On a prayer walk around my neighborhood on a Sunday morning during our lockdown, I was praying our 2020 Breakthrough Prayer #3:

Father, use us to build a reproducing church among an unreached people group by 2030. 

I was also praying this specific prayer for 2020:

Father, lead us to the people group You have for us to invest in for the next 10 years.

As I felt the heavy burden of shepherding that request and cried out to the Lord about it, a very curious thing happened.

In the street where I was walking, I came upon a lone puzzle piece. 

I really didn’t think much of it at that moment as I walked by it, but something drew me back to that seemingly random puzzle piece.

As I picked it up and held it in my hand, something dawned on me – it was the classic “aha” moment you read about happening to other people – God was trying to communicate to me through that puzzle piece.

It was if He was saying, “David, you are one small piece of the puzzle as I answer this great prayer request to see a church planted among a people group absolutely lost without Me . . . I got this, David! I got this!” 

As I let that message sink in (and wiped the tears from my eyes that God would be so gracious to me) the meaning to me was clear: there are going to be MANY others that will need to be connected to me above, below and on each side to complete the beautiful picture the puzzle will represent.

Each of us will need to stay intimately connected to Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith, as we wait for Him to work.

Each of us is one of the pieces that I believe God wants to use to see this puzzle completed!

As a church, we have been praying this Breakthrough Prayer request since January. I believe there might be some of you whose hearts are drawn to pray for a particular people group or an area of the world that desperately needs the gospel.

For example, the unreached in India have been on my heart recently as I have been praying through the Unreached of the Day info from the Joshua Project. Others of you might have been moved by hearing from Andy and Margaret Andersen about the still unreached Nyamwezi people of Tanzania.

I invite you to spend some time praying about this.

I would love to hear what God puts on your heart! It would be awesome to see how your puzzle piece fits in!

With love and great joy in the faithfulness of our God,

Pastor David Schaller

P.S. As you pray along these lines, would you remember these two specific requests from our missionaries as well?