It has been in the works for a couple weeks, but it is finally up and working. DongTeam.org has the wonderful privilege to host the prayer wall for those who are interested in helping establish 24 hours of prayer for the Dong people.

No one person could achieve such a feat, and it will hopefully be encouraging as we see more and more people join. As we dedicate one hour a week to the Lord to wrestle for the Dong people in prayer, there is no way we will not see great progress of the gospel among the Dong.

For those of you who are interested, please feel free to visit the Dong Prayer Wall, see how it is set up, and contact us about joining up. You can always find the prayer wall by coming back here to the Prayer Journal and looking for the "advert" to the left.

May God be glorified among the Dong people!

China has captivated the spotlight of the world for the last few weeks. Not only did the devastating earthquake draw us all in to our televisions in sympathy, but before the earthquake ever hit, National Geographic chose to focus their entire May's issue on China.

NatGeo evidently decided a month on China would not be well rounded without telling of the people in China's countryside, and they just happened to chose to focus on one people group...the Dong. Nice choice.

For those who have not read the article, DongTeam.org would like to highly suggest it, if you get a chance. Not only is it well written (by a very famous author of other China-related books) and have beautiful photography of the Dong people, but it really does paint a clear and accurate picture of life in a Dong village.

Everybody in China is excited about the Olympics. Obviously, it is a big thing. The Dong are no different. In villages, basketball courts are the effective village square. Table tennis is common among school children and adult workers alike.

In the Olympic spirit, DongTeam.org wants to share a couple of new computer desktop backgrounds to help encourage sports related prayer. Let's pray that sports will be a bridge of common interest through which the gospel can be heard.

It has been a while since DongTeam has made a new desktop background available for you all. Our hope is that we can provide simple prayer reminders which we can incorporate into our everyday lives. Visit the Media Page to download the newest background.

Great news! DongTeam.org has finished producing the Kingdom of Priests prayer guide. This guide looks at seven moments in the biblical Exodus event, evaluates the Dong situation, and puts those two together to pray for a great spiritual exodus of the Dong people.

We will begin distribution of the guide by providing the it in PDF format. You can download it right now and start using it immediately by just clicking on the image here...but be careful, this file is about 1MB in size, and if you are using a dial-up modem connection, it could take some time to download.

We do know, however, that paper guides are the preference for the majority of people. Prayer seems to be one of the few areas where computerized formats just do not cut it. Many of us do not want to incorporate computers into our prayer times. Paper, though, is no problem.

With this need in mind, we will soon be able to provide printed Kingdom of Priests prayer guides for order from the DongTeam.org Media page. They are on the presses at this very moment.

DongTeam now has a new section of the site: DongTeam Media. As DongTeam finds photographs and books, or produces backgrounds and screesavers which we find helpful for prayer, we will share them on the media page.

To get things started, we have a background of a Dong drum tower for DongTeam users to use as a computer desktop background. As more material is added, we will keep everyone posted.

Just a few days ago, one of our fellow prayer warriors left a comment on the Prayer Journal saying that a group of children is going to hear about the spiritual needs of the Dong people and will be praying for them tonight (Wednesday night in the United States). In a reversal of the normal prayer requests we see here on DongTeam, why not pray for that time, for the children, and the preparation necessary to lead the children in prayer.

It is a beautiful gift to be able to pray with children. For good reason did Jesus call us to be like children and to live out a child-like faith. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to work in these childrens' hearts and help them understand who the Dong people are and why they have such a great need to hear the salvation of Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit work in their prayers great works of faith!

This is the DongTeam Prayer Journal's 100th entry! We are delighted to be a center for prayer for the Dong people, and want to continue to search out the will of the Lord together with all of you, brothers and sisters in Christ committed to prayer for unreached people around the world like the Dong of China.

With such a focus on prayer, it is hard to break away for one entry for non-prayer related items, but every once in a while, it is nice to catch everybody up with how things work...or could work here at the Prayer Journal.

The prayer journal is what we make it. Entries appear and we pray, but sometimes, an encouraging prayer insight or thought provoking comment can lead all of us into more informed and focused prayer for the Dong. When you have such an insight or comment, please leave comments on that particular entry for us to share in.

Comments can make all the difference. They can bring the Incarnational Ministry category into an interactive discussion of how to reach the Dong in the most indigenous way possible. Comments could deepen our understanding of biblical passages in the Scriptural category. Or maybe, some of us could even provide updates to the Specific Requests category. This is not a push for comments, but rather an announcement of a feature of the Prayer Journal that could easily go unnoticed.

So, as we continue on this prayer journey, take advantage of the medium we have to discuss and develop prayer for the Dong people of China.

It has not been easy to find the statistics, but DongTeam.org has finally found some figures on the Dong from the 2000 Census. Just like the United States and other countries, census figures have to be bought. Eventually, they trickle down to the common man, but the governments like a little return on the expense of such a wide sweeping venture.

DongTeam has posted some updated numbers on the general information page including total Dong populations from census figures of the last few decades and also populations of Dong in the three main Dong provinces. Prior to the new figures, DongTeam had projected three million Dong, and the total population is just shy of that number.

There was a brief comment in the last entry about the Dong not fully understanding books written in Chinese. The DongTeam General Information site has a summary of the present status of education among the Dong explaining such a statement

What this site has not said, and what you might not know, is what literature is available in the Chinese language to the Dong people. The Three-Self Church (official, government approved, Protestant church of China) sells Bibles (two translations), study Bibles, commentaries, hymnals, and few other basic pieces of literature. These materials are technically available, but there are no Three-Self churches in the Dong areas.

Plus, even if they did have better access to this literature, the majority of the Dong would only moderately benefit from Chinese language resources. We need to pray for Dong language resources to be made available.

Take time to read through the Biography page. The biography page is a chance for all of us to get to know one Dong person at a time, to look into their lives, understand a little of what it has been like for them, and pray for them with a little more understanding.

Pan needs prayer. As the biography mentions in the next to last line, he is content with his own beliefs, content not to rock the boat of traditional beliefs. Pray that God will speak to him, in whatever manner he chooses. Pray for Pan as the Spirit leads.

The other pages on the DongTeam site will change periodically, but most of them contain static information. The prayer journal, however, is a journey of prayer, evolving and dynamic. All the static information is to provide anybody, regardless of how much they know about the Dong people, enough information to pray intelligently. This journal will be the forum or the catalyst for most of that prayer.

My hope is to provide a place to learn how to pray for a people group. The best way to do that is to pray. As you read this prayer journal, I encourage all of you to use these entries as opportunities to pray for the Dong people. Each time you read an entry, I encourage you to pray with me for the Dong people, or use this information as an aid to pray for another unreached people group. May the Lord's will be done in our prayers.