Still Searching for Kidnapping Victims, TX Mission Team Headed Home from Niger & City-Wide Prayer Ministry

Leaders are continuing to work for the release of a Christian nurse and her daughter in Haiti.

Alix Darsonavil and her young daughter were kidnapped at gunpoint last week by gang members at the El Roi ministry clinic in Port Au Prince.

Darsainvil is a nurse from New Hampshire, serving the island nation.

She is married to the ministry’s president Sandro Darsainvil.

In July, Doctors without Borders pulled out of the country after a group of armed men burst into an operating room and kidnapped the surgery patient.

Last week, the U.S. State Department encouraged all Americans to leave the country.
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A Texas mission team is headed home from Niger after the July 26 military coup interrupted their outreach to the Fulani, their church announced Aug. 2.

The group from Harmony Hill Baptist Church in Lufkin, Texas was given safe passage on an Italian flight on Aug. 1.

The nine students and three adults had been serving in Niamey since July 21.

The church disclosed no other details of the return trip, and it is not clear whether the mission team was ever directly in harm’s way.

None of team members were injured.
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Good News for Today is sponsored by The Voice of the Martyrs

Good News for Today is made possible through our friends at The Voice of the Martyrs, a nonprofit organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world. Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, VOM is dedicated to inspiring believers to deepen their commitment to Christ and to fulfill His Great Commission — no matter the cost. Find out more and sign up for their free monthly magazine at vom.org/goodnews.
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Lots of people enjoy a good bonfire. A good bonfire requires fuel. So does your prayer life if it’s going to be strong. In the Baptist Press Toolbox, Kie Bowman offers some tips on how to keep a strong prayer life.

SATURATE YOUR MIND WITH SCRIPTURE

Jesus permanently linked the Word and prayer together when He promised, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you”(John 15:7). The more the Scripture settles into our lives the more power we will have in prayer. It’s a sad truth that so many people claim to pray while so few read Scripture on a regular basis. In fact, only about a third of Americans read the Bible daily.

He says believers should read books about prayer. “When we read the devotional insights of other men and women of prayer, we get a glimpse of what’s still lacking in our knowledge of God, and what’s still possible for our growth.”

He encourages believers to pray with one another. “There is a power in accountability. The New Testament, for instance, describes two “rooms” for prayer. Jesus spoke of an “inner room” for personal, private prayer (Matthew 6:6). The book of Acts teaches us about the “upper room “where we gather with others for prayer (Acts 1:14). In fact, there are numerous examples of prayer in the book of Acts, but only a couple of those examples show us someone praying alone. The Acts model of prayer, therefore, is the prayer meeting- even if only two people are praying (Acts 16:25). “