Zebra Ministries

Good morning Zebras,

I hope this note finds you all well.  Even though I’m not writing, I continue to pray for you every day as I wait on God.

Before I left Korea, Katherine and I went to the Goseong Unification Observatory.  Built on a hill overlooking the river separating North and South Korea, its name says it all.  From there you can “observe” the North Korean landscape and everything inside speaks to the goal of Korean unification.

There is an exhibit there entitled “My Hometown” where people who fled during the war have shared their memories of people and places they can no longer see. (See attached photos.) When they fled, they thought it would be temporary.  They never thought they would find themselves trapped, unable to return to their families and friends by a boundary built by the world to establish peace.

As I walked around I felt God’s Spirit so powerfully that I thought “Somehow Zebras is tied up with all of this.”

Zebras was originally started to encourage God’s women at my church to hang together and support one another.  It quickly grew to include women from other churches, but it was a pastor who saw the bigger vision was unity.  These are the verses he referenced when he wrote an endorsement of the ministry.

John 17:20-23 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Nowhere, in my opinion, is disunity more obvious than in Korea.  The South enjoys the luxuries of the modern world, while North Korea lives in conditions we don’t even like to think about.  Our peace came at their expense and I am praying it is time for God to act.

(Just think of the revival that would start if God acted while the eyes of the world are on Korea because of the Olympics!)

Korean churches hold prayer services at 4 a.m. which means, with the time difference, if we prayed every day at 11 a.m. we would all be praying at the same time.  (Isn’t that cool!)  Korean Christians and American Christians all praying together, separated by distance but united by the Spirit.

I haven’t really decided what to do with all of this except to commit myself to pray every day at 11 a.m., for the duration of the Olympics, starting on Monday.  And I’m letting you know in case you want to join in.

2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Love,

Jill