saturday, October 22, 2005
ONE WHO LIVES FOREVER, by your Spirit use the Hopegivers local staff in Columbus today as they work the exhibit at the annual Child Expo downtown and cause many local people to favor the mission and become Hopegivers. Use this event, to help us to become Columbus' hometown humanitarian mission to the world. Also, in India today use the annual Tenkasi Convention in Kerala to mobilize a vast missionary army that will reach all 600,000 villages of India with your love. AMEN.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Friday, October 21, 2005
ONE WHO SITS ON THE THRONE, use Dr. Sam and Bishop M.A. Thomas today along with all the Indian leadership to mobilize a great missionary army of Hopegivers in the Vijawada Convention who will reach out to their neighbors in the upcoming Advent/Christmas season of festival evangelism and throughout the year...and be with the senders here in the USA who make this great convention possible as we complete our tasks. Empower us and our teams to overcome the attacks and challenges here in our families, churches and communities. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Thursday, October 20, 2005
FAITHFUL AND TRUE, restore our families and marriages. Beginning with Ivy Bray, bless all the Bray Family and in-laws -- and all of the families of everyone who pray-reads this today in faith. Allow us all to live in peace with one another, walk in the paths of righteousness and live in health both physically and mentally. Bless Father Bill Bray and all the heads of household who must keep order and guide our families. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Wednesday, October 19, 2005
LORD AND GOD, by your Spirit, use Dr. Sam and Bishop Thomas today to mobilize a great spiritual army of local Christian leaders and indigenous missionaries during the Hopegivers Angamaly Convention which begins today in South India. Here at home help all of us involved to work like young Samson to complete the Web Ministry and Annual Report publishing projects in order to meet our next goal of mobilizing 10,000 Hopegivers in the United States. AMEN

MENTORS are always needed when you start a new work. Part of our ministry here in Columbus is to help the Hopegivers staff set up a Donor Relations and Receipting Department.

There are many dangers in Christian management, especially when folks with a lot of administrative experience in other fields try to apply the normal laws of business and accounting to Christian work?and especially to donor relations.

Ivy?s decades of experience at Christian ministries, especially the last 10 years with Christian Aid and World Children?s Fund have made her a valuable asset to the donor relations department. This department assists in accounting, even looks like accounting, but is really much more about human relations and marketing. It?s not real bookkeeping, more like being a clerk or a teller in the bank. Yes, you have to do the numbers right, but in the daily work of Donor Services, the customer is always right?and the customer is our donor.

In the days to come we will be hiring and training many workers from the local community to come and work in the Donor Services, mostly women who have had no experience in Christian ministry. For these ?Ruths and Orphans? there is a great need for a Naomi like Ivy, and for Ivy there is a great challenge to sort out the Ruth?s from the Orpahs most gently and wisely.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Tuesday, October 18, 2005
THE AMEN, baptize Dr. Sam with power as he goes to India today and protect him every step of the way from any and every danger. Give him great wisdom to make decisions and empower him to follow-through and accomplish every task on his long to-do list including the preparations for our Tsunami Media Team Mission Tour. Baptize also every member of the mission team with faith, power and every blessing needed to prepare and do the work ahead. AMEN and AMEN.

STOP ME the next time you see me start more than one major project at the same time. Looking back over my life and over the last nine months in particular, the greatest cause of disappointment and stress has been simple: too many start-ups.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs."

Trying to start up the new Hopegivers Web Ministry at the same time I began the Hopegivers Journal magazine and regular development programs has extended my parameter of attack far too largely. Only by the grace of God have I been able to finish all that is on my plate here in Columbus?and even then, it has been done only in a way that leaves me mostly unsatisfied with the final product.

Not that I am not thankful to God and to the wonderful leadership He has put over me in the person of Dr. Samuel Thomas ? nor to my dear wife and the staff that have been so understanding and sacrificed so much. And I am oh so thankful for the outsourced suppliers like John Lindner, the Barnabas Group and Silas Partners. Praise God for the team He has given me.

However the fact remains that I spread myself too thin this year. Never again, Lord. Please help me to concentrate my force.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Monday, October 17, 2005
ONE WHO IS TRUE, use the work of Barnabas Ministries to tell the Hopegivers story and line up publishers for our new books and programs, stations for our USA broadcasts when the time is right, now in this season especially use them to arrange on-air radio interviews and news coverage for Dr. Sam and the ministry of Hopegivers. AMEN and AMEN

FLORENCE LITTAUER blessed me again today with her classic message?one of the best lectures I have ever heard in my whole life?on silver boxes. Not sure when I first heard this. Must have been at a Christian Booksellers Association meeting or a National Religious Broadcasters meeting, but whenever it was it impressed me then and today in impressed me all over again.

What a fabulous habit and a good skill to develop?to go around every day complimenting people, praising them, giving them little silver boxes of affirmation and encouragement. Oh that I might have that gift and use that gift!

A person who goes around giving out not advice or criticism but sincere compliments is always welcome. May I become that kind of person?not an advisor or critic?but an encourager.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Sunday, October 16, 2005
ONE WHO IS HOLY, bless David Bray, Mike Randall and everyone else involved in building up our Church Relations Department and raise up the right person to lead this vital part of the ministry in the USA. Give us open doors to leading pulpits for Dr. Sam and others and expand the ministry through the body of Christ and the organized churches. Guide the Brays today in their visits to local churches in the Columbus area and connect us with the whole body of Christ in this city. AMEN and AMEN!

OTHERS are more important to me as I grow older. I want to be planting seed and putting things into others lives and blessing them. This is hard for me as a writer and artist to do because the creative disciplines required of a communicator separates you from others. Yes, in order to succeed in literary or artistic endeavor, it usually means you must separate yourself and work alone. Working and living in isolation is the most painful part of being a prophet, especially for one like me who wants to be pastoral and fatherly in some sense. I want my children, the church and my disciples to be on the right path. I want to fix them.

All fathers want this and in fact, that is also an important motivation to a prophet. That?s why I became a communicator in the first place. Rarely do I communicate for art?s sake alone?it has always been with a purpose.

To prepare a message, even to preach, requires time alone in study, listening and contemplation. You have to study the environment and discern what?s wrong and why people are behaving as they are. To do so, to be objective, means separation.

This contradiction in my ministry is such a pain.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Saturday, October 15, 2005
ONE WHO KNOWS, give Dr. Bray great results from the Columbus-area Hope Ambassadors and Hopegivers Support Raising Training Seminar today. Through this seminar and the ideas taught, lead 2.5 to 3 million donors to join Hopegivers and raise up one million faithful Hopegivers who will give $1 a day or $30 a month to help us fulfill the mission of Jesus in India and around the world. Send Hopegivers to the rescue wherever there are abandoned and orphaned masses. AMEN and AMEN

FLORENCE LITTAUR made me see the four personality types in a new way tonight. Sadly, I have studied my own personality and giftings for decades. I have even dabbled in the Enegram and other advanced applications. I thought I knew it all, but my approach has been all wrong.

In fact, that?s "my" problem: "I".

It?s always been about me, about understanding myself?not about understanding the others around me. I?ve used this science only to analyze why I act the way I do. All these years, I?ve only tried to capitalize on my strengths and cover-up or minimize my weaknesses.

What I should have done was to use the personality types to accept people as they are and get along with them ? to improve relationships with others to understand them better. Can?t believe I?ve missed it so terribly and hurt so many people by not using the four temperaments to understand my children, my wife, my co-workers and even my donors and supporters.

Going back over the problem people in my live and ministry through the years, I see now that most of the time I have been the problem?not them! By not making allowance for their personalities, I have set myself and them up for failure.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Friday, October 14, 2005
KING OF KINGS, bless Bishop M.A. Thomas as he flies to India today on his birthday to prepare for a court appearance on Monday to answer false charges of anti-Christian hate mongers who are persecuting Hopegivers. Lord, turn the hearts of church, government, judges, police, political and religious leaders toward our cause and give us great favor with the powers that be. AMEN and AMEN.

VAPORS. Our lives are only a vapor says the Bible, and this fact so changed the life of Dina Parris that she now spends her full-time helping people volunteer to use their lives well for the Lord! I only just met her on the phone this week for the first time but it was a compelling hour. I look forward to meeting her. "We only have a vapor to give to the Lord," she says with child-like sincerity, "we need to use that vapor as best we can!"

She has done it by starting a ministry to disciple volunteers for charities and missions. With Al and Wendy Newell, she has started an organization called "High Impact Volunteer Ministry Management" and I do hope I?ll be getting to know this woman a lot better?and that we?ll be using her program at the Hopegivers Leadership Center in Columbus, Georgia.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Thursday, October 13, 2005
THE SPIRIT, use behind-the-scenes folks like campus ministers Johnnie Moore and Lauren Parnell to mobilize a new generation of students to reach the world and raise support for the Tsunami Mission Team. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Wednesday, October 12, 2005
THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE SEVEN STARS, use Dr. Linwood Hagin and Gopal to lead the North Greenville College students and coordinate the fundraising for the Tsunami Media Team there and also to help at Florida Baptist College in Graceville. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Tuesday, October 11, 2005
SON OF MAN, bless our new Chief Operations Officer Michael Glenn and help us to work with him to fulfill the Million Orphan Vision for Hopegivers. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Monday, October 10, 2005
ALL POWERFUL GOD, anoint Dr. Bill and Silas Partners and the rest of the media team as they respond to the Pakistan Earthquake through the website ministry to contact American Hopegivers, and with the native Hopegivers and Hope Partners Voice of the Martyrs and World Childrens' Fund as they assist in the program response in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Be with the dying and the injured today as well as all who are helping us be Hopegivers in this emergency. AMEN and AMEN.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Sunday, October 9, 2005
ALPHA AND OMEGA, use Dr. Bill's skills as an author to finish writing the Hopegivers Website Ministry Site this month and to further prophecy to your people through many other life-changing, vision-casting books. Also connect him to the editors and publishers to successfully bring his books to market. AMEN and AMEN.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Saturday, October 8, 2005
ONE WHO MADE US and made everyone in this world, connect Bill Bray, Dr. Sam, Mike Glenn and other leaders of our ministry with the right Boaz we need at this season in our ministries and help us to conduct and schedule productive meetings with kings, advisors, consultants and Hope Program Partners who are called of you to meet our needs in the next 90 days. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Friday, October 7, 2005
ONE WHO LOVES US, give our designers John and Michael powerful artistic inspiration and skills as they lay out the pages of the magazine and the website both this day and over the next two weeks. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Thursday, October 6, 2005
SON OF GOD, increase our local witness in Columbus, Georgia today at the Chamber of Commerce Annual Expo and to local church bishops, district superintendents, pastors and church mission leaders.

"Prayer Priority" Request for Tuesday, October 4, 2005
JESUS CHRIST, bless our donors and the USA with prosperity and righteousness that they might walk in the ways of the Lord and ring the bells of freedom for the sake of the Gospel--and bless our donors everywhere especially those being raised up in Italy, France, Germany and the UK. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Monday, October 3, 2005
FAITHFUL WITNESS, we acknowledge you as the source of our creativity and intellect, asking you to give generously to your servants Bill, Rob, and the Lindners as they work on the new Hopegivers Journal today. May this publication be used to report and inspire confidence in the work and faithfully witness to your glory. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Sunday, October 2, 2005
ONE WHO WAS AND IS TO COME, call out 70 plus Hope Sponsors this month for our Tsunami Media Mission Tour personal support and use our monthly Call to Prayer letter to renew Prayer Partners and friends of this mission. AMEN

"Prayer Priority" Request for Saturday, October 1, 2005
ONE WHO IS...SPIRIT OF CHRIST, use the Bray Family Call to Prayer that is being mailed today to raise the support that Dr. Bill and Jon need for their Indian mission. Bless all the support raising work that all the team members are doing to raise the budget. We give you thanks for bringing in every penny and millions more for the orphans. We ask in faith that this mission will be used to reach millions of lives for you Lord Christ. AMEN!