At 10:30pm on August 13^th, I received a text from a contact from with someone within the military—someone for whom I had spearheaded intercessory prayer for a sensitive and undisclosed issue in the previous year. He thanked IFA for the miracles that our prayer brought for his high-level situation in previous requests, and he had faith that through the prayer of the IFA intercessors, a miracle could help his current situation.

He shared with me about the extraction of widows and orphans in Afghanistan and how his former military colleagues were within the collapsing Afghanistan—as volunteers—running military-style ops to rescue Americans and widows and orphans. They needed prayer. They needed miracles.

View Comments (21)

This was before the information about rescues was in the news. I shared those requests with a number of friends who prayed with me. As I continued to receive updates, I knew that it needed to be shared with the wider IFA community of intercessors. Unable to share the few details I did know (the operation was secret at the time), I put out a call for prayer on IFA’s Headline Prayer. (see below) You prayed, intercessors!

I began to get bits and pieces about the victories inside Afghanistan with this volunteer veteran team, and the growing number of people who were being rescued, none of which could be made public since it was an ongoing operation. But the prayers of intercessors were affecting the mission, even though intercessors did not know who and for what exactly they were praying. God was using our intercessors!

All the while, our IFA Afghanistan prayer guide, developed by our own writer Gloria Robles and the communications team led by Judy McDonough, boosted the profile for prayer among intercessors. God was using them to direct our prayer. There were thousands who downloaded it and were praying through the prayer points. Many of us felt helpless that there wasn’t more that we could do besides pray.

On August 26, as I saw a name quoted in my texts back and forth with my contact: “Chad” was the on-the ground person who was feeding intel and requests to my contact. Chad shared a story about an American University student–working in the Afghan President’s office, she was receiving threats of rape and death. A text came in sharing that she had been rescued, and that IFA was greenlighted to share her rescue story and picture with our intercessors. We did! Click here for that story.

In my contact’s texts to Chad, he encouraged Chad and the team in Afghanistan that thousands were praying for them in their mission.  Chad texted, “God gets the glory for this.”  It was a God story all the way around.

We were able to share more about the rescue efforts as the door was closing for extractions, the U.S. government unwilling to extend the deadline and in many cases, unwilling to help. Your prayer fueled the efforts to hide people from the Taliban who were seeking to escape, provided encouragement for those feeling cut off and forgotten, and enabled supernatural connections and provision for needed resources.

Before all of this took place, IFA’s Camille Solberg had booked a veterans ministry group to appear on the September First Friday webcast with Dave Kubal, in honor of upcoming 9/11.  The scheduled appearance was confirmed on August 16th.We would have to record the interview with the Founder of this organization—his daughter was getting married on the First Friday weekend. But then the interview was rescheduled multiple times with his availability was changing daily.

When I reached out to my contact to see if he would also be willing to appear live on the First Friday webcast, he generously agreed. I told him who was else was appearing on the webcast that day, through a pre-recorded appearance- Chad Robichaux from Mighty Oaks Foundation. I asked if he knew him. My contact was noticeably shocked on the other end of the phone.

“That is our “Chad” who you have been praying for!” The same Chad who was feeding him information for prayer that was being passed along to our intercessors. The same Chad who had been rescuing thousands of Americans and allies, widows and orphans. We had already been praying for this Chad for three weeks and didn’t know it.

When we figured out the connections and the ways in which God used the body of Christ, we saw it was truly a miracle. A miracle that innocent people were rescued. A miracle that God connected intercessory prayer for those who needed it with a simple text. A miracle that those of us who felt helpless to watch the crisis unfold were actually part of the rescue effort in an inside way! A miracle that God is far more ahead of what we need, and already working in ways for His will to be done.

You were part of these rescues, dear intercessors. God used us for a secret mission worthy of a movie, with rescue, peril, good and evil—but all in real life. There are heroes everywhere in that story and you intercessor are one of them.

Watch the interview with Chad Robichaux and Dave Kubal here.

Share how you were praying during the extraction phase of the Afghanistan crisis. There are more to be rescued—let’s not stop praying! And please share this article–you won’t hear this good news elsewhere!