Check out this interesting piece of history that can really inspire us today that prayer makes a difference... The RAF (Royal Air Force) of Britain fought the Nazi Air Force (Luftwaffe) during the Battle of Britain in World War II for air supremacy. If the Nazis had defeated the RAF, they would’ve invaded and likely conquered England (and likely won WWII). Though outnumbered, the RAF ended up defeating the Nazis, and the date on which Hitler had originally planned the ground invasion (15 September 1940) ended up being the day of their retreat (which is now celebrated as Battle of Britain Day).
The captured Nazi pilots described seeing the sky full of RAF planes coming at them (when there were in reality not that many) which caused them to retreat, and they described a secret weapon used each night at 9pm by the British against which they could find no countermeasure:
"Amazing reports came from downed Nazi pilots. [Several were] quizzed as to why they had turned back when only two planes were attacking. “Two,” exclaimed one pilot, “There were hundreds!” Another Luftwaffe officer asked them in perplexity, “Where did you get all the planes you threw into the battle over Britain?” His British interrogators managed to mask their surprise. Actually, the powerful Nazi bomber force had been met by a mere handful of little outmoded Royal Air Force Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. There was no sky full of Royal Air Force planes!...
A Nazi intelligence officer captured still later came nearest to disclosing the divine source of the…mirages which had confused the Luftwaffe [Nazi] pilots. “With the striking of your Big Ben clock each evening at nine, “ the Nazi had told British intelligence officers, “you used a secret which we did not understand. It was very powerful, and we could find no countermeasure against it.”
He was right! There was a powerful force set in motion each evening as Big Ben struck nine. It was the powerful force of a nation in heartfelt prayer against which no countermeasure could hope to prevail—a nation in prayer to the omnipotent God of creation. Each evening as Big Ben in the clock tower of the Parliament Building struck nine, the people of the British Isles and of the farflung English Commonwealth halted for the famous Silent Moment of Prayer” (from Katherine Pollard Carter’s book Hand on the Helm, 4-5).
The first time I learned of the RAF it was in a book where the author was sharing the history with a group of young intercessors and teaching about Daniel's 21-day fast in Daniel 10. While Daniel fasted and prayed there was a battle in the spiritual realm between the archangels and the "prince of Persia." Daniel's prayer and fasting helped secure victory in the spiritual realm (the angels defeated and dislodged the prince of Persia from his place of spiritual supremacy) which was then manifested on earth. After sharing about Daniel, the author shared about the RAF and how they fought for air supremacy. He compared the young intercessors to the RAF, describing their fight in gaining ‘air supremacy’ in the spiritual realm (see Ephesians 6:12) using the same words Winston Churchill said to the RAF: “Never...was so much owed by so many to so few.” Later during their 50 days of intercession, a guest preacher was invited to speak to the young intercessors (knowing nothing of their talk of the RAF), and he felt led to proclaim boldly to them: “You are the RAF! Never was so much owed by so many to so few!” In other words, even if we are relatively few in the nation, our prayers can make a big difference and shape history.
Against great odds, the RAF won the Battle of Britain, which by the way, started on July 10th, 1940 ☺ (July 10th being the date God used to confirm my call to Botswana and which has been connected many times to Botswana)! To read more about the July 10th connections to Botswana, check this out: https://hope4botswana.blogspot.com/p/the-lord-confirmed-my-calling-to.html
In June 2011, a few months after I first read about the RAF, the RAF came up twice in one day when I was in Exclusive Books in Gaborone—I saw a history book called The Battle of Britain...
...then I picked up a book on prayer and the thought came to mind, Wouldn’t it be cool if this book also talked about the RAF? Seconds later, I opened to the chapter in the prayer book that actually talked about the Battle of Britain and how prayer at 9pm helped the RAF win!!! (what I quoted above!!). It was in May 2013, that I learned the connection between the RAF and Bechuanaland, and also saw that the poster for the Matsieng Airshow on 18 May had a plane at the top that had the RAF symbol on it! I learned that the plane’s hangar is in Gaborone and it was on display at the Matsieng Airshow near where I live.
These things all factored into why we called a 21-day fast and prayers at 9pm each night leading up to the “God Belongs in My City” prayer walk 1 July 2013 in Gaborone (where approximately 1400-1500 people walked through the capital city and prayed at designated points for the nation).
We were able to announce the 9pm prayers on national radio, in letters to churches, and on social media. I shared about it to a group of young intercessors when we went to the David Livingstone memorial to have worship and pray for the nation on the foundations of the first church in Botswana.
That night I didn't get home before 9pm to tell people on Facebook to pray at 9pm, but I was amazed to see so many of the young people had already shared it and were encouraging others to pray! It was great to see many people praying for the nation.
I also learned at some point along the way that the officers, i.e. the Marshal, in the RAF wear insignia on their uniforms that are the same colours and similar horizontal lines as the Botswana flag:
Also, I was in England in 2015 when the Botswana Government Facebook page posted a link the the Taylor Swift music video that was filmed in Botswana. I decided to watch and was amazed to see an RAF plane flying over Botswana!!
Another connection to Botswana was that Botswana's initial First Lady cared for wounded RAF pilots during WWII. Ruth Williams, who would later marry Seretse Khama and become Lady Khama, served as a fire watcher on London rooftops during the Battle of Britain in 1940 at age 16, watching for bombs dropped by the Nazi Luftwaffe planes and helping to put out fires. The next year she joined the Women's Royal Air Force, which by then had been renamed Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Her position helping wounded RAF pilots gave her the closest to a combat position that a woman could have:
"Ruth Williams joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1941 at the age of 17, as soon as she was old enough to enlist. She already had a driving licence, so for the next four to five years she was a WAAF driver. At first she drove crash-ambulances ('blood wagons') and aircrew trucks on Sussex coast emergency landing strips of No.11 Group R.A.F. Fighter Command—as near to a combatant role in war as it was possible for a woman to get."
from THE MARRIAGE YEARS OF SERETSE KHAMA (1945-56)by Neil Parsons
I've also since visited the RAF museum in London and the RAF Duxford base where Bechuanaland (Botswana) is listed in both places as having had people serve in the RAF during WWII:
Back in early 2014, I was in Michigan on a short trip and the first book I picked up in my church library was Revival Praying by Leonard Ravenhill. I opened right to the pages that were talking about the Battle of Britain with the RAF and what Churchill had said that may future historians say, ‘This was their finest hour!’ !!!! Then it connected it to us in the sense that we should rise up and pray… “May future historians say of us, ‘This was their finest hour!’” The RAF came up a few other times that week so it made me think and pray if we should mobilise another fast and 9pm prayer time leading up to the Up Kgale hike in Gaborone…The Lord really confirmed it in amazing ways and when I mentioned it to a friend in Botswana, he said that they too in Gaborone had felt we should pray again at 9pm each night! To read the full details of how God confirmed it, see this post: https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-unashamed-movement-botswana/inspiration-from-the-raf-battle-of-britain-prayer-can-shape-history/693502150672315
Up Kgale 2014
I flew back in from the U.S. just in time for the Up Kgale hike in 2014, and it was amazing that even the Mayor of Gaborone, Honourable Haskins Nkaigwa, hiked with us in the rain and addressed us on top.
In the organizing Unashamed Movement committee, we had been discussing what we could give the Mayor as a token of our appreciation, and it came to my mind that we could give him a “God Belongs in My City” T-shirt! How cool would it be if the Mayor would wear that?! So we gave it to him, and he really liked it. Then it turns out that later in the same week, a picture of him holding up the T-shirt was published in national newspapers! He has since been elected as a member of Parliament.
The following month, I was on a YFC trip up north in Botswana staying with South African missionaries. Just before 9pm, his cell phone alarm went off, and he commented "Reminder to pray for South Africa." I asked him about it, because my cell phone alarm was also set to go off daily just before 9pm as my reminder to pray for Botswana. He told me that there are whole networks of Christians praying for South Africa every night at 9pm!
A couple months later, I was invited to speak about the RAF (and encourage people to pray at 9pm for the nation) at a GodChasers All-Night Worship Night hosted at Youth for Christ Gaborone. In September 2014, I also had the opportunity to share about it on Yarona FM national radio, encouraging people to pray again at 9pm leading up to the national election in October. We in the Unashamed Movement organized another prayer walk, called JESO O RENA MO BOTSWANA (Jesus Reigns in Botswana), on 1 October.
Later that same day on the way home, I saw someone with a T-shirt with the RAF symbol on it! (I’ve noticed T-shirts for sale in Gaborone with the RAF symbol on them, a ‘vintage Britain’ clothing line)!
The next day, I flew to England for my cousin’s wedding, and while in Britain, I learned a lot more about the RAF, which I will share in another page hopefully soon. One thing I'll share now though, is that I learned of a young adult prayer group in my aunt's village called The Prayer Force, and it made me think of the Royal Air Force and that we could call ourselves the Royal Prayer Force :). When in the U.S. in January 2015, I picked up a book in a bookstore and happened to open it right to where it mentioned how intercession helped win the Battle of Britain!--
"After the war was over, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding made the following observation about the Battle of Britain:
'Even during the battle one realized from day to day how much external support was coming in. At the end of the battle one had the sort of feeling that there had been some special Divine intervention to alter some sequence of events which would otherwise have occurred.'
Indeed, Rees Howell's bold cries of crisis intercession released heaven's intervention...We need a new generation of revolutionaries who will walk in the anointing--like the Welsh intercessor Rees Howells, whose prayers launched from the Swansea Bible College, along with those of his students and faculty saved Great Britain from the invasion of the Nazis in World War II...Through all the years of the war the whole College was in prayer every evening...They never missed a day...There were many special periods when every day was given up wholly to prayer and fasting. Doris M. Ruscoe, a student at Mr. Howell's Bible School tells of some of these anointed prayer gatherings in her book The Intercession of Rees Howells:
"As each crises in the war developed, the Holy Spirit guided our prayers and each time we knew that victory had been gained in the spirit before the news came over the radio or in the newspapers of victory on the field of battle...During the Battle of Britain...when Britain stood alone against the enemy and our airmen were fighting desperately to withstand the enemy attacks, Rees Howells said, 'Christian England will never be invaded.' The enemy offensive, intended as a preliminary to invasion, came to a climax on September 15, a day we remember again for the assurance of victory. The attack failed and the invasion did not take place" (p156-7, Prophetic Intercession, Goll).
Just a few minutes later, I opened a different book to the section entitled: Intercessors: The "Prayer Force"!
"God is sending His soldiers into all nations to see the Kingdom of God manifest in its fullness. Strategic intercession is a key component of the battle. We liken it to a 'prayer force.' The prayers of intercessors storm the heavens--combating the strategies of the enemy once the troops are moving on the ground...providing effective 'air cover'...Intimate knowledge of the voice of the Lord is activating God's spiritual Air Force and changing lives every day" (p127,122 Storm Warrior, Chavda).Again, just to be clear, we are talking spiritual battle here, not physical. Ephesians 6:12 states, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Our weapons are spiritual, not physical: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4). With the RAF, they were fighting for air supremacy...if the battle was won in the air, it was also won on the ground (the Nazis did not invade with ground troops). Similarly, the prayers offered were like fighting in the spiritual realm and then it affected the battle on the ground (that is what they meant when they said they felt assurance of victory even before they heard the news of the battle). And this idea of "The Prayer Force" providing "air cover" is the same concept. Scripturally, another example is when Moses was on the hill praying while Joshua and the rest of the Israelites were down below fighting the Amalekites...as long as Moses' arms were raised (symbolically for prayer I believe), Joshua and the Israelites had victory (see Exodus 17:8-16).
Up Kgale 2015
A few weeks later, I learned that the other Unashamed Movement committee members had really felt that the annual Up Kgale hike should be on the 31st of January. At first I was really disappointed to have to miss it since I'd still be traveling back from the U.S. to Botswana. However, when I looked more closely at the time of my flight, I realized that I would be on a flight from London to Johannesburg, flying over Botswana right when everyone would be praying on Kgale Hill! I messaged Bobo and said that perhaps God actually wants me to be in the plane: "I'll pray from the plane...I'll be going over Bots at the same time and can pull an RAF :)...Maybe God wants me to pray from the airplane RAF style :)." The next day, I happened to re-read all those quotes I just shared above about the Battle of Britain and "The Prayer Force" providing effective air cover for the troops on the ground! Wow..so that made me feel that indeed, God wanted me in the plane from Britain, "pulling an RAF"!
A couple days before the hike, a young man named Boago who had been inspired last year when I shared about the RAF to start praying at 9pm nightly, wrote this on Facebook:
9pm prayer for our Nation is shaking some things in this nation. God is cooking something good and big, even as Batswana will be going up Kgale hill this Saturday, God is going to move things.The day after Boago posted that, I flew from the US to London on the way back to Botswana. While at London Heathrow airport, I actually wrote a long post on Facebook about the RAF and how I'd be "pulling an RAF" on the upcoming flight. While sitting in the plane in London about to takeoff toward Johannesburg, I saw the lady across the aisle reading a newspaper, and I happened to glance at it right when she was on a page with a photo of an RAF Spitfire airplane, the kind used in the Battle of Britain! Wow…I’d already been calling that my “RAF flight” on which I would be “Pulling an RAF” on a British plane!
Right after that, I was thinking how perhaps God would open a door for me to share about the RAF and how it connects to prayer (and possibly more about God) with the South African young man sitting to my left. It's a pretty cool story (guys like war stories, right? haha) and would help him understand why I'd be praying hard while looking at the Moving Map of the plane flying over Botswana 8 hours later. Literally, within a couple minutes of thinking that, the young man, out of the blue, told me that he had just been to the RAF museum!! He had no idea the RAF meant anything to me, particularly on that flight, that I’d just seen the RAF Spitfire photo, or that I’d just been thinking of telling him about the RAF! So…that’s what I did (a very nice open door!)—I was able to share with him all about how the RAF and the Battle of Britain can serve as an encouragement that intercession shapes history.
I asked the flight attendant when we would enter over Botswana, and he actually asked the captain, who gave me the exact minute we would enter Botswana airspace! Thus I knew right when to start praying...and I watched the Moving Map and even could see Botswana out the window as I prayed:
But it gets even better!! Just before landing, I asked the lady across the aisle if I could look at her newspaper (to read the article with the RAF Spitfire photo). She said I could just have the newspaper, The Daily Mail, since she was finished with it. You aren’t going to believe what I also discovered in that newspaper: a separate 4-page commemorative tribute edition of The Daily Mail dated 16 September 1940, the day after the RAF’s most decisive victory in the Battle of Britain!!?! I had mentioned that exact part of the Battle to the young man next to me earlier in the flight– how King George had called for a day of prayer and fasting just a few days before that decisive victory…and how the Nazi planes had turned back in retreat that day though the RAF were outnumbered!!
“The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization…Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour.’” –Winston Churchill, 18 June 1940Wow...so how crazy amazing is all that?! On the "RAF flight" from London, the RAF came up 3 different times!! (and mind you, I'm half-British and have been to the UK like 15 times or something, and I never remember hearing/learning of the RAF 'til 2011). It even came up right after the flight in a book in the bookstore at the airport in Johannesburg (I'll explain that later with the beacon part of the RAF story). I later found out that the hour I was flying over Botswana indeed corresponded exactly with when the youth had been interceding for the nation atop Kgale Hill! What an encouragement to all of us that we are like the spiritual RAF, or Prayer Force, and that though we may be few (about 150 young people hiked Kgale, as well as Gaborone’s new mayor, Hon. Kagiso Thutlwe), our prayers can make a big difference in the nation and world!
"Four weeks later, as the great air battle he had predicted was raging in the skies overhead, he publicly lauded the British airmen ‘who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day.”
Speaking of my being half-British (my father was a British citizen), my British aunt Roni found my grandpa's RAF pilot log and pictures. My grandpa, Albert E. Liddiard, was in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in WWII. Most notably, he flew from the air craft carrier H.M.S. Victorious during the Malta Convoy that brought life-saving supplies to besieged Malta. The Nazis and other Axis powers were sending planes to bomb the ships bringing supplies, but the planes fought off those enemy aircraft to protect the ships. He was trained to fly in the RAF. So that is just a cool personal connection to the RAF.
One day soon after I learned that my grandpa served on the H.M.S. Victorious aircraft carrier, I took a closer look at the picture showing the different people who fought together with the RAF during WWII. I noticed that the Navy sailor's hat said H.M.S. Victorious on it!
For the 21-days leading up to the inauguration of the new Botswana President on 1 April 2018, we felt led to pray each night at 9pm for the nation and for a peaceful leadership transition. This was again based on how the people of Britain and the Commonwealth prayed every night at 9pm during the Battle of Britain for the RAF. Three days before the Botswana inauguration, I felt led to look at the magazines at a shop called CNA in Gaborone, Botswana and saw one that mentioned the RAF and that in 2018, the RAF turned 100 years old! I wondered what the exact date was, and then I saw in the magazine that the RAF would turn 100 years old on 1 April 2018! The same day we had been praying towards at 9pm like the spiritual RAF, when the new Botswana president would be inaugurated!
Upon looking up the RAF 100 Centenary celebrations online that night, I learned that the RAF 100 celebrations would culminate on July 10, 2018 with a parade in London and the biggest flyover of RAF planes ever in history! I thought perhaps they chose July 10th because the Battle of Britain began on July 10th, but I later learned that they were planning a baton relay through the nation starting on 1 April and going for 100 days. The 100th day was July 10th! And again, the reason that is notable is that the date July 10th has been connected to Botswana in many intriguing ways, and personally was part of the way that God confirmed He was calling me to Botswana. Check out this page for more: https://hope4botswana.blogspot.com/p/the-lord-confirmed-my-calling-to.html
On that same day, July 10th, 2018, we were having our annual prayer camp at Mizpah Farm in Mahalapye and rekindled an awesome model of intercessory worship around the campfire that night. Through that week, I was teaching more in detail about the RAF and the message about beacons, which is closely related (and for which I will post a separate blog later).
I also gave the team RAF bracelets that I bought in Britain to help us remember we are the RAF in the spiritual realm and that our prayers can shift history!
If you want to take part as part of the spiritual RAF, aka Prayer Force, you can also set your phone alarm just before 9pm as a reminder to pray for the nation (or your nation if it's not Botswana) and other places in the world needing prayer. There's nothing magical about that time, but I've found it helpful to have a regular time set aside to intercede and it's also encouraging to know that others are also praying at that same time and that it was significant time historically during the Battle of Britain.
The RAF and Battle of Britain show how united prayer can literally change history. Let’s take our position, stand in the gap, and intercede for transformation in our nation! Pray for the leaders, for revival, for the true gospel to prevail over false teachers/prophets, for drug and alcohol abuse to decline, for the tide to turn in the AIDS epidemic, for unity in the Body of Christ, etc. Every night at 9pm, just take a minute (or 5...or more) to intercede for our nation! Also, if it helps to have some guidance to your prayers, here are some suggestions for each day of the week to focus on something that starts with the same letter:
Mondays -- Men
Tuesdays -- Teens and Toddlers (Youth and children)
Wednesdays -- Women
Thursdays-- Teachers (in school and in churches/Pastors)
Fridays -- Friends & Family
Saturdays -- Servants of the State (Government Leaders and Workers)
Sundays -- Sick and Suffering
We are the RAF in the spiritual realm, the Prayer Force! Our prayers can shift history and bring transformation in the nation! Let's do this!
This was really encouraging!
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