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World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, April 15, 2020

O God, you come to us wherever and however we might be. No matter how much we may not believe it, we are worthy of your love and grace. Therefore, we uplift to you all of our raggedy and incomplete prayers to you—the ones that fall from our lips, the ones that remain hidden within our hearts, and the ones that we might not know how to articulate yet.  Dwell within us, Holy One, and speak to us from that place where the deep calls to deep.

Maker of Heaven and Earth the beauty of creation reveals your glory and the gifts of abundance that you have given to us. You call us to care for the world around us just as you care for us and we pray that you guide us in our efforts to be good stewards.

  • We are grateful for the agreements being negotiated between the United States, Japan, South Korea and Canada to bolster their carbon emission reduction targets in anticipation of Earth Day next week.
  • We pray for indigenous islanders from Torres Strait, Australia bringing a case to the UN Human Rights Committee with the hope to protect their homes from rising sea levels, coastal erosion and flooding in recent years as a result of climate change.

Great Creator, we give thanks for the large and small ways that we recognize our lives and wellbeing are mutually tethered to one another. And yet, so often we fall short of this calling. Instead we scar the earth with markers of destruction, dominion, and death. May your transformative, re-creating grace be made known where life is broken, abused, and oppressed. God, give us a vision so that we might see the world as you it– interconnected and interdependent.

O Source of Light and Life, we pray for the places where violence and tyranny cause so much suffering. We pray for peoples living with trauma and uncertain futures. May greed and hatred loosen its grip on humanity. Holy Spirit, descend upon the many corners of this world in need of your saving love and abiding peace.

  • Our souls are weary with the news of the death of Daunte Wright in Minnesota, United States. Another Black life cut too short at the hands of a police officer.
  • Our grief hangs heavy learning of a militant attack of a humanitarian hub in Borno State, Nigeria.
  • Our hearts break for the families of the 20 children who died in school fire in Niger.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Shepherd, gather in your hurting and scattered flock. Protect the vulnerable, neglected, and marginalized where peace is tenuous, and fear is mounting.

  • We pray for the Syrian refugees in Denmark as it becomes the first EU country to deprive them of their asylum status, even as Syria remains shattered.
  • We pray for the people of Afghanistan as the United States decides to withdraw from the country by September 11th. This marks the end to the longest war in US history, but it remains unlikely that fighting within the country will end.
  • We pray for the people of Iran as its political leadership has decided to boost its uranium enrichment to 60 percent, its highest level ever.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

And, God, the pandemic still remains the backdrop to our lives. We are grateful for the arrival of vaccinations and the glimmer of hope that they bring. Yet, the World Health Organization tells us that the pandemic is “a long way from over.” It is hard not to be discouraged by the news that the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines might have some adverse side effects. Hold in your safekeeping all those working tirelessly and overtime to research these vaccines. Holy Spirit come alongside all who are sick, caregiving, and on edge. Comfort those in places, such as India and Brazil, where the pandemic still rages on.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

God, sometimes life is too much for us to bear on our own. Remind us that you keep track of our sorrows, collect our tears in a bottle, and record each one. Please share your peace which surpasses all understanding with everyone who is hurting and mourning this day. Equip us to confront hardship with strength and justice.

Christ, you came to this world to share with us a proclamation of love. Let us be extravagant in our sharing of grace. When see the empty tomb, may we be filled with the promise of hope, possibility of life, and celebrate your resurrection. May we drench the world with our outpouring of your love.

We pray this in your name, Amen.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week In Prayer – Thursday, April 8, 2021

God of new life,
In these Easter days the wonder of the Risen Christ is close.
Walking in the budding woods, resurrection is everywhere,
the heart-song of the wild daffodil’s golden center,
the magnolia’s blushed cup, the downy new leaf and the rippling brook.

It is clear that life-death-life is the pattern at the center of the universe—
renewal, transformation, regeneration, healing.

And yet, all over our communities and our world it is easy to see death.
There are lots of scenes still holding Good Friday,
that feel like the silence of the tomb closing,
as we continue to crucify ourselves, each other and the earth over and over again.

We hear the earth and her people cry out like the split rocks and torn veil:

  • In Indonesia and Timor-Leste where floods and landslides have killed over 150 and have left thousands homeless.
  • In Mali where within a deteriorating national security situation, 4 Chadian UN peacekeepers were killed, and 34 others wounded.
  • In Taiwan after the deadliest train crash in decades.
  • In the United States where states like Arkansas have banned health treatment for transgender youth.
  • In Rwanda as the anniversary of the Tutsi genocide is remembered with renewed calls from the UN to defeat the hate-driven polarizations that still dominate.
  • In Central America where gang violence and increasing food shortages are sending more and more refugees, many of them children, North.
  • In the United States as we listen to the Derek Chauvin trial and hear the cry for justice.
  • For over a year now we have heard COVID-19’s cry around the globe.
    This week in Brazil and India COVID-related cases and deaths reached new highs.
    In our interconnected living, the ripple effects are felt everywhere as news reports
    show the disproportionately ill-effects of the pandemic on gender equality, children’s education, mental health, as well as injustice in vaccine distribution.

We weep with those who are grieving. We hold up our hands with the angry and anguished. We pray with Jesus, who cried out to God, “why have you forsaken me?” yet trusted in God’s resurrection power. May we all feel the comforting presence of God who is always with us and for us.

Within our cries is the ripe soil of transformation’s hope. We can see places around the world, in our communities, our homes, and in our very bodies where resurrection is being lived boldly and joyfully. We celebrate:

  • Women UN peacekeepers like Martina de Maria Sandoval Linares, from El Salvador, who is serving in South Sudan providing a powerful example for girls and women in both countries.
  • In Greenland where elections this week put a halt on mining for rare minerals.
  • New studies showing that Los Angeles, in the United States, has seen a 78% cut in toxic air emissions in the last 24 years, resulting in 82% fewer attributable deaths.
  • In India where fisherman save their net catches of ocean plastics to be used to rebuild roads from recycled materials.
  • In England where conservationists have built giant sandcastles to ensure Martins have a nesting home for years to come, as urban developments have taken much of the Swallow’s natural habitat.

In all of these acts and under each cry is the beating-heart of Love.
We thank you, transforming God, for the mystery of this constant Love
and for Jesus’ Wisdom Journey as an example of how to live the pattern of life-death-life.

May we have the courage to keep living toward resurrection’s new bloom.

Amen.

 

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Easter 2021

At the last minute I substituted for the scheduled writer, and found myself thinking how little different our current world situation is from that of the first Easter. The same uncertainties, political. military, social and civil unrest, and divisions were being played out, while families and communities struggled to live and raise future generations while caring for their elders. This hymn, written by a Tanzanian Lutheran minister several years ago, speaks to me. There are several translations but, being Scottish, I’ve stuck with the one by John L Bell of the Iona Community*.

Jesus is risen, alleluia! Worship and praise him, alleluia!
Now our redeemer bursts from the grave;
lost to the tomb, Christ rises to save.

Come, let us worship him, endlessly sing;
Christ is alive and death loses its sting.
   Sins are forgiven, alleluia!
   Jesus is risen, alleluia!

This is beyond belief! People don’t rise from the dead, especially after so much suffering and torture. Despite hearing Jesus himself tell them he would die and rise from the dead three days later, the disciples, both men and women, still could not believe it was possible.

Holy One, enable us to navigate this unchartered path of faith. I believe: help my unbelief.

Buried for three days, destined for death,
now he returns to breathe with our breath.
Blest are the ears alert to his voice,
blest are the hearts which for him rejoice.

This year, so many of us have had to bury loved ones, often from a distance and often unable to be with them as they died. The pandemic continues to decimate families and communities across the globe: in Brazil where over 3,000 deaths each day from Covid-19 continue to mount; in India where vaccines produced for overseas are being retained for use at home; in the U.S. where infection rates are soaring; in Europe where rates are spiking again leading to lockdowns; in Tanzania where the pandemic-denying the regime of former president John Magufuli, who died last week, has been replaced by a new government under Samia Suluhu Hassan (the first female president), and where hospitals are overrun with Covid-19 patients. This pattern repeats across the globe, despite the progress of vaccination programs in some, mostly western countries.

Holy One, be close and comfort those who ache with grief and loss, and enable them to accept the hope of knowing that through the resurrection of Jesus, new life beyond our limited physical life is open to us all.

Lord, hear us, and answer our prayers.

’Don’t be afraid!’ the angel had said,
‘Why seek the living here with the dead?
Look, where he lay, his body is gone,
risen and vibrant, warm with the sun.’

When we lose someone we love, wherever we are, whoever we are, of whatever culture or ethnicity, with faith or faithless – we want to do everything we can to do everything decently and lovingly to lay them to rest. Yet when those closest to Jesus found his body had disappeared, the beings of light where Jesus’s body had laid asked them, “Why seek the living among the dead?”

In so many tragedies  – war, natural disaster, air crashes, or disappearance whether through political turbulence or unexplained circumstances – the not-knowing is like a continually draining wound. Regardless of how deep our faith is, in our humanity we often need “someone with skin on” to comfort us or be a listening ear. Enable us to be these, your hands and ears for your beloved people.

Holy One, in our emptiness, fill us with your love and spirit to meet the needs of those we meet, both near and far.

Go and tell others, Christ is alive.’
Love is eternal, faith and hope thrive.
What God intended, Jesus fulfilled;
what God conceives can never be killed.

The passion-filled life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the whole Holy Week and forthcoming Eastertide, is about re-discovering that Love is the greatest energy in our lives, world and creation. So many of us in this last year have rediscovered this in a new way for ourselves. Not touching, meeting, seeing, just sharing and caring face-to-face has taken a terrible toll on us all one way or another. But we give thanks for the love, faith and compassion of so many who have gone out of their way to do acts of kindness for others – often unknown to them.

As Woody, an 8-year-old autistic English boy said, “I don’t want life to go back to normal. I want it to go back to better.” His sayings are now being made into screen prints by his father to raise funds for an autistic children’s charity.

Holy One, enable us to dare to trust and live in tune with you, as Jesus showed us. It’s all about Love, and You ARE Love.

Let heaven echo, let the earth sing:
Jesus is saviour of everything.
All those who trust him, Christ will receive;
therefore rejoice, obey and believe!

AMEN.

*from “Mfurahini Halelyuya” or “Jesus is Risen” by Revd Bernard Kyamanywa, Tanzanian Lutheran minister; English version by John L Bell. You can find the tune here.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News this Week in Prayer, Thursday, March 25, 2021

Dear God,

You know that we sometimes long to hide.  We long to hide from the things which make our world and communities profoundly suffer.  We long to hide from the people who hurt us and those we care about.  We wish we could hide from the mounting demands from our jobs, school, and the internal work we all must do.  We long to hide from you sometimes God – out of shame, out of our business, out of being consumed with ourselves and maybe out of no real reason at all.  We long to ignore the things happening in our cities, provinces, nations and world, things which are so difficult and complex.

We long to hide and yet we know we can’t.  We know very well or maybe we know deep in our hearts that we simply cannot hide, because there are people acutely hurting, there are relationships to be nurtured, things which you are calling us to do–that we are meant to do.  We know this Lord and sometimes we are helpless because we too are hurting.

We ask you Lord for strength as we long to hide.  We ask that you give us the courage to make a difference and to care for ourselves and one another.  We ask for your healing, Lord.  We ask for your rectifying work in the USA where people are choosing to hurt and kill Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  We ask for your presence among the Uyghur Muslims in China who are experiencing serious human rights abuses because of who they are and what they believe.

Help us not to stand by silently taking no action Lord as we see your people being hurt physically and emotionally all around the world because of who they are.  We pray that this hate be stopped – that healing happens and that only love might blanket your dear children who are being mercilessly hurt because of the racism so entrenched in our world.

We lift in prayer the families of the shooting victims in Georgia, USA and Colorado, USA who were so violently murdered.  We ask for your love to cover them as they grieve these losses which never should have happened.  Lord, we pray for the protection and comfort of all your children around the world who are experiencing violence of many kinds and in need of your presence.  We pray for those in Myanmar, where hundreds of Burmese citizens, including police officers, government officials and civilians, are fleeing as violence over last month’s military coup worsens. We pray that you may go with your people. We ask for your love to cover all the places in your world where it seems that protection is so far away.

We pray for our siblings in Brazil where hospitals are near collapse and there are reports of spiking Covid-19 case numbers. We ask for your presence in India where they also are seeing a significant increase in infections as they mark the biggest case rise since November.  We pray for the peoples of Somalia as Covid-19 surge and deaths are reported

We pray for our siblings in Australia as the Australian government has declared a natural disaster as heavy rains batter the state and force thousands to evacuate.  We pray that the rain may cease and your children might be protected from the elements.

Lord, as we lift in prayer our siblings around the world, we ask that you be with all communities.

As many celebrate Holy Week journeying through these final earthly days in the life of Christ, before he would die and rise again.

As we long to be physically together again.

As we struggle with violence in our world.

As we struggle with devastating racism and bigotry quite literally killing our siblings.

As we each make a difference in our communities and world.

As we do these things, Lord we ask that you walk with us and that we will never hide from you.

Guide us Lord. Give us courage to do your will today and always.

Amen.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, March 11, 2021

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” ~ Numbers 21:4-5 (NRSV)

Papa, Daddy of us all, we are hungry. Mommy, Mother to all that exists, we are thirsty. We know we are supposed to be grateful and to not complain, but we are sick and tired of coping and struggling and wondering when things will change. When will the pandemic be over? It seems never-ending when the record death toll in Brazil approaches 2,000 per day. When will war cease? Almost 240,000 people have died in Yemen’s civil war alone. When will famine and drought and flood and random chance stop killing us and causing endless suffering to so many? We mourn the senseless loss of 12 teenagers who drowned during a swimming outing with friends in Apam, Ghana. Why does it feel like you aren’t doing anything, O God? There is no food and no water.

But even in the same breath, we acknowledge that you do provide, even if we receive your provision with ungrateful and complaining hearts. You sustain us with moments of clear and beautiful weather. You give us minds for thinking and hands for creating new ways to solve problems, so that we can connect with family and friends via technology and so that we can actively work to end the pandemic with vaccines and masks. You fill the souls of so many individuals and groups with your love so that we can see inspiration and hope in their service.  Keep before our eyes the truth of all the ways you break into our world and build your kingdom:

  • Through Ahmed, a nine-year old in Taiz, Yemen, who teaches classes to his peers when teachers cannot travel through the war-torn city to reach the school;
  • Through a camp in Tamil Nadu, India, that helps elephants that work in temples to recover from the stress of their work;
  • Through the newly-released story of Naomi Adamu, a survivor of the Boko Haram abduction of the Chibok girls in Nigeria who resisted pressure from her captors to marry and convert to Islam and supported girls younger than herself through the ordeal;
  • Through the police officers who defected from Myanmar into India rather than follow orders to shoot protestors during the recent military coup.

Continue to sustain us, even as we grumble, O God, and change our hearts so that we might receive your provision with joy and gratitude, sharing all that we have and all that we are with our neighbors and carrying your light into the world until your kingdom is fully realized and all dine at your banquet table. Amen.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, March 4, 2021

As most of you know, World in Prayer is written by a team whose members take turns writing the prayers. And I, who am writing this week – I ran out of words a long time ago. Trapped in what seemed like near-isolation by the pandemic; anguished by its resulting ever-growing number of deaths and illnesses, poverty, homelessness, job loss and starvation; drained by the constant threats to human rights throughout the world, I ran out of words in which pray.

A nature photographer by avocation, I fled, desperate for the solace of distraction, to spend long hours in solitude at nearby wildlife refuges. For long months, it felt as if I’d lost the ability to pray. It took even longer for me to realize that the images seared into my mind and camera, of sunsets and migrating waterfowl, winter-bare trees and the early hints of spring, had been heart-felt prayers for the world all along.

As the sun sets, the sandhill cranes return from foraging in the fields to settle in quiet shallow ponds where they will be safe from night predators.

Holy one, your glory shines forth in the sunset and the sunrise. Open our eyes, that we will see with awe every person, every place we encounter each day; that we may find safe places to rest, and healing for our hearts. Fill us with joy – joy such as imbues the viral video of Gurdeep Pandher of Yukon, Canada,  who was so happy to get his Covid-19 vaccination that he went to a frozen lake to dance Bhangra on it “for joy, hope and positivity, which I’m forwarding … for everyone’s health and wellbeing.” May we all dance with such joyous abandon!

When the leaves are gone, all you can see are the bare bones – and strength.

The Covid-19 pandemic has stripped away so much that we thought we needed, O God. It has brought us back to the realization that family, community, connections between one another, the basics of touch and hugging and face-to-face communication – those are our roots and our strength. Bring us back together, across borders, languages and economic divides. As more vaccines are approved and enter production and distribution, please, dear God, hasten the day when we can share birthdays and weddings, comfort the ill, grieve together with the dying, take comfort in common worship, and rejoice in common meals. As the pandemic eases, let us not forget our roots. Hold us fast, above all, to love.

Thousands of geese migrate through and over-winter in Central California.

What can we learn from your geese, O God? They cover the fields, nibbling and gossiping. Then one, then another, leaps into the air. At first small clumps, then with a rush, nearly all take off, milling uncertainly in the air until one takes the lead and they head out in the classic “V” formation. Watch closely, and you’ll see that it is not a single leader who leads the group the whole way, but rather an intricate weaving that moves the birds from one position to another, so that none get overtired, and the whole flock is preserved. How do they know whether the first to take flight is foolhardy or wise, and whether the few that remain behind are greedy for one last bite, or accurately discerning that there was no real danger in the first place? How do they know when it’s time to move on, and where to go next?

Guide us wisely, as leaders and as followers, and as we move back and forth between those roles. Enable us to put the needs of the human “flock” above our own desires and inclinations, and the wisdom to choose leaders who will do the same. Grant us the courage to change, when change is needed, to stand up against oppression when endangered, to maintain that which is good – no matter the pressures against us. Inspire us to take our turn, to share in the responsibilities, of weaving our communities together. Especially this week, we pray for:

  • El Salvador, after this past Monday’s legislative elections. President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party appears to have achieved the 2/3rds majority needed to pass laws, appoint the next attorney general and members of the supreme court. Although his promises to the nation were popular, this would eliminate all checks and balances over his power, and observers warn of the possibility of the country becoming an authoritative dictatorship.
  • United States, as many leaders in the Republican party continue to spread the lie that the election was stolen from former President Trump, and appear more determined to consolidate power than to work for policies that polls show are highly popular among their own constituents.
  • The many countries that consistently block internet access during protests or elections – thereby also blocking millions of people from working, studying, accessing health care, getting vital information about the pandemic, or buying essential goods or making payments. Among the worst offenders in 2020, according to a report just released by Access Now, were India, Yemen, Belarus, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

Help us to know when to wait, when to rise, whom to follow, and where You are calling us to go. Help us to be the flock you are calling us to be.

So many different species sharing a narrow spit of land!

Dearest One, you give us so many models of different species existing cooperatively together. A raft of many kinds of waterfowl. A stream where egrets, herons and sandhill cranes are fishing scant feet from one another. A utility pole with hawk eating its noonday frog – while smaller birds crowd the wires to and from the pole. How can we not pray for our lives to be rebuilt to make gracious space for all your people?

  • In Afghanistan, talks resumed this week between the Taliban and the government, with the Taliban maintaining that they want a political resolution and denying responsibility for the increasing spate of targeted assassinations of judges, journalists and activists.
  • In response to escalating allegations of human rights violations against Uighurs being detained in Xinjiang camps, the Chinese government is mounting a public relations campaign to discredit the female witnesses.
  • Before the pandemic started, Thailand had millions of migrants from Myanmar and Cambodia, who were the primary breadwinners for their families back home and who worked in areas as diverse as manufacturing, agriculture, and domestic work. Many are now stranded, unemployed and penniless; unable to find jobs in either their native lands or in Thailand.
  • As part of its efforts to wind down a Trump-era policy that required asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while waiting for their U.S. immigration court hearings, the Biden administration on Friday admitted the first group of 25 migrants. The group included people from Honduras, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Plans call for the pace to increase next week to up to 300 people per day. Instead of being held in detention centers, the migrants will be referred to local shelters and groups like Jewish Family Service for temporary housing during their Covid-19 quarantine period, before being released to join family or friends elsewhere in the U.S.

God, you have given us a vision of the human family, your beloved family, all gladly living side-by-side. Yet the logistics of finding enough shelter, jobs, and resources are daunting. Give us a vision of those details, too! Make it possible for every single human being to have a place to call home.

I was expecting to watch birds, when a river otter delighted me by climbing onto the bank and taking an ecstatic and wriggly mud bath.

Surprise us, O God, by your presence when we least expect it. Surprise us with more stories like those of 32-year-old Yenenesh Tilahun, who opened a beauty salon in the largest red-light district of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia – to aid sex workers who would not seek other help out of shame. But while styling their hair, they talk, and she has been able to keep many from being trafficked, while providing practical help and guidance to others.

Surprise us, O God, by your presence in those who care and help, who honor us with their stories, who walk beside us. Surprise us by your presence in those who mourn, and in those who dance with joy. Delight us, O God, in your ecstatic and wriggly presence.

Almost buried amid the rapidly growing spring grass, the tiny flowers were less than 1/2″ each.

Dearest One, it’s so easy to forget how much we need one another, to forget that the flowers need the bee every bit as much as the bee needs the flowers. And yet, as winter turns to spring, we take hope. We take hope as we hear that the research the led to the Covid-19 vaccines has also pointed the way to a promising malaria vaccine – the first in the world. We take hope as we learn that the state of Kerala, India, has started a program to install solar panels on 75,000 homes, in a way that will make them affordable for even the most impoverished. We take hope when we read about coffee farmers’ cooperatives in Nicaragua that are taking the lead in helping the farmers diversify, reforest, and improve the soil in response to the 2020 hurricanes that destroyed 10-40% of the coffee crop.

We take hope at the news that African countries have committed to restoring 250 million acres of degraded soil – an area the size of Egypt – by 2030. And that international investors have committed over $14 billion to restore the Sahel. In Niger and Burkina Faso alone, thousands of farms have regreened more than 12.5 million acres.

We take hope from the many across the world who are committed to making sure that the lessons of this pandemic do not go to waste. That inequities and injustices in health care, infrastructure, education and economies revealed by the crisis do not get swept under the rug again. That we remember that issues that we had long thought to be insoluble, in light of the urgency of the pandemic have already proven to be both immediately necessary and thoroughly possible.

Dearest One, we take hope from the lessons of the tiny flowers and the bee, the sunset and the still pool of water, the barren tree, the soaring geese, the resting ducks, and the unexpected otter. You are our teacher, our strength, our guide, our hope.

Blessed be your name, forever and ever.
Amen.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News in Prayer – Friday, 12th February 2021

There has been an unexpected glitch preventing the prayers being edited and posted as usual yesterday for which we apologise. Here they are now.
          . . . . . . . .             . . . . . . . .              . . . . . . . .             . . . . . . . .              . . . . . . . .             . . . . . . . .

O Lord, all the world belongs to you,
and you are always making all things new,
what is wrong, you forgive
and the new life you give,

is what’s turning the world upside down.

 

(from a hymn by Patrick Appleford*)

Thank you for the signs that life is still there, emerging and changing: for the snowdrops brightening many a British garden; and for the smallest reptile in the world found, still surviving, in Madagascar.

Yet, that reminds us of the need to care for all our environment; we pray about the people who trade in, steal, kill, collect the rarest and the most important. As experts investigate a probably poisoning of endangered Andean condors, in Bolivia, we pray for understanding of the remarkable interdependence we have with our world. Similarly, for the area of the Tapovan Dam, Uttarakhand state, India, where 170 people are still missing following the dam collapse caused by a glacier burst. The United States is experiencing its worst avalanche season and related deaths in a 100 years and this pattern is repeating elsewhere in so many aspects of nature. We give thanks for the multiplicity of often small-scale ventures trying to stabilise and reverse this trend of climate warming affecting all our weather systems and therefore life for us all.

Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer.

As the news from the WHO report is that the pandemic is unlikely to be caused by a virus escape from a lab in Wuhan, China, we pray that Governments pause to reflect then act on the findings.

We pray for:

  • the people of Tanzania as their Government shows how to make smoothies to protect from Covid-19.
  • for the people of Ghana whose Parliament will be closed for 3 weeks following a virus outbreak.
  • for the fake news from anti-vaccinators focussing on ethnic and minority groups in so many countries including sadly even by missionaries to tribes in São Francisco reservation in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.

With so few countries able to sequence and identify new strains we pray for the scientists now faced with the new, possibly annual, struggle to update vaccines.

Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer.

  • As we hear of one child and her mother, from El Salvador, held for over 500 days in an immigration centre in the US, we recognise that if this happens once it happens again and again. So we pray for justice.
  • for the Amazon workers fighting to found a union in Bessemer, Alabama, USA, we pray for justice
  • for the creative artists in the music industry, we pray for justice as Universal, the world’s biggest music label seeks to expand even further.

Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer.

So much biodiversity, Lord, that it’s easier to stick with fake news – for what is human-made can be understood by people. We thank you that in your mercy you hear our prayers.  Grant us the ability to be your answers for each other.

Amen

* © 1965 Josef Weinberger Ltd., 12-14 Mortimer St., London W1N 7RD

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, January 28, 2021

God of all times and places,
as we look out into your world
we see so many different things:
sun
snow
rain
chaos
silence
hope
fear
peace
violence
justice
faith
oppression
…

The list goes on,
and on,
and on.

As I gaze out my window today,
I am reminded that what I see
what I experience,
what I hear,
what I feel,
are all dependent on where I am, and who I am.

And, in so many ways
what I see outside my window
depends on whose I am as well.

As your children we strive to experience the world through your eyes and ears,
loving our neighbors
living in harmony with the earth
hearing your voice of justice and hope.

This week we have
remembered the Holocaust
continued to struggle through a global pandemic
watched as Ghana remembers the life of their longest-serving leader, Jerry John Rawlings
witnessed protests by farmers in India
felt the anxiety of rising fire danger in Australia
sensed the growing strain as COVID cases continue to rise in the United Kingdom, Peru, and many other countries
we have been dismayed that over 20,000 people have been forced to flee from their camps in Syria due to flooding
and we have been astounded by feats of athleticism and grace.

And that is just a part of the news which has buffeted us, Holy One.
We have friends and family who are suffering physically, mentally, and emotionally.
We have new opportunities in life, new jobs, new relationships, homes.
We celebrate with new families and grieve with parents.
We enjoy fellowship and meals.
We ache because there is no one with whom to share our time.

Both near and far our lives are filled with sorrow and hope, joy and pain, grief and celebration.

But most of all, Abundant God, we long to be surrounded and uplifted by your presence in all things.

For a moment we pause, we breathe, we wait, we rest in you.

Then, we return to the work of co-creating a world
where you are what we see, what we hear, and what we feel.
Because, O God, you love us, and you call us your own.
Continue to guide, teach, and transform us, we pray.

Amen.

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers Tagged With: prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, 7 January 2021

Editor’s note:  World In Prayer needs a few more writers and editors!  Our team consists of 12-15 volunteers, from several different countries and continents. Each week, one person writes the prayers in response to international news. A second person then edits and posts the prayers online.  Because we rotate who writes and edits, you would end up serving approximately once every five or six weeks.

Due to life changes, some of our team members need to cut back. So, we’re looking for people who deeply care about our world, see God’s hand at work throughout all creation and all persons, and are inspired to help write and produce these prayers.  If you are interested, please send an email to worldinprayer@aol.com.

 

 

Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love; my words are vain;
as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.

 Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be giv’n by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin. [i]

Our shining Child,
Out of the Nativity you call to all nations, all peoples.

Yet nations build walls, lay mines and militarize their borders. Watchtowers are built and billions in electronic surveillance deployed. O little town of Bethlehem, a beloved carol, is today a town suffering, partitioned.  Help us to reconcile these injustices as land is taken, houses destroyed and people’s movement severely restricted. Walls comprise a growing Border Industrial Complex in 2021. We pray for the peoples in Israel where six walls exist; in Morocco, Iran and India each having three walls; South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Hungary and Lithuania each with two walls, and all countries who violate human rights in this new and growing apartheid.[ii] We pray mightily for the peoples of Syria nearly surrounded as five nations have put up walls for a people utterly displaced and ravaged. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

We pray for those who seek asylum and are “neither here, nor there.” We pray for those who have traveled unbelievable distances and through unimaginable harms to be turned away, silenced, detained and imprisoned. Be with us in this complex suffering. It feels so upside down.  We pray for those from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador the so called Northern Triangle where so many have fled due to record levels of violence, torture and death. Our spirits long as we hear how severe the terror must be for parents to send their children alone to flee.[iii] They cross into Mexico and the US. We pray for the Rohingya in Myanmar escaping genocide and now displaced in Bangladesh. Guard them. Sustain them. We pray for the leaders in all of these countries.

We pray for those who grow, harvest and transport food that we may take for granted in these times where shelves are stocked and gas seems plenty, … and in these same times where COVID and famine and war keep house together in Yemen[iv] and now South Sudan, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria, and where 16 other countries are entering famine where children are the first to silently suffer and die. Though I may give all I possess.

We pray where reports of war, political instability, civil war, humanitarian strife and years of occupation are endured. We call out in prayer for peace in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Somalia, Venezuela, Mali, Lebanon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Republic of Congo, the US and Iran relations, the India and Pakistan conflict, North Korea, between Israel and Palestine, the terrorizing by the Boko Haram in Nigeria, the criminal violence in Mexico, the enmity of Turkey and Kurdish troops, Egypt, and Ukraine.  Lord have mercy.

The news of the world is on our radios, TV, laptops, phones, newspapers and word of mouth. We hear of protests in streets. We hear of the breaking of curfews and mass gatherings as during a rave in France.  We hear of rage and violence in the US, including the shocking invasion of the US Capitol by reactionary factions, who have been goaded on for months by the words of elected officials.  Help us to remember and live out the truth that, in the words of U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black, “…words matter, and the power of life and death is in the tongue.” The news tolls of the police shooting of Andre Hill in Columbus, Ohio, USA as Casey Goodson, Jr. was being laid to rest after a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him at the doorstep of his Columbus home earlier this month. We grieve and are angered, we march, we lay flowers and light candles.  Help us to discern right action lest – My words are vain; as sounding brass.

The news tolls the deaths from COVID19, the overflow in hospitals, surge upon surge. We pray for the teams that know no border at the bedside, vaccine clinic, lab or as first responders. We are hopeful for the multitude of COVID vaccines coming to communities. We call for equity in vaccine distribution as developing nations manifest such a great need. May the wealthy countries dig deeper to stave off further crisis. Unify us in this time of horrendous loss of life and the devastation that has reached in some way into each of our homes and neighborhoods and circles the globe. Protect those in severe economic insecurity from further debt and eviction.  Help us to universalize health care access. We pray in gratitude as increased access to women’s health care in Argentina is manifested. Comfort the grieving in every nation, in every town and village. Our spirits long.

We pray for the journalist teams that film, write and publish with risk of death as they give voice and document the injustices around the world. Help us to listen as they lift these tentative voices to the world’s stage.  Help each of us to find our voice, and remind those of us with public platforms of our deep responsibility to speak the truth in love. Magnify the Good News. May it stream through all of these spaces – guide every deed.

Help us to honor the multitude of indigenous peoples[v] who keep the land and guard it’s teachings. We pray that the pressures of extraction that degrade rivers, displace tribes and communities, and cultivate institutional racism can be acknowledged for what they are – social and environmental and climate injustices – as they have been through the ages.  The marginalized are among us and in the news daily. These transgressions trample our relationship to you, your kin-dom, and all of creation. Help us to hear and heed their warnings. Repair these wrongs. Reconcile us to right action. Come spirit.

Bring us to a new accounting and clarity in these opening days of 2021.  Forgive us for the deeds done that cannot be undone, the sins and trespasses and willfulness that did not serve. Open our hearts to inward love, to one and other, nation-to-nation in a new way – in the Good News you gave to the world–of Christ’s birth, his baptism, journey to the cross and resurrection. Help us to forgive one another as we are sheltered and made whole by this great love. Help us to repair, restore and amend what is ours to do. Lord in your great compassion hear us.

Come, spirit, come, our hearts control,
Our spirits long to be made whole,
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship and are freed.[vi]

Amen.

 

[i] Words: Hal Hopson, based on 1 Corinthians 13. Music based on an English Folk Tune Copyright 1972 by Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, Il. 60188. All Rights Reserved.

[ii] https://www.tni.org/en/walledworld

[iii] https://www.wola.org/analysis/children-fleeing-violence-central-america-face-dangers-mexico/

[iv] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/opinion/sunday/2020-worst-year-famine.html

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indigenous_peoples

[vi] Hopson

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

World News This Week in Prayer – Thurs., Dec. 10, 2020

Dear God,

We know this above all things – your steadfast love endures beyond all things here on this earth and beyond this earth.  We know this, and yet we still struggle.  We know that we are your people, and we also know that you most certainly are our God. Although we know we can rest in this certainty, Lord, there is so much more that we are so very uncertain about – so much that we don’t know. So much to worry about that we sometimes find ourselves frozen unknowing what to do next.

God, we give to you the things we are uncertain about, because many of us truly don’t know what may be next in each of our lives.

We are uncertain about our jobs, our livelihood, the things which allow us to not worry about where our next meals may come from and keep us safe in the places we call home. We are uncertain about our health and the health of the ones we hold dear. We have lost some of our dearest people due to all kinds of illnesses, including Covid-19. As the numbers of those infected and those who have died continue to climb in the U.S. and around the world to levels we never imagined, we are uncertain about our own lives.

Although we pray we may stay healthy – we are uncertain about how much time we each have on this earth. We are uncertain about how to take care of those we love – knowing that we must stay away in order to care for one another. We are uncertain about what our world is going to look like in the next weeks, months, and years, and how it will change and become a different place than we remember.

We are uncertain, Lord. Deeply uncertain, but as we look toward this next week in the season of Advent – we look towards this week which encompasses joy.

We find joy and hope even in the places where there seems to be no goodness. We see the tensions in Venezuela due to the election. We worry as we see more than 300 people in southeastern India hospitalized with an unidentified illness. Our hearts ache as we see violence in Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.  We grieve the losses, including at least seven people have been killed in ongoing violent protests in northern Iraq.

  • Even as we see violence and our neighbors being hurt, we find hope in the helpers. And even more, we find joy in you, and in those making a difference even amidst terror.
  • We see joy, Lord, in the faces that light up when a Zoom call is first opened and we see people we haven’t seen in a long time.
  • We recognize joy, as we see people come together to lift up marginalized voices.
  • We hear joy in our middle and high schoolers who choose to have difficult conversations about topics that matter.
  • We feel joy as we keep going – as we continue doing some of the things we enjoy in an altered way.

We have joy and hope, Lord. And for this joy we are so grateful. We have joy, Lord, because it is you who gives us the joy that runs through our bodies. The joy that you are greater and can give us more possibilities than we could ever imagine. The joy that we can be absolutely certain, that even if our world may be breaking, our very bodies might be giving out, our jobs may not be there tomorrow, our dearest friends and family may be unhappy with us – even with all of this – we are absolutely certain that you fill us with a joy that will lift us up. Help us, Lord, to spread this unbelievable joy to every single person we meet – so that we may not hold this for ourselves, but so that this world might have a glimmer of your infinite and amazing joy.

Amen.

 

Filed Under: Weekly Prayers

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