This past August, I received a phone call from my good friend Krista. Krista and I have been on many prayer journeys together in Egypt, Cambodia, Thailand and India. She is a wonderful woman of God, who married a man from Egypt named Ayman. They recently moved, with their three-year-old daughter, to Seneca, Missouri, where Krista grew up (never imagining she’d return!).

“Dan, something crazy has happened!” she exclaimed. “Ayman and I have been praying for our neighborhood. We felt drawn to pray for an old Methodist church across the street from our house. We approached the church leaders as we were curious to know more about it. They told us the church was dying with some older folks keeping it going. They said they did not want their church to die and asked us if we would be willing to take the building and use it for ministry. They want to give us the building to use!  We don’t know what to do with it, so is it possible you could bring a prayer team and help discern what God wants us to do? God wants to establish something here. Please come help us pray!”

Immediately, I knew this was an assignment from God, and within a short time we had a team of seven people eager to go to the small town of Seneca, located in the SW corner of Missouri and is very near the borders of Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Its location is very strategic, as any ministry there can affect all four states.

In God’s amazing timing, just prior to the trip, Karl and Kenda (team members and 5 Rivers board members), were at a meeting on an Indian reservation here in Arizona. They were told that there was a prayer gathering of pastors who met every month near Seneca, across the border in Oklahoma. Believing this was a divine appointment, Karl and Kenda left a day early to attend this meeting, inviting Krista to meet them there.

At that meeting, Krista met many kindred spirits – people who love to pray and had been asking God to establish a house of prayer in their region. This turned out to be a huge, strategic, divine appointment as God began to bring people together with the same vision. One of the pastors stated, “We have tried to establish a house of prayer several times over the last twenty years, but we never succeeded. We believe this one will be established by God and will not fail.”

During mid-September, our team spent 4 days in Seneca, with powerful times of prayer as we were led by the Holy Spirit to prophesy and declare the will of God for this new house of prayer. “God wants to establish a lighthouse in this region that will be full of His glory,” said Ayman. Now, that little methodist church is filled with people coming every week to pray and worship and help establish the Kingdom of God in their region. The name of the new ministry is called Lighthouse, with a focus on reaching their community for Christ.

It was a great joy to reconnect with Krista and Ayman and work together to bring breakthrough to their region. What began as two people praying for their neighborhood has become a “lighthouse” of prayer for the four-state region.