Palau calls prayer key to witness
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___SAN ANTONIO--Prayer is the key to developing a vision and passion for a broken world, said worldwide evangelist Luis Palau during the Baptist General Convention of Texas Evangelism Conference Jan. 29.
___Palau, who grew up in Argentina but now lives in the United States, told of his own introduction to prayer and how it gave direction to his life.
___A missionary, Keith Benson, asked a young Palau to pray with him on Wednesday afternoons. At the first prayer time, Benson displayed a map of their town with the 16 churches of his denomination marked. Palau said he had never before seen anyone pray while walking around.
___"He just loved to pray walking around, and you would too if you prayed for three hours," Palau said.
___The next week, they prayed for every Baptist church, he said. Methodists came next. Eventually, they prayed for all the churches in town.
___Then one day, Benson brought a map of the province. There were 922 towns in the province, and 800 of them had no evangelical church. Palau and Benson prayed for the towns.
___Next came a map of Argentina and prayer for all 32 provinces. Months after starting, Benson brought a globe of the world, Palau said.
___"Believe me, I could not stay in Argentina after that if you paid me," the evangelist said. "I thought, 'Lord, I've got to go'" to all of those countries with the gospel.
___"You want to get a vision and a passion? Begin to pray," Palau said.
The Baptist Standard
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