Rebecca M. Pratt: Following the Promptings of the Heart

What does it look like to give your life to bringing hope, healing, and restoration to people in need?

This week we sit down with Rebecca M. Pratt, President and Co-Founder of Orphan Relief and Rescue, a Christian nonprofit that protects vulnerable children from abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. Rebecca has served in Christian humanitarian work for more than 24 years. She is also a storyteller and speaker. Her books include Inspired to Action: How Following the Promptings of Your Heart Can Change the World and From My Bed to My Destiny: Overcoming Depression and Anxiety.

Rebecca takes us back to her years in West Africa, where God first stirred the calling that led her to start Orphan Relief and Rescue in 2007. She talks openly about a season of crippling anxiety and depression, and how God met her there and brought her out of it. She also reflects on what has stayed steady in her calling over more than two decades and what God has reshaped along the way. We ask a question many listeners wrestle with: how do you tell a real prompting of the Spirit from a good idea or an emotional moment? And she shares the one story she keeps coming back to, the one that holds the heart of everything she does.

In this episode:

  •  The season in West Africa that gave rise to Orphan Relief and Rescue

  •  Overcoming a period of debilitating anxiety and depression

  •  How a calling stays the same and changes over 24 years of ministry

  •  Telling the Spirit’s prompting apart from a good idea

  •  The story at the center of Rebecca’s work

Books mentioned:

  •  Inspired to Action: How Following the Promptings of Your Heart Can Change the World

  •  From My Bed to My Destiny: Overcoming Depression and Anxiety