Jim & Melissa Marcum

Intercessory Missions Update

January 2017

Dear Friends & Family,

A New Year is here! - And we sense some great opportunities and doors opening for advancing the Kingdom
of Christ. Fresh starts and new beginnings are from the Lord, who makes all things new. He says through the
prophet Isaiah, Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new
thing (Is. 43:18-19). As we pray for all of you throughout this coming year, we will be agreeing with this
word over YOU. New seasons, new blessings, new things from the Lord for you and for every one you carry in
your heart your family, friends, and loved ones. Thank you all for keeping in touch and for your precious love
and support which we need and cherish. We praise the Lord for each of you and know the Lord will be doing a
mighty work in you this year!

-Love, The Marcums

Sixteen-Thousand Lovers of Jesus

Refreshed and equipped at OneThing 2016

Each January we breathe a little sigh of

thanksgiving, as we finish a six-week season
of preparing for and hosting our annual One
Thing conference, December 28-31. Our
leaders here lovingly call the OneThing
conference the family business as our whole
spiritual community works together many
hours a day. It is at the same time wonderfully
enjoyable, and totally exhausting!
Besides the 16,000 who came to the event, we had over 1 million watching online as we web-streamed the
conference free, literally to the world. We have contacts from many nations who are viewing, asking for prayer and
for resources for the churches and praying groups they are a part of. What a privilege! Missions organizations who
analyze and document missions movements around the world have said that in 1985 there were only 25 ministries
throughout the world who had 24/7 prayer as a component of their ministry. Today, there are verifiably over 10,000
ministries in the earth that have a 24/7 prayer component! Can we imagine what is about to be released?
This year we once again hosted a leadership summit for Christian leaders from several Russian-speaking nations
simultaneous with our OneThing conference. The Lord is doing great things among these nations. There were 13
senior bishops who came, along with 30 of their support staff, and together they represented 90% of protestant
Christians in the Russian-speaking world.
We have found that a great place to serve at the OneThing
conference is the BOOKSTORE! This is our fourth year as
staff serving at the conference, and our third year to serve at
the bookstore. This year Jim was on-site operations
manager and Melissa managed the store-within-a-store
section of the bookstore our apparel and gifts. We take
close to 100,000 items to the conference and completely setup, operate, and tear down a bookstore in a matter of 7 days.
It is quite an undertaking, and really stretches both our
organizational and people skills! (smile) But we hear
testimonies over and over of how the bookstore is a place of
ministry at the conference. We are continally encouraging all our staff to engage with people and pray for them
and/or speak an encouraging word from the Lord.

Melissa had a great opportunity to do just that the second afternoon of the conference.
A woman came into the apparel store and was trying on a couple of jackets. She asked
me how I thought one of the jackets was fitting on her. As I helped her, she began to
share with me about her personal issue with her weight. She was very self-conscious.
She ended up opening up and saying some things she said she had never told anyone
about her self-esteem, and struggles with relationships. The Lord was so good to give
me words of encouragement to speak to her. Later that evening I was on a short break
and received a call on my walkie that there was a customer at the help-desk who had a
question for me. When I came out, it was this same woman! She wanted to talk more.
She asked me to explain things I had been telling her about finding her identity in the
Lords love and his acceptance of her. After awhile, I said, Can I pray with you? We
had a good time of prayer and I sensed the Lord begin to heal and restore some areas. I
saw her a couple more times over the next couple days and she always seemed so much
happier! She came by a final time to tell me, The Lord has done something at this
conference, I am going back home with so much more hope and confidence.

Had fun being twinkies

wearing some of the new
apparel on the last day.

Doors opening at Asbury Theological Seminary

For the past two years, a number of graduates from our 4-year Bible school, International House of Prayer University,
have gone on to continue their studies in Wilmore, Kentucky at Asbury Theological Seminary. Asbury has opened their
arms to our students, accepting them into graduate programs and honoring their credits.
Last semester, the dean and some faculty members requested a number of our faculty to visit Asbury for talks. Allen
Hood, who was our former president and is still on faculty at IHOPU, gave us a report of these talks recently. He said
that upon arriving, the primary question on the minds of the Asbury faculty was put to them What are you doing at
IHOPU to be turning out these kinds of students? Allen began to unfold our vision of uniting solid Biblical study with a
regimen of large blocks of time in prayer to produce men & women who do not just have full heads, but full hearts.
The Asbury staff began to tell Allen and those with him, We do not remember ever having students like yours at our
school. They said, In the short time your students have been here, many of them have become the spiritual leaders on
our campus. They know the Scriptures so well, and you are right it is not just head knowledge, but they are examples in
their character as well. The dean said, We analyze the grade point averages of groups of students who come to us from
various undergraduate schools. The 22 students we have currently from IHOPU have the highest GPA on campus. He
went on to say, Our accrediting board only allows us to accept a very small percentage of students into our programs
each year from unaccredited schools. We have put in a special request for an exemption for IHOPU we want all the
students you can send to us!
Before Allen left, he had noticed a couple of students in the room who had been there the whole time the meetings had
gone on. He found out that they had requested special permission to be there to hear the IHOP leaders speak. Allen
took time to meet them, and one of them gave this testimony. I was a starting quarterback for a well-known football
college and had everything I wanted. But someone asked me to go to a OneThing conference in Kansas City a few
years ago. I had never heard of IHOP or OneThing, but for some reason I went. It wrecked my life! I found out there is
Someone I owe my life and undying love to. I gave up the path I was on and came to Asbury because I want to study all
I can and come to know this great God. I am studying law and I want to be a culture-changer now for Christ.

Plans taking shape for our first trip with Life International!
The first week of December, we were blessed by a visit from Bill Velker, director of Global Advanced Prayer
Initiatives for Life Internatioanl. We had a great meeting and time of prayer together in the coffee shop next to our
Prayer Room. We will share more details next month with you, but we ask your prayers for the Lords sure word of
direction for our first trip with Life International, which looks to be this coming April or May We shared earlier about
the Russian Christian leaders visiting us during One Thing. Were amazed that it looks possible we will be going to a
Russian-speaking nation for our first trip with Life International. Plans are not settled though, and other doors may
open. Were trusting the Lord to orchestrate everything. Thank you for your prayers!

Because He is worthy of it all,

Jim & Melissa

Jim & Melissa Marcum

Jim & Melissa Marcum

P.O. Box 1099, Grandview, MO 64030
Phone/text: 816-287-3525 / 816-287-2228
Email/PayPal: intercessorymissions@gmail.com
Egiving:www.ihopkc.org/give/staffsupport (JM204009)
International House of Prayer Kansas City, MO