World in Prayer

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, December 17, 2020

Come now, O Prince of Peace, make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus, reconcile your people. – Geonyong Lee (Tune: OSOSO)

With heavy hearts, we come to you during this time of waiting, this time of Advent as we prepare for the coming of the One who is God’s incarnated Love. Only this year, this time, looks and feels and is very different, as all the world shudders under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic which has so far taken 300,000 lives in the United States…which has caused the flight of nearly 3.6 million from the city of New York…which continues to stress health care workers and facilities to their outer limits…which has caused the shutdown of all the theatres of London’s West End and New York’s Broadway…which is causing nationwide lockdowns in South Korea, Germany, and parts of England. And so, we hold them all in our hearts and ask your abundant mercy to shower down upon one and all in this hurting world. Come now, O Prince of Peace – for we ARE one body.

–Silence for reflection–

Come now, O God of love, make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus, reconcile your people.

Even as we pray for reconciliation and peace, we learn that more than 250,000 children, youth, and vulnerable adults have been abused in the faith-based and state care facilities in New Zealand over the past several decades, about 40% of all those in care, with the majority being Maori children, members of the indigenous peoples of that nation. We learn of the winter storm threatening the northeastern United States, bringing frigid temperatures and heavy snows to areas already bowed down by the pandemic, and threatening the lives of those left homeless. And so, we hold them in our hearts and ask your healing hand to rest upon one and all in this hurting world. Come now, O God of love – for we ARE one body.

–Silence for reflection—

Come now and set us free, O God, our Savior.
Come, O Lord Jesus, reconcile all nations.

Even as we long for reconciliation, we learn that nearly 2.3 million children in Ethiopia have been cut off from humanitarian aid, including food and medicine. We learn that half of Singapore’s migrant workers are COVID positive, despite the generally low COVID statistics in the population. We learn that Boko Harum has kidnapped more than 300 male students from a school in Nigeria. And we learn that Hungary’s parliament has passed a law prohibiting same-sex couples from adopting children, following their anti-gay policies begun earlier this year. And so, we hold them in our hearts and ask your reconciling spirit to fill one and all in this hurting world. Come now, O God our Savior – for we ARE one body.

—Silence for reflection—

Come, Hope of unity, make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus, reconcile all nations.

With hope-filled hearts, we gaze at our world and our hearts are lifted by the Electoral College affirming the results of the November Presidential election in the United States. We affirm the Giving Pledge initiative which is encouraging the world’s richest people to donate a large portion of their fortunes to charitable causes. We applaud the 370 major religious leaders worldwide who have called for an end to conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people. And we cheer with 74-year-old Pat Ormond who has just graduated from college alongside her granddaughter at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga in the United States. And so, we hold them in our hearts and ask that your hope continue to life our spirits and those of all this hurting world. Come, Hope of Unity – for we ARE one body.

All of these things we pray, O God who Comes. Remind us of your incredible, unchanging love for this hurting, broken world, and fill us with the certainty that we are indeed ONE body.

Amen and amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, May 14, 2020

Dear God,

We take so much for granted. We want things to go a certain way, our way: Forgive us our narrow-mindedness. Help us to see beyond our small spot on the planet, beyond our place in this moment of time. Move us out of our heads and into our hearts. Shake us loose from what we cling to that is false. Help us to ask, “Does this nourish?” “Do I really need this?” “Is it your will?” Transform our understanding. Make us instruments of your peace.

In this time of sheltering in place, we understand even more the sacredness of gathering, our need to gather – to share the joy of birth, and to be close and give comfort when laying someone to rest. We are horrified at the disrespect and senseless acts that have occurred in Afghanistan. We mourn the attack on the maternity ward at Doctors Without Borders’ Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital in Kabul, where two newborns and 11 others  were killed. We grieve for the 24 people killed and 68 injured during an explosion at a funeral in Jalalabad province. We pray for the injured, the terrorized evacuees and witnesses, and the frontline personnel and families. We lay our hearts before you in a moment of silence… Lord, have mercy.

Protect the hospitals, public health workers, and humanitarian organizations that work with so little and do so much, especially in this Covid-19 pandemic. Amplify their efforts. Cause our leaders to awaken to right and swift action at the incredible loss of health care workers around the world to the virus. May they be moved to action by photos such as the one taken by Eraldo Peres on May 12, International Nurses Day, in Brasilia, Brazil. That photo, distributed by the Associated Press, pictures nurses at dusk protesting the deaths of their colleagues by lying down, arms outstretched on the earth, each holding a paper with the name of a colleague and a candle resting on their chest. Lord, in your compassion, strengthen us to do good and speak out at injustice.

Help us to hear your call in the cries of all your people. Help us to listen for your call in those who can hardly speak and who suffer silently.

  • Comfort the many who are isolated at home, quarantined in ICU’s, and families who do not get to say “good bye,” “I love you” one last time.
  • Sustain those who are depressed and soothe those who are so very anxious.

Oh God, you embrace all regret and deep remorse. You have room for everyone. What a mighty comfort. Help us likewise to show mercy and tender kindnesses, as we sort out loss upon loss around the world.

We groan at the wanton criminal neglect and malpractice of a South Korean multinational chemical factory and the layers of Indian board, state and central environmental authorities that led to the deaths of 12, including two children, and the poisoning over 1,000 as polystyrene gas entered the streets and homes of Visakhapatnam, India. We are reminded of the Bhopal, India, methyl isocyanate gas industrial disaster in 1984 at an insecticide plant that killed over 15,000, and pray for the contamination that still exists more than 35 years later, continuing to cause anguish, birth defects, and mental retardation.

We are angered at the easing of U.S. environmental laws to allow industrial pollution that steals air and water; snuffs out lives; and kills and destroys habitat. Help us to shine light on these grievous imbalances of power. Lay bare the acts of greed and corruption. Shed your light on the false values of expediency for the sake of profit. We offer again a moment of silence… Lord, have mercy. Give us purpose and clarity, as we regain a sense of urgency for the stewardship of our planet your creation.

We turn in gratitude for so many caring people and organizations, like the Washington Potato Growers Association (U.S.), which gave away over a million pounds of potatoes this week. Help us to understand generosity as a powerful and beautiful act, an act that acknowledges the other, the food insecure, the hungry, and those choosing between rent and groceries. As countries around the world take the risk of reopening businesses and other non-essential operations after Covid-19 shut-downs and stay-at-home orders, support the small business owners, the workers who are at risk, and the still unemployed. Give us patience and unity of purpose.

Help us in these turbulent times to understand the stability of our faith, hope and love: Faith with action, hope in the knowledge of your enduring love, and love itself that has conquered sin and death.

May we live inside the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans 8:37-39. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – January 2, 2020

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.
James 1:17

Oh Lord, there are many things that concern us and call us to prayer.

We open our hearts to you in gratitude and wonder.

We pray for those who rage and are quick to anger, for those who seem to be eaten up by intolerance. We pray for those who express their contempt and fury in violence to themselves and others. We grieve at those who have lost their lives to aggression due to fighting, war, criminal violence, and terrorism. We call out the names of nations so rife with conflict, so often in the news — Afghanistan, Mexico, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, South Sudan, India, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Pakistan, and the Philippines. We call out the nations that make the weapons of war that fuel decades-long conflict and destruction: US, Russia, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, China, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, and the Netherlands and many more. Help us to see beyond the headlines to stand up for the women and children, the families, the victims, those starving and displaced. We call out for your mercy. Safeguard the journalists who bring the news, relate the stories of the imprisoned, the refugee, those made invisible by war, bigotry, and hatred. Safeguard the whistleblowers. Sustain us as we examine our own hearts, shed our own contempt and learn the practice of peacemaking in our homes and communities.

This season can be a time of anxiety as well as anticipation. We can sense tension and disharmony instead of peace. Many feel depression and despair instead of wellbeing and belonging. Help us to understand and accept those who suffer in mind, body, and spirit. They may be close or far away. Help us to learn compassion and to practice generosity, consideration, kindness and mutual regard. We pray for those who are without homes, who are estranged from their families who feel alone and isolated. May we grow in our practice of charity and give beyond counting. Guide each of us to do the right thing in our own special way for the need is great.

As the past year turns into this new decade in the tumultuous millennium help us to shed despair and the sense of heaviness that the need is unending and insurmountable. Sustain us with the words of healing. May we be reminded that around the world literacy is increasing, childhood deaths are declining and people are being lifted out of deep poverty as never before known.

May the hope born in Advent light the way through the minutes, hours, days and months to come.

May your love-come-down-among-us strengthen and steady our steps, telling us that we are not alone.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thurs., October 17, 2019

Be gentle with us, O Lover of Souls.
Be gentle with us, for surely in this fractured and fracturing world,
that above all is what we need:
To (re)learn to be gentle with ourselves.
To be gentle with each other.
To be gentle with our planet.

Be gentle with those – especially with those – who don’t seem to have a gentle bone in their bodies.
Be gentle with the United States, for abandoning their Kurdish allies; with the Turkish forces attacking the Kurds; with the country of Syria in the middle.
Be gentle with the owners of the Bangladesh clothing factory under investigation for abusing their workers.
Be gentle with the leaders of Venezuela, which just won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, despite their country’s own horrendous human rights violations.

Be gentle with those whom we cannot forgive.
Be gentle with the South Korean mastermind of the massive “dark web” child pornography marketplace who was arrested this week, along with 337 users of the site from 11 countries.
Be gentle with all who bully and abuse and terrorize, in the schoolyards, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our world.

Gentle them, Beloved, as you would gentle a wild horse.
As you would coax love from the strong muscles and striking hooves of the fearful and ranging stallion.

Be gentle with all who hurt, or weep, or mourn, or fear.
Be gentle with the survivors of Typhoon Hagibis in Japan.
Be gentle with those searching for survivors in the collapsed apartment building in Brazil.
Be gentle with the tens of thousands of migrants applying for asylum in Mexico, now that it appears that the U.S. will no longer be a possible place of refuge for them.

Wrap them in the tenderest love, Beloved, as you would a flurry of newborn kittens.
As you would make a nest of the softest blankets, in which to grow and heal and thrive.

Be gentle with our fragile Earth.
Be gentle with the students in Gambia protesting climate change, because one day, “my city Banjul could end up under water.”
Be gentle with Lebanon, facing the worst wildfires in decades.
Be gentle with Australia, where a growing drought is stirred up a dust storm so thick that day seemed to turn to night.
Be gentle with the lives we have built, with the lives we do not know how to sustain.

Help us to walk gently in our lands, in our lives.
As gently as a drop of dew on a morning flower.

Be gentle with us, O Lover of Souls.
But, oh, we do not need to ask.
For you are our Gentleness and our Beloved.

Amen.

 

 

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home.     – African-American spiritual

Mother-Father God, we come to you when we feel lost. We come to you when we feel discouraged. We come to you when our strength fails us. We come to you when injustice seems to have the upper hand. We come to you on our knees when we can no longer stand on our own.

Hear us, O God, and heal our hearts and our world.

Our hearts are broken as Israel continues to plan to annex one-third of the occupied West Bank, virtually negating any future peace process. Our minds are confused as we seek to understand Japan’s government considering dumping radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant clean-up into the Pacific Ocean, even as area fishermen and the government of South Korea protest.

Hear us, O God, and heal our hearts and our world.

Our hearts are broken as we think of the 14-year-old schoolgirl in Kenya who hanged herself after being shamed in class because her uniform had been stained by menstrual blood, in spite of the 2017 law to provide free sanitary products to schoolgirls, and we cry out, “Enough is enough!” Our minds are confused as we see the continued lockdown of Kashmir by India, as food and medical care and supplies reach crucial levels, as men are killed or simply “disappeared,” putting women at high risk for violence, threatening the well-being of countless children.

Hear us, O God, and heal our hearts and our world.

Our hearts are broken as we learn that large parts of this planet have already passed the crucial climate threshold of 2 degrees Celsius of warming, as we see the people of The Bahamas attempting to recover from the devastating effects of category 5 Hurricane Dorian.

Hear us, O God, and heal our hearts and our world.

Mother-Father God, we also come to you when we feel gratitude. We come to you when we see things which give us hope. We come to you when our hearts are overflowing with joy at the actions of our fellow humans which inspire us. We come to you with our arms raised, reaching out for your ever-present hand to hold and guide us.

Hear us, O God, and fill us with hope.

Our hearts are filled by the prospect of justice by a lawsuit filed in Virginia (USA) on behalf of three couples, challenging the decades-long statute that requires a couple to declare their racial backgrounds in order to get a marriage license; challenging, too, the 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Act known as “The Act to Preserve the Integrity of the White Race.”

Hear us, O God, and fill us with hope.

Our hearts are filled by the fight for human rights which continues with the pro-democratic protesters in Hong Kong, as they call for the intervention of the United States in their months-long struggle for self-rule and self-determination.

Hear us, O God, and fill us with hope.

Our hearts are filled by the actions for human rights of the California legislature which passed a bill that paves the way for Gig economy workers to get the benefit of holiday and sick pay.

Hear us, O God, and fill us with hope.

Our hearts are filled by the Poor Peoples’ Campaign in the United States, led by Rev. Dr. William Barber, as they begin a nine-month tour across the country to organize and mobilize low-income people in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Hear us, O God, and fill us with hope.

Mother-Father God, as you look upon our world with its sorrows and struggles and still see beauty, help us to see with your loving eyes; to not lose hope in the midst of what seems hopeless; to stand strong and true, filled with your love of justice; to join hands with our siblings everywhere – each and all your children – to make this world the place you intended it to be. Your reign come, O God. Your realm come, and let it begin with each of us.

Let it be so. Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, August 15, 2019

There is a Love that is deeper than love,
that fills the world,
that fuels the world.

O, give thanks and sing.

From Genesis 18:16-23 (Paraphrased):

The Lord, having heard much outcry about the sins of the two cities, was prepared to destroy them, and all the people in them. But Abraham challenged the Lord: ‘Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked…Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ And the Lord said, ‘If I find 50 righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.’ Abraham answered, ‘Suppose five of the 50 righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?’ And he said, ‘I will not destroy it if I find 45 there.’ “What if there are 40?” asked Abraham. “Or 30? Or 20?” And each time, the Lord conceded. Then Abraham said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose 10 are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of 10 I will not destroy it.’

Holy one, can we – dare we – become like you, willing to be swayed when we want to wipe out an entire group of people?

In today’s world, where Saudi Arabia just declared that all atheists are terrorists,
and two charity-operated boats full of rescued migrants remain off the coast of Italy,
overcrowded and in unsanitary conditions, unable to disembark because of feuding between Italian leaders,
while Kashmiris are once again caught between the territorial claims of India and Pakistan,
and North Korea again refuses peace talks with South Korea…

Holy one, can we – dare we – welcome those who speak with the bravery of Abraham, calling even those who seem as powerful as gods to rediscover their better natures?

We watch as 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden sets sail across the Atlantic on a hyper-efficient yacht, to draw attention to climate change. We read of the court in Belgium that is investigating an orphanage for alleged abduction and trafficking of children from the Democratic Republic of Congo, taking young children from their parents in the guise of giving them a holiday and instead illegally sending them out of the country for adoption. We hear calls for Google to better police the ads they accept, as studies show that Google Maps is overrun with as many as 11 million false business addresses and ads per day.

Holy one, can we – dare we – love like you, forgiving all if there are even a few righteous among them?  

When the Israeli Women’s Under-19 Lacrosse team noticed that their opponents from Kenya were slipping all over the field because they didn’t have shoes with cleats, they didn’t have them removed from the game (even though playing without cleats is against the rules). Instead, they purchased shoes for every single member of the Kenyan team, and delivered them with hugs and friendship.

A group of Palestinian Authority young men wrote a moving message to the family of a 19-year-old Israeli student, after he was killed in a stabbing attack by Hamas-linked terrorists earlier this week.

A man with no family lost his wife in the El Paso, Texas, U.S., shooting two weeks ago, so he invited the public to her funeral – and more than 1000 have said they will attend in support.

Holy one, how can we ever doubt that there are righteous among those near and far to us, among both our friends and foes?

There is a Love that transcends the deepest love,
that fills the world,
that is ready to heal the world.

O, give thanks and sing.

World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, May 31, 2018

Jesus asked “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

Lord Almighty, Son and Spirit, you who live in community know that we are always separate from one another but invite us into your family. You give us a way to live together for our mutual comfort and support.

We give thanks for those, who understanding our need for mutuality, find ways to live in greater support:

  • We give thanks for the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service, celebrating 90 years since its inception/inauguration. We pray for all those who work for the service and those who need it.
  • We give thanks for all air ambulances, their staff and supporters, especially the volunteer workers. We pray for those in trauma who need these ambulances. We name those in floods in English Midlands and South East and Western North Carolina in the USA.
  • We give thanks for all diplomats and ambassadors who, by their work, seek to bring people into closer understanding. We pray for all who need their help as our world “shrinks” and we find more ways to get into trouble while abroad. We name Korea and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family.
  • We give thanks for those who, understanding the need for each person and country to have their own land, seek to promote peaceful interdependence not violence, especially where land is unfairly owned, where mineral rights are grabbed and water becomes a commercial weapon. We name South Africa; Rwanda; Mozambique; all countries along the course of the river Nile.
  • We give thanks for those who have studied our living, moving, changing earth especially those who study storms and volcanoes, giving rise to the production of power from wind, wave and geothermal sources. We pray for those who live with the fact that our earth is too big to control. We name Hawaii; Iceland; India.
  • We give thanks for those prepared to stand against separation and abuse. We pray for those suffering all kinds of discrimination, abuse and exclusion – such as the Windrush Generation in the UK and media programs which take action.

Who are my mother, brother, sister? All those whom God has created.
May it be so.

World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, May 24, 2018

“God hears ‘amen’ wherever we are.” –Radney M. Foster

We come to you, O Lord, from many places, joining our voices to praise you and to ask for your intercession.

We know You hear us regardless of where we are physically.

• In places where we hope peace is possible: between North and South Korea, between Israel and Palestine, and between the major political parties in many countrys.
• In places torn by war, violence, and all manner of human atrocities: Syria, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.
• In places of political unrest: Venezuela, Italy, and China.
• In places preparing for the Atlantic Hurricane season: the Caribbean islands, Mexico, Bermuda, and the United States, especially Puerto Rico.
• In homeless shelters, in refugee camps, in houses of worship, in cities, on farms, and in all those places we call home.

Lord, hear our prayer.

We know You hear us regardless of where we are emotionally:
those grieving and those celebrating,
those marrying and those divorcing,
the baptized and the buried,
those caring for children and for the elderly,
those laboring and those unemployed,
all people at a beginning or an end.

Lord, grant us thy peace.

We know You hear us regardless of where we are spiritually:
during Ramadan, during morning mass, during the Sabbath;
at the beginning of a yoga practice, a labyrinth, a pilgrimage;
at the end of our lullabies;
and in the midst of our doubts.

In a great universal exhale, we say together,
Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thurs., May 17, 2018

“Let us hear of joy and gladness,
that the body you have broken may rejoice”
                     -Psalm 51:8, adapted

We are your body, O God. Wonderfully made, and full of promise. We are your body, O God, broken, yet full of promise.

We are too often broken in our relationships with one another. Quick to believe the worst of others, quick to spread suspicion and allegations, quick to be manipulated into anger, fear, distrust.

This week, USA Today released the first analysis of the 3517 Facebook ads placed in the U.S. by a Russian organization leading up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. The overwhelming majority were designed to inflame race-related tensions, stir up distrust of immigrants and Muslims, or deepen religious divisions. These and similar efforts – they succeeded.

Spirit of compassion,
forgive.
Spirit of wisdom,
make us whole.

We are often too quick to break the covenants – spoken and unspoken – between nations.

Only a few days after agreeing to talks between North and South Korea, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reneged on the deal, claiming that drills between the South Korean and U.S. air forces are a rehearsal for an invasion of the North.

Spirit of compassion,
forgive.
Spirit of wisdom,
make us whole.

Our ability to understand is too often broken by our allegiances, our preconceptions, our maneuvering for power. Wounds get passed on, taken for granted, for generation after generation. Injustices overlaid with religious overtones and political interests keep compounding.

This week, just one day before Ramadan (the Muslim holy period of fasting, praying and helping others in need) began, the U.S. embassy in Israel officially relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On the same day, Israeli forces shot and killed 60 Palestinian protesters along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, injuring hundreds more. The Israeli government alleges terrorists wanted to use the protests as cover to cross into its territory and carry out attacks, and that the use of force was justified and unavoidable. Palestinians are crying foul, saying that Israel is attacking civilians. Many Western governments are accusing Israel of human rights violations. Some evangelical Christian groups are triumphantly proclaiming that relocating the embassy to Jerusalem is a sign that Christ is about to return. Anti-Semitism is increasing in many countries; anti-Muslim sentiment is also growing.

Meanwhile, in both Israel and Palestine, thousands and thousands are living in fear. Hundreds on both sides are mourning loved ones they have lost.

Even so, You, O God, know that we are wonderfully made, and full of promise.

Spirit of compassion,
forgive.
Spirit of wisdom,
make us whole.

“Let us hear of joy and gladness,
that the body you have broken may rejoice”

In all times and all ways, let us hear of joy and gladness, O God. Remind us of the joy with which you created us. Remind us of the love in which you hold us. Remind us of the path on which you lead us. Teach us that there is a way out of these abysses. Remind us that all our brokennesses will be made whole.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, January 11, 2018

“The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” – Heb. 4:12

Lord you provide for our needs and equip us to help, provide for the needs of others and for our world environment. Even as we see the contrasts of peoples lives and the events happening around them you provide the belt of truth which help us to name them.

We see the contrast of record-breaking cold and snow across the Midwestern & Eastern USA and recording-breaking heat across Australia; a devastating wild fire followed by torrential rain, floods, and mudslides in California and the possibly better air quality in Beijing. May we fasten the belt which enables us to truthfully name our part in the global climate change and devastation.

We lock our shields of faith together, in testudo formation, ready shod to deliver the gospel of peace in politics, to those in authority from governments and international companies to global organizations. We remember, especially, the Rohingya and Karen people of Myanmar; the people of Syria; the people of Korea both North and South; and in our own countries.

We think of those who have no voice and for whom we must proclaim, sharply as with the sword of the word, the possibility of education for all; freedom from sexual harassment; and safety from armed conflict. Remembering, especially, the women and female children of Pakistan, all children of the Middle East and those who seek education for themselves and their country.

When we see doctors, dentists, trained craftspeople poached from one country to another we call for the Word, living and active, able to judge our thoughts and intentions. We think of doctors from India being searched to work in England; of the skilled craftspeople asked to take their training to benefit firms who will not provide training in their local area.

Lord, in this world of contrasts give us the breastplate of righteousness to protect us from self-righteousness so that, shod with the things which make us ready to proclaim the gospel, we can walk through your world in integrity. Amen.