One important way to pray for missionary families (that you might not be thinking of already)

Missionaries often ask people to pray for them. They put little lists of prayer requests in their newsletters, and they talk about building prayer teams to support them in their work. If you are like me, you really care about missions and missionaries and want to pray for them, but sometimes you just can't think of a thing to pray about - those little lists are out of sight and out of mind, and you can't remember for the life of you what their current challenges are, and so you pray something very general about God helping them.

I am certainly not advocating that you ignore lists of specific prayer requests or paying attention to what you missionary friends have asked to you pray about, but sometimes when you go to open your fridge you see the prayer card with your friends' smiling faces on it, you are reminded to pray for them, yet your mind is totally blank as to what on earth to pray about for them.

One thing I think most all missionary couples/families (to come in the near future: a blog post about praying for single missionaries) almost always need prayer for is for their time apart from one another. One or more member of missionary families is often traveling or living away from the others. Sometimes these trips are just for one or two nights and sometimes it's a long-term arrangement, but it's very, very common for couples/families to have at least one member away fairly often. 

So when you can't think of what to pray about, pray for them about their time apart:

• safety for the one(s) traveling and the one(s) left at home
• smooth readjustments to them being back together again
• comfort when they are missing each other
• friends and fun to fill in for missing family members
• protection from craziness - everything just seems to go haywire when someone is gone!
• anything else you can think of - there are lots of ways you can think of about how to pray for families being temporarily separated, since many of the issues are the same as ones you might have faced yourself when having a family member away

Here are two examples (among MANY - when coming up with my examples, virtually all the missionaries I know could have been used as good examples, since they all travel a lot):

The Gilmores - Tim, Chris, Camden, Tirzah, and Braden

The Gilmores might be on the extreme end when it comes to dealing with frequent time apart! Tim, Chris, and Braden (youngest) live in Tanzania. Camden lives in the USA, where he's going to college. Tirzah lives in Kenya most of the time, where she's attending high school.  

Tim is often away for a week or two at a time traveling for meetings or to go out to villages. Earlier this year Chris was in Kenya to teach an ESL class for a few weeks. Since Tim also happened to have to be away then, Braden had to stay with another family for a week because both parents were traveling at the same time! He has two siblings, but he often feels a lot like an only child. Camden can't fly around the world to be with his family for Christmas break or the summer, which is really hard on everyone. Tirzah loves her boarding school, but calling home is not the same as sitting down with your family for dinner every night.

You (probably) do not know the Gilmores, but I bet you do know a missionary family who needs prayer! Maybe hearing about this family inspires you to pray for your friends when they are inevitably apart.

The Heffts - Paul, Melissa, Josiah, and Anna

The Heffts live in the USA, but Paul works in Tanzania. That means three to four times a year, he is in Tanzania for about three to four weeks each time. Multiply that out, and you'll realize it's a lot! The phone and internet networks is not amazingly reliable in Tanzania (or many other places - chances are your missionary friends deal with this problem, too), and that combined with the large time zone difference means that they don't always get to call and Skype as regularly as they might want. 

Melissa knows all about what it's like to be a temporary single parent - a lot of work! And as for things going a bit crazy when your spouse is away, she's got some good examples of that one, too. Having one's routine and home dynamics change often, according to whether your spouse is around or not, is also stressful.

Earlier this year Paul also got to do the single-parenting thing, because Melissa did a typesetting course for three weeks. (That would be typesetting as in preparing translated Scriptures for publication.) Imagine a family without their wife/mom around for three weeks, and that should inspire you to pray!

Again, you likely don't know the Heffts, but think about the missionaries you do know - at least one of them travels a lot, I am sure. And I'm very, very sure they would greatly appreciate your prayers for their family in regards to that big aspect of their lives.