Cornerstone Asia - pray for Bhutan

A really helpful book I have been using for prayer for the Buddhist world is called 'Peoples of the Buddhist World - A Christian Prayer Guide' by Paul Hattaway check out the website www.piquanteditions.com for his stuff. Also Asia Harvest have some fantastic detailed newsletters on unreached Asian Peoples - see www.asiaharvest.org.

I owe alot of the information on these areas that I pass on to you, from Paul's existentive work on the subject. I am interested to receive any further more accurate information on areas and peoples I mention if my facts are not quite correct.

Many parts of Bhutan are remote by western standards and the country remained very closed until the mid-sixties. The Leprosy Mission had a key role in setting up hospitals as did the Norwegian Santal Mission in the 1960's and 1970's. As Christianity has been seen as a threat to national cohesiveness. 210 years ago this March, William Carey actually visited Bhutan with a view to setting up some work there, but the hope was not fulfilled and he focussed on his Bengal mission work that had been established already.

Proverbs says: 'A longing fulfilled is a tree of life' and 'Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick' (Proverbs 13:12).

Lord, how long does it have to be for the deferred hope of the nations to come to Bhutan - to the Lap people, the Kurtop, the Western and Eastern Khampa, the Drokpa-speaking majority and the many tiny groups who have never heard? Surely 210 years is too long to wait. Open up the gates and those ancient doors - may the King of glory come in! Send us, release us, anoint us, challenge us to give, to pray and to go.