• It’s President’s Day! Are you prepared and praying?
• Who’s your favorite: President Washington or President Lincoln? Both men were godly leaders who relied on their faith!
• Have you signed up for our Online Prayer Rally? It free and it’s cool.
• What do you know about Panama and it’s special feature? Learn more here!

These fortunate kids had an exciting interruption to their day when President and Mrs. Bush visited their YMCA in Washington, D.C. this week.  Pray for President Bush as he leads our country through these challenging days.  What challenges are you aware of that President Bush is facing right now?  How would you handle these challenges if you were President?  Photo courtesy of the White House.

1. President Bush is still working to gain support for his new plan for success in Iraq.  He wants to send more troops there to bring order to the streets of Baghdad and to provide the security that the Iraqi government needs to keep peace.  Many members of Congress don’t want to send more troops to Iraq, so a lively debate is taking place.  This also means we have a wonderful opportunity to pray for all the leaders of our nation!  God promises to give wisdom when we ask for it, so let’s ask God for wisdom for President Bush and for all the leaders of our country.  Pray that they can come to accord and can determine the best way to proceed in Iraq.  Pray for wisdom for President Bush and his advisors, that they will lead our nation in agreement with God’s will.

President Bush is seen here walking along the colonnade outside the White House with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos during April 2005.  The President meets with many world leaders every month.  Why is it important that world leaders meet together in each others’ countries?  Why should we pray for these meetings?  Photo courtesy of the White House.

2. On February 16, President Bush will welcome to the White House President  Martin Torrijos of Panama.  As President, Mr. Bush must keep good relationships with many world leaders—even those who lead small nations like Panama.  So pray for this meeting as the two leaders talk about trade between our countries, working to strengthen democracy and the upcoming expansion of the Panama Canal.

Vice President Cheney is seen here during a visit to an enthusiastic group of troops during a visit to a U.S. airbase in Qatar.  Why do you think it is important for the President and Vice President to visit the troops?  What would you think if the Vice President came to visit your school?  Photo courtesy of the White House.

3. Two other key leaders are traveling this month, and we must pray for their efforts,  their safety and their success.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Amman Jordan and Berlin, Germany February 16-22.  She will meet with several leaders in the Middle East and will then visit Germany where she will sit down with Chancellor Angela Merkel.  Meanwhile, Vice President Richard Cheney hits the Pacific Rim, traveling to Japan, Australia and Guam during the week of February 19.  He will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Australian Prime Minister Howard to discuss Asian security and the global war on terror.  On the way home to Washington, he will stop in Guam for a visit with U.S. troops stationed there. Pray for Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rice as they travel, that God will protect and guide them, leading to great outcomes from each of their meetings.

These men are the chief chaplains for each branch of the military—except for the man in the civilian suit!  That’s PPT President/CEO John Lind.  Mr. Lind was in Washington, D.C. to meet with the chief chaplains to explore how PPT can help them do their job with God’s help and strength through prayer.

4. Did you know that every branch of the military provides for the religious needs of their recruits?  That’s right!  Military  chaplains serve on bases all over the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq.  They undergo many of the same risks, though they do not engage directly in combat.  So we need to pray for our chaplains as they serve the spiritual needs of our troops, asking God to encourage and strengthen them as they serve.  Pray, too, for our troops as they work to protect our freedom, putting themselves at risk for our sake!  Pray for their families as they sacrifice for our freedom too. 
   
   

Mr. Robert Gates is our nation’s Secretary of Defense.  He stepped up after the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld who served America longer than any other Defense Secretary.  Why do you think Mr. Gates left the university he loved so much to return to public service?  Would you step up to serve in a very difficult time if the President of the United States asked you?  Portrait courtesy of the Department of Defense.

Secretary of Defense—Robert Gates
Robert Gates became our nation’s 22nd Secretary of Defense on December 18, 2006.  Before stepping up to this key position, he was the President of Texas A&M University, the nation’s seventh largest university. He has also served as Interim Dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.  In addition to that, Mr. Gates has 27 years of national security experience.  He  joined the CIA in 1966 and has served six Presidents of both political parties.

The Secretary of Defense is responsible for directing the actions of the Defense Department in every part of the world where American troops are involved.  He advises President Bush on all matters of defense and works with him and other members of the Defense Department to decide how our country will defend herself against outside threats.  He is responsible for creating our defense policy and for making sure that it is carried out.  The Department of Defense includes the Army, Navy (including the Marine Corps), Air Force, the Inspector General and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.   Secretary Gates is also a member of the cabinet and the National Security Council.

Photo courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.

Director of Homeland Security—Michael Chertoff
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff is responsible for many key areas of security in our country, including our response in times of disaster and crisis.  With his team, he also works to protect America by reducing our vulnerability to future attack, weapons of mass destruction and cyber terrorism.  He must also coordinate everything he and his team do with efforts of all the other agencies and departments concerned with America’s security, from local police to all the other federal agencies like FEMA. That is a big job!

Michael Chertoff is a great person to lead our country’s Department of Homeland Security!  He has been an investigator for much of his professional life, having worked as a U.S. Appeals Court Judge and as a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.  He has also served in the Department of Justice, and in the days following the September 11 attacks, he investigated all the details about the attacks to learn who planned and carried them out.  He did a great job with the investigation, and was the one who linked them to al-Qaeda. 

Homeland Security oversees the Coast Guard, the Inspector General, FEMA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration, the Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service. 

Michael Chertoff is married to Meryl, and together they have two children.

Come, let us worship and bow down.  Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for He is our God.  We are the people He watches over, the flock under His care.
--Psalm 95:6-7

Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from Him whatever we ask because we obey Him and do the things that please Him.
--I John 3:21-22

I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference even the tiniest of our prayers make, and all the people those little prayers were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those prayers down through the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives.
-Peter Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy, Boston College

THE FACE OF LIBERTY
by Greg Asimakoupoulos

With chiseled features Abe sits tall
and stares intently down the Mall.
He views a row of monuments
recalling freedom’s birth.

The greatest President we’ve known
looks like a king upon his throne.
His beard and wart cannot conceal
the face of liberty.

It is a face that calls to mind
the joys of being color blind.
and how one nation under God
views everyone the same.

This week, President Bush will meet with President Torrijos of Panama.  Though Panama is a small nation, it is very important to most Americans, even if they have never visited there!  Do you know why?  Besides its lush and beautiful Caribbean climate and popularity as a tourist destination, it has one very special stretch of land that thousands of people gave their lives for during the last century.  Do you know what it is?

Panama is bordered on one side by the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side by the Pacific Ocean.  During the 1800’s, several different nations tried to come up with ways to create a shipping passageway through the area which was originally part of Colombia.

Panama is a very narrow country with many miles of shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean…and the Pacific Ocean!  That’s right.  Panama is the first North American country north of Colombia, South America.  From 1904 to 1914, the U.S. built a huge canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Using a series of locks, the Panama Canal enables ships to cut days off their sailing time from the East Coast to the West by cutting through the watery nation just north of Colombia.  The canal is 50.7 miles long and 106 feet wide.  Its construction was truly the most extraordinary feat in the world at the time of its completion. 

Spurred by the visionary new President, Theodore Roosevelt, the United States took over construction of the Panama Canal in 1904 and completed the work in 1914.  Earlier efforts had failed miserably due to disease and ravaging rain and mudslides. 

John Stevens, builder of the Great Northern Railroad through America’s Northwest, was hired by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1905.  When Stevens went to Panama to take over the massive, struggling project, he resisted the temptation to continue the “big dig” and went to work instead creating livable conditions for workers. Once railroads, towns, churches and other key needs were created, work progressed well.  Stevens resigned in 1907, however, perhaps because he knew his skills limited his further involvement.  He was a railroad builder without detailed knowledge of locks and dams.  Portrait courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute.

It was not until American engineer John Stevens, builder of the Great Northern Railway across the Pacific Northwest, took over the effort that things began to look up.  Stevens knew that a project so demanding must care for its workers rather than ignoring their needs and permitting them to live in squalid, unsanitary conditions, dying by the thousands of malaria and yellow fever.  So rather than start immediately on the canal as other efforts had done, Stevens ordered the building of roads, housing and churches—whole communities sprang up!  He called for lakes to be drained, mosquitoes killed and medical care improved.  Soon, the workers were healthy and thriving, and progress on the Canal was remarkable. 

Isn’t it interesting how even in something like a huge and seemingly impossible construction project like a transoceanic canal, when people obey God’s principles and put people and their needs first, things work out and success is achieved? 

The United States maintained ownership and control of the narrow strip of land through tiny Panama until 1999 when it was turned over to the host nation. The canal is 50.7 miles long and 106 feet wide, and it’s quite a money-maker!  Revenues from ships taking passage through the canal exceeded $847 million in 2005.