Displaying items by tag: IPC Team

Continuing our series of articles introducing you to the leaders at IPC, this month we would like to introduce you to our friend and colleague, Liz Adleta. Liz serves on the Council of International Prayer Connect and co-leads our Focus Team mobilizing prayer for the unreached peoples.

Liz, tell us a bit about your family, where you live and your personal/leisure interests outside the ministry work?

I was born and raised by Christian parents in Austin, Texas, and grew up in a Southern Baptist Church where I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 8. After a number of years of going my own way away from the Lord, I met and married my husband, Tom, in 1979 in Dallas, Texas.   (Read Tom’s Bio)

At age 36, Tom had committed his life to Jesus. God brought us through a rather rapid and intense discipleship through a Bible Church, then a Spirit-filled church called Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, early in our marriage.

Prayer, praise and worship and missions were part of our early spiritual DNA. We had begun a crisis pregnancy ministry called Someone Cares and some other local ministries before being called by God to missions, first in China, then many other venues around the world.

Tom and I had eight children (he had 2 additional children from his previous marriage) who we home-schooled a good bit of their lives. They are all grown-up now and we have 19 grandchildren.

My husband, Tom, passed away in October last year. I live now in Sherman, Texas, together with my youngest daughter, Honour, her husband, Kirk, and their two daughters, Charley Hope and Merida Faith. Honour and Kirk also work full time in ministry in serving networks and organizations in communications, security, social media, technology and graphic design.

I just turned 69 years old in March and continue so far actively in ministry. As I have time, I enjoy “hanging out” with my children and grandchildren, a number of whom live nearby.

Tom and I travelled so much in ministry that we have been Million Milers with the airlines. We settled back in Tom’s hometown, the Dallas area, in 2015 because of Tom’s health. With Tom’s decline over the last couple of years and COVID, it feels like I live on Zoom between prayer times and meetings these days! I am still full time in international ministry but now would love to be better connected locally. I am engaging in several grassroots efforts here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex where over 350 languages are spoken in the homes and over 1,600 different ethnic groups live. I recently helped facilitate 10 Days of Prayer DFW to pray onsite in the 10 zones of this metropolitan area.

Tell us how you became involved in the prayer and mission movements as you do?

Our ministry always hinged and was birthed from prayer. We spent 25 years in Asia training church planters, which always involved prayer as foundational to ministry. God eventually took us to Africa, Europe and Central and South America. In 2004, I was one of a group of global leaders that started the Ethnê Movement and I facilitated their prayer working group until 2013 when a colleague, Jenny Oliphant, also now with IPC, stepped into my roles there. I continue to work alongside her in a number of international ministries including the 24:14 Coalition, Int’l Prayer Council, Int’l Partnering Associates, Extraordinary Prayer Task Force, Global Family 24-7 Prayer, and 10 Days as well as others.

Believing prayer is the indispensable key to the unfinished task, I helped found Fellowship of Prayer Strategists in 2014 to serve those prayer leaders working in networks, organizations and field teams. FPS focuses on the role of the prayer strategist and prayer strategies—on expanding our understanding of prayer and applying those to extending the Kingdom of God, especially among the unreached.

Tell us how you connected with IPC.

I first met John Robb as our prayer journey led by George Otis, Jr. met up with his team in Thimphu, Bhutan, in late 1993 as one of the first prayer journeys with AD2000 and Beyond Movement.  John and I kept running into one another over the years in various airports!

Over the years, I have had the privilege to work alongside a number of other IPC leaders, including Brian Mills. Brian served the SEANET Buddhist world partnership while we were developing the Billion Hours prayer initiative. Brother Austen Ukachi with IPC invited me to the West Africa IPC gathering in 2007 in Sierra Leone, to share about praying for the unreached peoples, and God used that in a pivotal way to draw our family to move to Africa in 2008, where we lived and ministered for several years.

I’ve participated in a number of IPC-sponsored prayer gatherings such as the meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a special gathering in Cypus, and the Highway 19 gathering in Dubai. I worked with Dr. Jason Hubbard, Jonathan Friz and other in launching the Global Family 24-7 Prayer community on Zoom January 1, 2021. Children in Prayer meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Dark Places and Powers gathering in Cypus, and the Highway 19 gathering in Dubai. I worked with Dr. Jason Hubbard, Jonathan Friz and other in launching the Global Family 24-7 Prayer community on Zoom January 1, 2021.

For your encouragement, please let me share that, over the past 30 days, there were 12,079 individual participants across all our host’s, The Aqueduct Project’s, prayer rooms, with the majority gathering in the Global Family and Prayer Force prayer rooms. There were over half a million minutes of individual participant time logged in the prayer rooms over the past 30 days. God is allowing us together to discover ways to structure global prayer networks in a way that I have never seen nor read about.

Since Jenny Oliphant and I both focus on mobilizing and training the Body of Christ in praying for the unreached people groups, it seems a natural fit to collaborate with others in International Prayer Connect. We’re excited about encouraging other IPC members to grow in their partnering skills and focusing on those not yet in the Kingdom of God in prayer.

May God bless our joint efforts and continue developing this network of networks for His glory!

Tell us about one or two areas you believe God is highlighting for growth in prayer right now for the Body of Christ?

I believe God is highlighting cultivating our intimacy with Him, and in that, our skills at listening to Him, not only individually but also corporately. I see more and more being written on listening to God, but the Body of Christ is still growing on hearing His voice corporately. I’m excited to see the Holy Spirit drawing more and more into a corporate listening time for discerning the Lord’s direction, hearing His heart and accomplishing His purposes.

Liz Adleta – Council Member
International Prayer Connect