by Katie Willemsen

The week OneWay Ministries waited for all year ended in complete victory.

December 8, 2008 I sat in Wentz Concert Hall at North Central College with Michael Thompson and Jim Johanik and took notes on all the vision ideas for the “next” concert. Michael was talking about “let our lights shine” from the song “This Little Light of Mine”. The hall seemed huge - after all, we had just put on a concert in a hall that seated 225, and now we were looking at 605. I wrote things down like “representative from every country of the world” “50 piece orchestra, 50 piece choir” and was excited, yet a little nervous. After all, who was going to do all this? (I am, after all, the project manager and the only non-visionary among the 3 of us.)

So a year later, it’s done! “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us, that your ways may be known on earth and your salvation among all nations.” Psalm 67:1-2 . These ancient words have been sung and played so much by people on our team that God is already answering our prayers…God indeed has poured out His grace upon us.

On December 3, people from all over the world, new friends, and members of the OneWay family filled the 605 seats of Wentz Concert Hall for “Let It Shine” a worship and prayer gathering for the nations. God’s presence was palpable as we worshiped with over 70 musicians. Believers and unbelievers alike were powerfully challenged to live “all in” for Christ. 17 organizations had booths in the atrium to enable and activate people to pray, give, and go for the gospel. We know God is mightily at work in people’s hearts, including our own!
 
 

The same day we re-released our evangelistic Christmas cd Driftings with a new gospel presentation by Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Center (and Steve taught his son in his ping-pong class at Wheaton Academy!). Concert attenders took over 1500 copies to distribute, and at the time of this writing, we are out of the 2500 we had in stock!

The same day we released OneWay’s 2009 worship album: Shine, which combined the gifts of over 120 musicians to encourage and strengthen the body around the world. This used the most people we’ve ever used on an album before, and is truly a work of God from start to finish. Hear samples of both albums at www.owm.org.

The same day the brand new prayercast.com site became active, with 19 country pages full of prayer videos, pictures, and ready for content to be brought in from around the world. Click here to check it out and pray for the world: www.prayercast.com.

The day after the concert I got an email directing me to the next prayercast video out. I went to the site and immediately started weeping. I was overwhelmed by God’s grace to this ministry. We are a very small group of workers, pray-ers, and givers, and yet God has poured out His grace on us to bring about such a powerful site. I find myself renewed and inspired by the vision of prayercast - to make a wikipedia of prayer information for the nations so that God’s people may intercede and stand in the way of the enemy.

And yet my favorite part of the week, personally, was that I am very much seeing God at work in my life, developing fruits of the Spirit and a passion for God’s message of hope to be known throughout the world.

And this is why I know God is making His face shine on us - may His ways be known on earth and His salvation among the nations.
 

Production is underway on a new album to be released this December. Over 100 musicians are contributing their gifts to this project that we pray will bless the Body and advance His Kingdom around the world.

Please pray for strength for Michael Thompson and Katie Willemssen as they work hard to record the instruments and voices for this album. Thank you to all those giving of their time and skills. Please pray that God would bless each recording session and protect the entire project from the enemy.

Our goal is that this album would especially serve as an encouragement to missionaries around the world as it is distributed to many hundreds in the coming year.

Psalm 67:1, May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine upon us,

From time to time, we’d like to ask you to intercede for specific individuals on the OneWay team. Please pray this week for Lee Springer, who is

· on the U.S. staff part-time

· working to get a representative from every nation to OneWay’s 12.03.09 concert of worship

· helping to build Prayercast.com by acquiring video, photos, and music from 220 countries

Thank you, Father, for raising Lee up as a harvest worker (Lk. 10:2). Please bless him with spiritual growth as he walks with You. Please give him joy and success in his ministry for Your glory. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Feel free to email an encouraging note to Lee at lee@owm.org.