Continuing to report my recent interactions with real-life heroes of the faith, today I am writing about a new friend, Barbara, the behind-the-scenes prayer warrior. Here’s what impressed me about her story.

Born and raised in England, she met the Lord at the age of 18 and went to Lebanon as a Navigator missionary in 1968. While there, she met her husband-to-be, “an interruption,” she thought(!), and they were married in 1970. Five years later they moved to Egypt. After serving a total of 15 years in Egypt, the Egyptian government asked Nabeel, her husband, to leave the country in ten days. During the ten days they got a job offer to work with an Egyptian church in Toronto Canada. So they moved to Colorado Springs for six months on their way to Canada. The Navigators’ leadership then asked them to stay in Colorado Springs and have a global ministry.  

Unlike most of us, for whom Colorado Springs is a dream location, Barbara was not feeling at home. Like many, moving to the U.S. from almost anywhere else, she felt out of place. That her home was too big and too luxurious. (I was in Turkey for only a year back in 1970-1971, and I remember that feeling well, walking into an upscale U.S. shopping mall and thinking, “There is nothing in here that anyone actually needs.”) In the midst of her struggles, God gave Barbara verses from Jeremiah 29, a message to the Jewish people in exile:

Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce…Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 29.5, 7)

She took it as her mission to pray for Colorado Springs. “That’s my calling. To sit at his feet, in ‘the heavenlies’ [see Ephesians 1.3] and pray.”

God planted her in the United States. She describes herself as “81 and still growing.”

While sharing this story with a small group of us, she told of a profound experience that happened at the Navigator staff conference in 2007. She was sitting behind people she didn’t know, and they had a profoundly mentally and physically impaired adult son who would have been in his 20s, I think, at that time. She said it was clear he wanted to sing, but the time for singing hadn’t come, and his father worked hard to keep him quiet. (I’ve seen this in action: they literally have to put their hand over his mouth.) Anyway, Barbara said that when the time for singing came, the father lifted the son out of his wheelchair and held him as he stood behind him while the young man “sang” with the rest of us. She described it as guttural sounds. Afterward, she had two thoughts: one was that God must really be pleased that the young man wanted so desperately to praise him in that way. The other thought was, “That’s what my prayers must sound like. But God is still pleased.” (Tomorrow, I will tell you more about the family with the handicapped son.) 

In addition to praying for Colorado Springs, when her husband teaches a course on Islam and the Geopolitics of the Middle East, Barbara prays most of the day, for the students, for the people they will be reaching, for her husband and, of course, for the Muslim world. It’s behind-the-scenes work: difficult, and she takes it seriously.

At a later time, Barbara wondered about the loneliness of her ministry as she prays alone. Then she remembered that young man who was profoundly disabled held tight by his father as he “sang” and Barbara realized that she is never alone. She is always held tight by her heavenly Father.

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. (Colossians 4.12, NIV)

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8.26, NASB)