Nazarenes across 40 nations of the Eurasia Region participated in the region’s first-ever 24 Hours of Prayer initiative from 30 to 31 January 2021.

The initiative was designed to deepen interconnectedness among Nazarene churches across the region while consecrating the region to God, inviting Him to cover the nations and His people with His presence.

With about 22 hours of daylight across the region, prayer was set to begin an hour before sunrise in Eastern Russia and end an hour after the sun sets in the Azores Islands, spanning the entire, vast Eurasia Region.

The plan was loosely outlined, inviting individual Nazarenes, local churches, districts, and fields to develop creative prayer strategies tailored to each culture and context.

Regional Prayer Coordinator Sandra Tibi gathered prayer requests from each of the Eurasia Region’s seven fields. Then, translators prepared them for distribution across the region so that Nazarenes could pray more specifically for each other.

Nazarenes across the region participated in many different ways.

• The British Isles North District Nazarene Missions International swiftly repurposed an already planned district Zoom meeting as a “Concert of Prayer,” inviting testimonies from Nazarenes in Italy, Scandinavia, Hungary, Poland, and India, and praying over the works there.
• Local churches across the Portugal District participated individually, concluding with focused prayer for the region during regular Sunday morning worship.
• Eurasia Region Nazarene Youth International opened a Zoom room for 24 hours in which regional youth prayed together.
• The five districts of Bangladesh prayed across the entire 24-hour period, both in local church buildings and virtually through the Internet.
• The eight districts of the South Asia Field cooperated, taking turns hosting a one-hour session of prayer.
• The France District used a variety of channels to include its members in prayer, from individuals praying at home to local church prayer meetings to online gatherings through Zoom or WhatsApp.

More than 500 Nazarenes visited the NYI Zoom room over the course of 24 hours, praying in 29 different languages. Youth took turns leading the prayer, from Lisbon, Portugal, to Kathmandu, Nepal, to Lahore, Pakistan, to Moscow, Russia. Some of the youth in London, England, hosted the prayer time from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. GMT, then passed it over to a group in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

“It was like a regional conference,” said Diego Lopez, regional youth coordinator. “We saw people we have not seen in a long time and got to meet new friends. There was beauty in diversity all united by the power of the Holy Spirt.”

The 24 Hours of Prayer initiative was born from a meeting between Regional Prayer Coordinator Sandra Tibi and new Regional Director Jim Ritchie, who wanted to begin a new chapter of ministry in Eurasia with concerted prayer and fasting.

“As prayer coordinator for the region, I have been dreaming to see one day a kind of prayer chain being created, one time zone after another, going from east to west, following the movement of the sun,” Tibi said.

That desire resonated with Ritchie.

“Sandra said that, in many ways, ‘the sun never sets on the Eurasia Region,’” Ritchie recalled. “This connected with my spirit and led me to think of Psalm 113:3, ‘From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets the name of the Lord is to be praised.’ From this moment, the vision for ‘From the Rising of the Sun’ took shape.”

This article is adapted from a post on the Eurasia Region’s website. To view the original, click here.

--Church of the Nazarene Eurasia