Hello, friends, and welcome to the Prayers of Rest podcast.

I'm your host, Ashrida, and this episode is a little different than our typical prayer episode.

I thought I would take this week to just imagine that you and I are

sitting together across a cup of coffee or tea or lemonade, whatever your favorite drink of

choice is, and just share with you a bit of behind the scenes of the podcast. I'd love to share today what God

has been doing and some of the stories that I've heard of how he is moving through this podcast,

as well as give you a sneak peek of what is coming up in the next few months for the podcast. So

grab your favorite warm or iced or cold

drink and just sit with me for a few minutes. Let's celebrate what God has done.

I wish I really could sit down at a table with you and see your beautiful face and hear your voice and hear your story of what God has been doing in your life.

In these past few weeks, we've wrapped up the uncovering the love of Jesus season of this

Prayers of Rest podcast. And it's just been so fun to hear how God has been leading you into

a deeper realization of just how much Jesus loves you. I mean, that was my heart for this.

And as I kind of took a peek behind the scenes of the analytics,

if you knew me personally, you'd know I kind of geek out on that

because numbers to me mean so much more than just statistics.

But one of the big milestones that we can celebrate together today

is that over 130 countries around the world are tuning in to the prayers of rest podcast. And that

for me, those countries are so significant because so many who are listening are in

countries that are closed to the gospel. That means that you can't openly go into that nation

as a missionary or as a Christian worker. If I were to try to fly in and say, let's hold a public prayer meeting,

it would jeopardize people's lives to show up because Christians are being persecuted for their faith in some of these countries.

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