New Zealand

World News in Prayer – Thursday, 12th March 2020

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the

Grandfathers of the World. Black Elk, (1863-1950)

Oh God, we read these words from a holy man who lived not so long ago. We have heard in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus’s words to his disciples of certain strength in the meek. We are reminded of his teachings to care for the poor and the least or marginalized. We remember that Jesus came humbly and joyfully into Jerusalem on a donkey with her colt – not the horse a symbol of war.

The ways and acts of peace are tender. They seem fleeting and small. Help us like the very grasses to act with hearts shining toward each other. As we turn to each other we ask that we may we see the other. Help us to pass the peace and love you have offered us through your son Jesus Christ.

We are grateful for the communication systems that connect each country through reporting and analyzing data to understand the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is on our minds night and day.

We are grateful for the common sense public health measures and call to action of simple hand washing not hand wringing.

We pause in our hearts. We grieve for the families whose elders have been swept away by the virus. Replace fear during increasing lockdowns with focus and quiet action. Help us in unforeseen ways to grow in our understanding of our connectedness. Safeguard the emergency and health care teams and families exposed across the continents. We name them out loud thinking of the peoples in locked down regions…knowing the list will grow.

Africa – Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa

Americas – Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador,

Guadalupe, Mexico, United States

Eastern Mediterranean – Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates

Europe – Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Herzegovina, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia (23%), San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Southeast Asia – Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand

Western Pacific – Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, North Korea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russia (77%), Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam

In celebration of International Women’s Day this past Sunday there comes singing, clapping and dancing, tears and laughter. Help us to receive the wisdom from indigenous women of the Ecuadorian Tribal Nations of Kofan, Siona, Siekopai and Waorani peoples as we hear their voices: “We are at the forefront of our peoples’ struggles and victories against the exploitation of our natural resources of extractive industries. From monitoring our territories and confronting emerging invasions to leading sustainable economic alternatives to resource extraction and shaping a vision for the education of our children and grandchildren, we are creating solutions for the long-term protection of a forest we all depend upon for life. And now, we are also training to become journalists and filmmakers in order to share our stories and struggles from a female perspective.” Lord we ask you to amplify their words: “We come with love and peace, we, women from four indigenous nations of the Western Amazon in Ecuador, are fighting against the threats to our forest.”

We end this weeks prayers for the hungry – the over 820 million people who have suffered from hunger in 2018, the greatest number since 2010 as reported by the World Meteorological Organization released this past Wednesday.

We ask for your mercy in these times.

Increase our compassion.

Sustain us in doing your will.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer — Thursday, 12 December 2019

During this season of Advent, this season of waiting, we are called to anticipate the fulfillment of God’s reign. Advent is a chance for each one of us to practice the reign of God in the way we meet and treat one another. As we prepare for this time of prayer, let us anticipate the coming light.

Holy God, our hope, we rejoice that your word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and we long for your reign. As we wait, our hearts overflow with gratitude for the beauty of your creation and for signs of peace and reconciliation.

We lift our hearts in thanks for the inspiration that Greta Thunberg has been to so many and celebrate with her as she has been named Time Magazine’s Person of the year. We value the hope that she has encouraged across the globe as we work to honor and restore your planet more and more.

We feel joy and expectation as the world’s first fully-electric commercial aircraft took flight for 15 minutes over Vancouver, Canada this week.

As we celebrate the coming of Jesus as a poor, helpless child, we also yearn for the day when there will be no more sorrow or pain.

We lift our hearts in prayer for the small South Pacific nation of Samoa, where a measles outbreak has infected 83 people and killed 71 people to date. We pray for your help and healing.

Even as we make strides toward preserving your earth, we remember the many victims of natural disasters. We pray for the people of New Zealand, where the Whakaari volcano erupted with at least 47 visitors from around the world on the White Island, some of whom have died and many of whom are in intensive care. We also pray for those affected by the landslides on the South Island, which has left thousands stranded. We pray that all affected are met with aid and support.

As we pray for justice and peace, we lift up the United States, where two articles of impeachment have been filed against President Trump. We also pray for the victims of a shooting in Jersey City, NJ where six people were killed and others injured. May your people move forward with a sense of hope and purpose.

O God, whose will is equity for the poor and aid for the afflicted, let your herald’s voice break through our hardened hearts to announce the coming of your kingdom. We know there are wonderful and terrible things happening in the world around us, and we are grateful to have a faith with room to hold it all, and room to hold us all. We pray that our complacency gives way to conversion, oppression to justice, and conflict to acceptance of one another in Christ. We ask this in the name of the one whose coming we celebrate this season, and whose life we strive to model in all seasons.

Amen.

World News this Week in Prayer – Thursday, 24 October 2019

Creator God, we give thanks for the privilege of praying. Hear us as we try to pray for our world.

Our world seems to be surround by protests.
We pray for those in Chile and Ecuador who protest against income inequality.
We pray for those who protest about corruption in Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon.
We pray for those who protest for political freedom as in Hong Kong, China, and Barcelona, Spain.
We pray for those who protest activities leading to climate change from New Zealand to Europe.

In all these protests and many others friendships form and strengthen. We give thanks that it takes time to grow old friends. We give thanks for the new friends we meet today for the first time.

We pray for those who need friends, for whatever reason, as we recognise the interweaving of the causes of these protests. Help us to share the friendship of Jesus who saw income inequality, corruption, political constraint and the devastation of human action and overturned tables in protest.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 11, 2019

Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

Lord, there is so much happening in our world we hardly know where to direct our attention and can only be grateful that you see all and answer the prayers of all your people. So we place in your hands our concerns for our environment from the high temperatures in Alaska to the increasing destruction of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil –
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

When we celebrate the small step for man, the giant leap for mankind and Jodrell Bank becomes a world heritage site help us to remember we have only one world. As New Zealand increases it’s effort to eradicate invasive plant and animal species which threaten the extinction of most of it’s native ecology while scientists announce the identification of the seeds most likely to survive and adapt to climate change –
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

With grief we read of the preventable deaths and suffering in Yemen; with shared sorrow we hear of the forcible detention of Uighur and children separated from parents in China; with mourning we learn of mass graves of migrants in Texas –
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

For all in positions of power and those who hold authority, in church and state, industry and technology, for our politicians and government employees, civil servants, and judiciary –
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer

For the unexpected mercies that often don’t make the news, such as 2 major earthquakes in California without loss of life and with opportunities for scientists to study, we give thanks. For the small mercies of walking with friends, human and canine, for the gift of families and neighbours, for the enjoyment of our fragile blue planet we give thanks and praise.
Amen

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, April 25, 2019

Holy One,

Your Name is above all names, it is so high that we cannot attain it, yet still we seek it. And when we cannot find you, when we do not understand what is happening, when our hearts quake with fear and our spirits tremble with unknowing, when we stumble and search and seek after your face, a beloved face that seems so far from us, that is when YOU call us by name. As you did with Mary on Easter, you pierce through the mystery and call us, claim us, love us. As you did on Easter, you reveal that you are not removed from the world, but that you are here, with us, through death and life, in the tomb of decay and the garden of growth, you are with us here in the world.

Reveal yourself to us today.

Where we see violence and destruction in the bombings of churches throughout Sri Lanka, where we watch the aftermath of shootings, as in New Zealand, reveal the wings of your comfort, the shelter of your arms, the balm of your care.

Where we see vigilante militias along the United States border treat refugees and asylum-seekers as criminals, reveal the power of your justice, the commitments of your love, and the renewal of your protection.

Where we see the violence in Libya where hundreds are dying and over one thousand wounded in the battle for control of the capital, Tripoli, reveal your compassion and wisdom to bring these fighting factions to achieve peace for the country’s people.

Where we see the brutality of domestic abuse and the secrets of family pain, as with the family found in the cave in Spain, reveal to us how you grieve the loss of your children, how you rage at the ways we abuse each other or do not to see the abuse of each other, how you call us to commit again to caring for your vulnerable ones.

Where we see political protests in places around the word, like Sudan and Hong Kong, reveal how you lift up the lowly and bring down the mighty from their thrones. We know that not all shouting voices should be given the megaphone, yet we also know that what we think of as power and might, will pass away as grass in your sight.

Where we see the erosion of environment and the increasing anxiety over resources, with loss of rainforests in Brazil and months of drought in Australia, reveal how you have poured your care into every aspect of Creation, and how you demand that we more faithfully steward this world entrusted to us.

Where we see tragedy and death this week from the natural elements in the Philippines from earthquakes, landslides in Columbia and floods and mudslides in South Africa, reveal your consoling arms to surround these victims and their bereaved loved ones in love and strength to endure their loss.

Where we need to see your face, Lord, we pray that you will show up before us and remind us again that nothing, not even death, will separate us from you.

You have called to us before. Call to us now.

Amen sildenafil generique.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, March 28, 2019

Holy One,

In the dark of the night when tears become our prayers, we believe the Spirit intercedes for us, breathing through our lament.

In the light of the day when fears hushes our voice, we believe that Christ listens to all that we carry in deep within our hearts.

In the midst of life’s cacophony, we believe that you draw us close, even when we struggle to draw close to you.

Not a word is on our lips that you do not know completely. And yet we must pray. We must offer up the yearnings and desires of our heart. We must pray for the world as it is and name the world that we long to see, the one that lives and moves and has its fullness in You, in your love and grace, peace and justice.

Thus, hear our prayers, oh loving, living Lord. Imperfect and incomplete as they might be, hear our prayers and make your presence known to us now.

Hear our prayers for the southern parts of Africa living with the aftermath of Cyclone Idai. We lift up to you all those who are struggling with flooding and fires, devastation, disease, and death. Be with the people of Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe as they strive to rebuild their homes, their lives, their sense of well-being. Be with aid workers, doctors, civilians, and all those who are working alongside each other to bring healing help.

Hear our prayers for those living within tumultuous and transitioning political systems around the world, including Britain, India, and Venezuela. Where people are driven by anxiety, bring forth signs of your hope. Where rage and hatred seem to have the last word, speak again your astounding word of peace. We pray for those who are mighty in power and privilege, who are making decisions for those who are the lowly, the lost, and the least among us.

Hear our prayers for those living in the aftermath of the shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. We pray for all those who step into their mosques, synagogues, and places of worship with trepidation. May all places of prayer become safe spaces for those who need them. We pray for those whose daily lives have been upended by violence in the past week, including in Yemen, Iraq, Gaza, and Israel. Be with parents, children, students, and civilians who live in the midst of gun violence, from villages in central Mali to subdivisions in the United States.

Through all these prayers, we rediscover again that we are not the saviors of the world. You are. We lift up our hearts to you, praying that our hands and feet might further the work of your kin-dom, today, tomorrow, now, and forever.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, March 21, 2019

Loving God,

We know you as a trusted source of direction and purpose. Sometimes we think our thoughts are your thoughts. Sometimes we pray that they are.

But today we pray for the sensory awareness of how you feel. We hope that it will guide us and how we feel about refugees who have experienced the recent Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. Malawai, and Zimbabwe. Whatever would it be like to try to carry everything precious, for skin to protest rough surfaces, for skin to give up, blister, and tear. Whatever would it be like to smell the gradually and then rapidly decomposing bodies of those who did not survive, to hear the cries of those who mourn, to see the struggles of those attempting to find a place of safety, a place of comfort with friends? We pray not just for the strength to be aware in our senses but also for the conviction and creativity it will take for the victims and from us who are not this time victimized

We pray for the insight to respect the loss of generations of family farms in the flooding in the American Midwest. There is deep meaning in a farm that was cultivated by your parents and your grandparents and your great-grandparents and more. Grant us, we pray, vision to see beyond what help can be given by the so-called “social safety net”. Show us more, larger ways to care for them and for all of us.

Open our senses, our minds, our hearts to include the whole world. We need to admit the shame and the pain of the massacre in New Zealand. We do not need to wordsmith and dillydally with how to improve the situation that allowed that catastrophe. You have never asked us, and we should not ask ourselves, only for perfect solutions. You ask for better ones, and so we give thanks for the rapid and compassionate actions of the government of New Zealand banning semi-automatic and assault weapons. As airplanes crash and killers destroy, we try to make every effort to protect our own. Let us not shrink from the truth that we should do better than that. We pray for the courage to do better than that.

God in your glory, raise us up to be the people you need doing the work that needs to be done. Amen

World News in Prayer – Thursday, 14th February 2019

Creator God,

It doesn’t seem enough to say we thank you for the beauty of your creation. When we think of all that happened from the growth of our planet, its place in the solar system and the most we can say is “thanks”. You know the gratitude of our hearts, the deep meaning we want to place on these words, you accept and understand. Thank you, our God.

This week Lord, the doomsayers have been out in force: the increasing loss of the icecaps and glaciers; the effect of insecticides, even those long banned, on all insects; the threat to wildlife from dogs and domestic cats turned feral. Then a sliver of good news: NASA satellite data shows an increase in leaf area on plants and trees across the amazon; India and China are planting major areas with trees.

This week, a teenager in Ohio, USA has used technology to research vaccinations and has now received them. Teenagers in Bristol, England have researched the bus boycott of 1963 and discovered their missing history. For the power of the internet for good we give thanks.

This week, emergency supplies pile up and rot in Hudayah, Yemen and on the Columbia / Venezuela border, we pray that warring politicians will see the harm they do in power struggles and the power of the internet will become good for their countries.

This week as more warnings about dams holding toxic sludge emerge and other industrial mining problems become widely known we pray for the people of Brazil and the open cast mining areas of Appalachia, USA.

This week, Lord, help us to understand what we have done to our planet and how we need to make changes in our lives. Wild fires have burned across Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand; the effects of last autumn’s fires still devastate lives across California, USA; floods across Chile and Northern Australia; from Cincinnati to California, USA we recognise the multiple environmental crisis across the world.

We give thanks for the many small steps being taken by individuals and groups across the world to highlight and tackle this. Machynlleth, Wales has become the first town in Wales to declare a “climate emergency”, following the example of others globally. It is focussing on measures to dramatically reduce its carbon footprint. Villagers in Jenjarom, Malaysia are fighting to have the government close illegal factories dealing with Western rubbish poisoning their land, water and air.

The heavens declare your glory, God. Help us rediscover the sacred in our world and environment which you have made so we “touch the earth lightly”*.

Thank you for hearing our prayer and for your answers.

Amen

*”Touch the Earth lightly” – (New Zealand), Lyrics: Shirley Erena Murray Music: Tenderness – Colin Gibson

World News This Week in Prayer, Thursday, June 28, 2018

Dear Lord,

In the Northern Hemisphere, we expectantly “roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…”* but there is a parent and grandparent duty. We plan exciting activities for little ones in our care, for camps and vacations and community programs. In this season of school year endings we watch and wait for exam results with our teenagers and give thanks for the achievements of adult graduates. Yet we weep with parents separated from their infants and children by borders and systems for achingly interminable periods. We pray for their reunion and an end to this unnatural separation and detention in the U.S. Open the hearts of guards and administrators to their moral duties in this humanitarian crisis.

In the Southern Hemisphere, celebrating, with the PM of New Zealand, the birth of a daughter who, she says “will be brought up by the international community.” We pray for those who do not understand the idea of extended family. For those extended families of great grandparents, grandparents, godparents, foster parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters all, raising children to wonderful achievements, we give thanks.

In all corners of this world, we pray for those who live and grow in what society calls dysfunctional families, for those stressed by life’s circumstances, for those caught in the waiting and busyness, for those who cannot even see a future. We know that for as many as are well-rounded personalities there are also those for whom things go badly wrong and their suffering is great; may the Christian family extend it’s care and compassion and bring the Hope which arises from Your Great Love of each and all. We pray for those who thought life would include a better day. May the Holy Spirit bring a gentle lightheartedness and may those “lazy, hazy, … days” settle about them.

We pray for those battling the expanding wildfires on Saddleworth Moor, England, especially those for whom the area brings up memories of the horrific murders fifty years ago of children and youth. Lord have mercy.

We pray for the twelve boys and their soccer coach lost in the Tham Luang Cave, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand; for their families and the many rescue workers and divers. May we heed the words of the governor exhorting rescuers to care for them as if they were their own. Lord illumine their paths.

We pray for the Rohingya as more information emerges about the part played by Myanmar officials in their expulsion.

We pray that the ceasefire agreed in South Sudan will happen and will hold.

As the football world cup continues in Russia we pray for all who have hospitably opened their homes to visiting fans and for those who seek to use the game to bring communities together, especially in Sydney, Australia.

With three rescue ships full of migrants and one finally allowed to dock in Malta, with borders being closed and calls for automatic deportation of those who think they have reached sanctuary we pray for all who work in border control; migration and volunteer aid agencies. For those who live on the margins and those who witness and tend to them, bring Your strength.

Lord, hear these prayers.

For your world and all that we appreciate, care for and love,

We pray in your name.

Amen.

* Lyricist Charles Tobias

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 6, 2017

Lord, time after time the news reflects what has happened; this week’s events reflecting what has already happened. So we pray for those for whom the news is also “olds” – for they remember the pain, the trauma, the fear, the deep changes in their lives.

We pray for those caught in the fire in a multi-story building in Johannesburg, South Africa and for those still suffering trauma from earlier fires.

We pray for those who watch the North Korean missile firings with horror and remember.

In the US Fourth of July celebrations of thirteen American colonies adoption of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming citizens’ right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in every announcement of liberation we pray also for the people of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa and Idlib, Syria.

As Canada celebrates 150 years since the 1867 Constitution of Canada allowed for the merger of 3 colonies. We pray for Indigenous people across the world, and especially for the First Nations, Inuit and Metis of Canada, the Native Hawaiian, American Indian and Alaska Natives of the US, the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, the Māori Tribes of New Zealand and the Indigenous Australian Peoples.

Following the arrest of Ebtisam al-Saegh, a human rights activist in Bahrain and the peace-and-love celebration in Malheur National Forest, Oregon, USA where there were 15 arrests and 2 deaths, we pray for those who peacefully demonstrate remembering especially those who protested in Washington DC, USA in January and still face legal charges.

We pray for the life of baby Charlie Gard and his parents, as the legal case in the UK has ended and now others try to intervene. We also pray for other bereaved parents in their grief.

Lawrence Moore, a church mission and discipleship consultant who also attends Worsley Road United Reformed Church in Salford, England, prays:

“O God,

There are many who pray far more desperately for the coming of your Kingdom than I do.

They beg you for daily bread because they go to bed hungry.

They pray for deliverance from oppression and exploitation.

They long for people who look and behave like you –

who see their desperation and are moved to tears of compassion or

a burning anger that will not let them rest while things stay as they are.

Fill me with your Holy Spirit, I pray,

that my heart will overflow with your compassion,

that I will find the courage to stand up against injustice,

that I will make a Jesus-shaped difference to my world.

Grant, by your grace, that I will be the answer to the prayers of the very least

and proclaim with my life as well as my mouth

that Jesus is the Messiah.”

Amen.