David Bahler Prayer coordinator


February 09

The following are the prayer requests from SOMA NZ –

1. Please pray for our National Council Meeting to be held in Wellington on 13/14 May 09 – Pray that our Leaders will be blessed with a spirit of wisdom and discernment as they work through their agenda and finalise plans for the coming year and put in place the initial groundwork for 2010.

2. We give thanks to our Lord for the blessings given to our teams as they visited many different places in the Pacific, Melanesia and Asia in 2008, helping the local communities in their outreach to God’s people in those countries.

3. Pray for us as we plan our 2009 missions to Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.

4. Pray for us as we also plan our attendance at the NDs conference in Kuala Lumpur and mission to Sabah.

5. Pray that the Lord will raise up Leaders and team members for each of the ten missions we have planned and that each of the team members will be blessed with a servant heart.

6. Pray for Bp Richard Ellena, Rev Anne Aspden, Rev Gradon Harvey, Phillip Harris, Kas Govind and David Bähler, all members of our National Executive, that they will be strengthened and blessed in their everyday lives and to encourage them in their work for God’s people, not only in their own communities within New Zealand but also as they plan SOMA NZ’s outreach to our friends in the Pacific, Melanesia and Asia.

SOMA Intercession world round-up, December 2008 to February 2009
There is also a second version of the roundup, a foldable daily prayer diary.
This roundup is not meant so that everyone prays about absolutely everything in it. The Lord may well have you focus simply on one thing for your prayer.
Names of spouses are in brackets after names of National Directors and some others, where known.

Prayer Focus for December to February

I recently spent a couple of weeks walking and nature watching on the Island of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. I wanted to see an Otter while I was there and spent time looking along the coastline in the hope of catching sight of one. It was a pleasant occupation with so much to bring out a sense of wonder at the beauty of it all.
At last my diligence was rewarded. The afternoon before I was due to leave we were driving along the coastal road when a dark furry shadow slid down the mountainside to our left and then bounded across the road right in front of the car. We were able to stop and watch the otter as it searched among the tumbled boulders and under the seaweed and made swimming forays out into the ocean: poetry in motion!

Those who are intercessors live in diligent awareness on the littoral where the waves of God lap onto the consciousness of man. Intercessors haunt the shoreline of wonder while all before them [in Isaac Newton’s famous phrase] lies the great ocean of truth. And as they are faithful and diligent in their calling, then there come moments when they are granted a view of what is in the mind of God. Down the mountainside of praise comes an indication of God’s intent. It lingers amongst the rocks of the obduracy of human disobedience and then swims back into the heart and mind of God’s eternal and unfathomable purpose.

Intercessors are those who hold themselves in readiness so that they may ‘catch the moment’ of awareness when it is given. This constant sense of wonder in
the presence of God, coupled with an expectation that something of his glory will be seen in his own good time, is the greatest antidote to that bane of all intercessory prayer, which is to fall into a sort of hectoring of God in ever more intense supplication in the hope that something will show up to ameliorate our present condition. Those who wait patiently on the Lord are content to do just that….wait and wonder!!

Richard Stamp


SOMA International

The Strategic Goals of 2004 have now been updated at the recent [September] meeting of the International Board. The list as approved at that meeting for the medium-term future is as follows. All amendments to the 2004 text were adopted unanimously. Please continue to pray for the implementation of these goals:-
1. Increase the number of intercessory prayer members and teams.
2. Grow ministry to the “home” Church through inviting and sending mission teams.
3. Continue to build strategic relations within the Anglican Communion.
4. Greatly increase participation of younger generations.
5. Conduct more collaborative team missions.
6. Conduct frequent regional renewal conferences with an international attendance. (Original 2004 language amended)
7. In the conduct of missions, aim at personal, group and/or community transformation. (Original 2004 language amended)
8. Embrace evangelism as an integral element of SOMA’s mission and ministry. (Added to the original 2004 text in 2007)
9. Communicate more effectively. (New goal)



• Please continue in pray for Trevor Pearce [Cheryl], the vice chairman of SOMA International who now has special responsibilities for the “Growing the Church” portfolio in South Africa.
• Pray for Archbishop Ben Kwashi and his leadership of SOMA International.

• For Richard Hines [& Ardeth] as he steps down from his role as Secretary to the International Board. Pray for his successor, The Rev’d Drew Schmotzer.
• For all new members of the SOMA International Board.
• For the Executive group as it makes plans and decisions between the times of International Board meetings, especially for Stephen Dinsmore the newest EG member.

SOMA New Zealand. ND Gradon Harvey [Annette]
[Web site www.soma.org.nz
Here are our current prayer requests
David Bahler – soma nz secretary
E-mail Address
somanzsec@paradise.net.nz

• The only mission we in New Zealand planned at this stage is to Vanuatu/Port Villa, with Glen Pattison leading a youth team, from 19 Nov – 3 Dec 08.

• No missions have been planned for 2009 as yet – they will be discussed at our Board meeting on 5 Dec 08.