The warriors at home (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

For weeks, our team members have been handing out latex bracelets to friends and family members who promise to pray for us while we're away.  They're multicolored versions of the yellow wristbands made popular by Lance Armstrong; at least those bright yellow bands were popular until Lance Armstrong proved himself to be just another flawed and fallible human like the rest of us instead of some kind of Superman.  

Here's a picture of one of  our wristbands.

The prayer bracelets are a visible reminder for us that people are praying for us and for the success of our mission trip to Belize.  We might be doing the construction or evangelism and the actual physical travel on this trip, but they're our prayer warriors.  Our prayer partners are in the trenches and fighting alongside us every step of the way, and we couldn't accomplish very much without them.

Recently, one of our missionary team members was passing through security at the Birmingham airport, when he was approached by an elderly gentleman he didn't recognize.  "Chuck, where did you get that prayer bracelet?" the man asked.  "It looks just like mine."  Sure enough, the band on the older gentleman's wrist was the twin of the one Chuck had on his own wrist.  Since the design is unique and the initials of our church and a verse of scripture are engraved in each wristband, there was no doubt the man was one of our group's prayer partners.

Chuck was taken aback and prepared to be embarrassed for not knowing this person, especially since the other man knew his name.  Moments later, the ambush complete, one of the other members of our mission team appeared and introduced Chuck to her father. Teri and her dad were at the airport to catch a flight to Iowa together for a family gathering.

Some of our prayer warriors are wearing wrist bands, marking themselves as partners on our journey.  Others will be praying for us but won't be wearing that physical reminder of their bond with us.  It might be because they don't think much of the wristband as a fashion statement or maybe it's because we've run out of them.  We began with 300 of the wristbands to distribute to our prayer partners, and they've all found good homes.

It feels wonderful knowing that more than 300 people are committed to praying for you on every step of your journey.  No, it feels better than wonderful--it feels powerful.