Ruth is a retired school teacher who resides in a small town in Pennsylvania. Although confined to a wheelchair, she sits faithfully in front of her computer monitor each day, interceding over e-mailed prayer requests, and writing encouraging replies.

Elsewhere, on the other side of the globe, a Ukrainian lay-pastor named Vladimir, retrieves his e-mailed prayer requests several times a day, and takes them to prayer meetings in Kiev where others join with him in intercession.

Several thousand miles to the east, in the Israeli desert, Ayelet, a housewife and Messianic Jew, comes indoors regularly to check her electronic mail and to pray for urgent incoming prayer requests.

Meanwhile, far away in the southern Pacific nation of Malaysia, a seventeen year old student, Eileen, checks her e-mail for prayer requests, as she browses the ‘net for her research studies.

These Christians, from all walks of life around the world, are typical of the scores of prayer volunteers, who serve with the global ministry of the International Prayer Network.

Since its inception in 1995, the International Prayer Network has provided a ministry that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Using the technology of the internet, the IPN functions like a vast electronic prayer chain. Prayer requests which are submitted to the IPN web site are instantly e-mailed to multiple volunteers who pray for and reply to the senders with notes of ministry and encouragement.

How did the International Prayer Network get started? Although I was a pastor of a local church in California, I always had a vision to reach out to the world at large with Christ’s message of love and encouragement. The idea of an internet prayer ministry first occurred to me from seeing news reports which exposed how the “information highway” was being misused for unethical purposes. Not only was I disturbed to discover how pornography and immorality was being propagated through the internet, but I was amazed by the communication potential of the World Wide Web. Not only could I see it’s better use for such things as commerce and education... but why couldn’t this amazing technology be used for God’s purposes?

I was especially excited about the potential of the internet, because it offered a truly revolutionary method of communication. Not only was it capable of multimedia broadcasting, but it was user interactive, and could reach millions of viewers for a very low cost (compared to other mediums).

Thus, the International Prayer Network was created as a nondenominational Christian ministry with a simple mission... one of the first ministries of its kind, to use the Internet as a tool for ministry... to encourage and pray for those who are hurting, and point their lives toward the hope of Jesus Christ.

From the very beginning, I knew that the IPN would be helpful to the lives of many people, but I had no idea of the growth that would come, and the thousands of lives that would eventually be touched through this ministry — together with the scores of volunteers and churches who would participate with our international prayer chain. What had started out as a simple system and ministry, has now blossomed into one of the world's largest prayer ministries (according to a report published in the Philadelphia Inquirer).

Today, the IPN has no paid staff nor great resources of any kind... but our volunteers have a genuine love for our fellow man, and possess an earnest desire to touch the hearts of others with the love of our Heavenly Father.

Pray for us that we will always be able to maintain our presence on the web, and to be here to help and encourage the many cyber-travelers who pass our way on the world’s information highway.

God bless you!

Dale A. Robbins