Longtime Navigator, U.S. Prayer Director emeritus, and leader in international prayer Leland (Lee) Brase went home to be with his Savior on April 30, 2025.
Born November 19, 1932, in Muscatine, Iowa, Lee was nine years old when his parents came to faith in Jesus. Seven years later, at the age of 16, Lee surrendered his life to Christ. Upon graduating high school, he attended Trinity College in Chicago, where he met his future wife, Marilyn. Meanwhile, war raged across the ocean in Korea, and Lee decided to enlist in the Army after his junior year of college. In 1955, he met The Navigators while stationed in Germany and started taking steps to grow in his relationship with Christ.
When he returned to the United States, Lee traveled to Glen Eyrie to learn more about The Navigators and receive training. He and Marilyn were married in 1958, and faithfully served wherever God called them––first in Boise, Idaho in 1960, with Collegiate and Military, then among military service members in Bitburg, Germany, and later with Dutch students in the Netherlands. From 1967 to 1970, Lee brought thoughtful care and wise leadership to Navigator staff in the Netherlands and Germany. In 1970, he and Marilyn returned to the United States to serve in Colorado Springs and Portland, Oregon with Community Ministry (now D4L Neighbors).
Lee was deeply devoted to prayer, spending intentional time at the feet of Jesus in every ministry context and life season. During the late 1980s, Lee began partnering with other evangelical leaders to facilitate Pastors’ Prayer Summits in the Pacific Northwest. These summits transformed the lives of many pastors and their ministries. It was in this context––with no agenda other than seeking the Lord––that Lee sensed a call to full-time prayer ministry and sent his letter of resignation to Terry Taylor, who was serving as U.S. director of The Navigators at the time. Unbeknownst to Lee, Terry and the U.S. Leadership Team had been looking for someone to lead the organization in prayer! The Lord’s hand was clearly over this, and in 1988, Lee was asked to pioneer and lead The U.S. Navigators Prayer Ministry.
Strategic Prayer Lead Vic Black, a close friend of Lee who was deeply impacted by Lee’s example and commitment to prayer, reflects:
Anyone close to Lee knew his first love was God Himself! That shaped everything in how he prayed, led, and lived a God-focused lifestyle. Lee was God’s chosen man to plant this movement of hunger and thirst for more of God. Soon, The U.S. Navigators and Navigators around the world were experiencing God-focused prayer on weekend prayer retreats.
Collegiate staff Keith Pepsny recalls that Lee almost never traveled alone on ministry trips, always eager to bring others along and disciple them in prayer. Lee’s teaching and faithful example of relational discipleship continue to have a profound impact on individual disciplemakers, the U.S. Leadership Team, and our entire Worldwide Partnership.
With a heart for seeing God’s Kingdom advance among the nations and helping others seek the Lord in that, Lee went on to oversee prayer at the International Office in 2002 while Vic Black brought leadership to the U.S. Prayer Ministry. International Executive Team member Bulus Bossan shares how the Lord used Lee to impact both his personal faith journey and our Worldwide Partnership:
Lee facilitated an experience of God that led me to a fuller surrender of my heart to God and gave birth to a passion for pursuing God as my supreme desire. Prayer is now more about seeking God than getting relief or provision. It is safe to say that in touching so many lives with this God-focus, Lee has significantly changed the culture of The Navigators worldwide as we witness a deepening of the spirituality of our movement. We will miss his great humor, and I will miss him as a friend, father, and mentor.
In the years that followed, Lee continued mentoring prayer leaders in the United States and around the world and facilitated gatherings for these men and women that strengthened and expanded the God-focused prayer movement.
One of Lee’s favorite verses was Psalm 63:1: “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (NIV). This hunger for the presence of God fueled his commitment to prayer and is now fully satisfied as he talks with his Savior face-to-face.
Lee is survived by his loving wife, Marilyn Brase; his children, Amy (Neal) Brase/Craft, Andrew (Sharon) Brase, John (Dawn) Brase, and Jeremy (Valerie) Brase; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in honor of Lee:
Thursday, June 26, at 2:00 p.m. PDT
Cedar Mill Bible Church
12208 NW Cornell Rd
Portland, OR 97229
Please uplift the Brase family in prayer as they grieve the loss of Lee on earth and rejoice, knowing he is in the presence of Jesus, whom he loved with all his heart.
