January 15, 2021 | Miami, Florida, United States | Elie Henry, president of the Inter-American Division of the Seventh-day Adventists
As the Adventist World Church’s ‘10 Days of Prayer’ initiative concludes on January 16, 2021, Pastor Elie Henry, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Inter-America, offers a short message on the power of prayer as the new year is set in motion. -IAD News Staff
This Sabbath, all around the world, the Seventh-day Adventist Church gets together in prayer. What an excellent way of launching the new year, together as a family of faith and talking with God!
We have said goodbye to 2020, a year that for you was certainly strange and challenging. For me, for my family and for our church, it was so. In fact, we ended the year as we would have never imagined or wished: With bad news, challenges around the world, the death of many church members and leaders across our territory, the traumatic experience my daughter and I went through, soon after with the passing of my mother-in-law and, if that was not enough, on the last day of the year, the death of our colleague in service, Pastor Erwin González. Such challenges! What difficult trials! At the same time, what opportunities we had to be closer to God. It is what we have accomplished as 2020 ended, and 2021 began.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your prayers on our behalf, for my family, for the Adventist family across Inter-America, and for unceasingly ministering to the community with our Savior’s love.
As we close our 10 Days of Prayer today, we are not about to stop praying; on the contrary. This initiative marks the kickstart of a year where we are expecting big things, big miracles, a year of deeper revival and, above all, of greater intimacy with our Savior.
While people look fearfully out to this new year, thinking that it may be more difficult that the previous one, I invite you to see it as a year of more opportunities to get closer to Jesus, a year with more opportunities of helping others, and a year where each day means a day closer to seeing Jesus return in glory and majesty.
God is faithful to His purpose, and we praise Him for his goodness. In 2021, let us remember each day that God’s mercies are “new every morning.” Great is His faithfulness!