South Sudan

World News This Week in Prayer – January 31, 2019

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,
and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver,
until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. ~ Malachi 3:2-3

Day after day, O God, we call to you for change and redemption in our broken world. But Malachi reminds us that often change and redemption must begin with us, in the refining and purifying of our own lives and our own habits. As we look at the news across the world this week, help us to see our own shortcoming reflected in the stories we read:

Remind us of the consequences of our abuse of the earth and our desire for lifestyles of convenience at the expense of your creation as freezing temperatures in the United States and record heat in Australia cause the deaths of people and animals.
Remind us of our responsibility to each other as unrest in Venezuela and Zimbabwe continues to disproportionately hurt vulnerable populations like women and those experiencing poverty.
Remind us of the effects of our desire for power and control as we watch millions of your children suffer in war-torn countries like Yemen, Syria, and South Sudan, where daily suffering is too often and too easily ignored.
Remind us of our power to effect change in our political systems, even as we watch with weary eyes as Brexit conflict continues in the United Kingdom, hateful and incendiary language continues to pour from government leaders in the United States, and countries around the world continue the trend of turning inward and denying their duty to care for the last and least of those you created and love.

Be with us, Holy One, as we look at the mirror that shows us who we truly are, facing with boldness the role that our sin plays in the suffering of our world and even our own friends and families. Remind us that we can face our sinful selves without fear because we know that your purifying and refining grace have worked and will continue to work in each of us, transforming us into the people you call us to be so that we, in turn, might participate in your great mission of transforming the world. Teach us to pray with deep conviction and purpose, God of love and redemption, so that we might learn that, in the words of Mother Theresa, “prayer changes us, and we change things.”

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, January 10, 2019

And a voice came from above, “You are my beloved child; I love you.” – Luke 3:22

Baptized in water, sealed by the Spirit, marked with the sign of Christ our king:
Born of the Spirit, we are God’s children; joyfully now God’s praise we sing.
Michael Saward, tune: BUNESSAN

Holy One, you who love us beyond measure, you who regard each of us as your own beloved child, we come to you thirsty for the Good News; thirsty for forgiveness, thirsty for justice, thirsty for healing for this earth and all its peoples. Open our eyes, minds, and hearts to the realities of the world in which we live, that we might be filled with your compassion for all those who are in need or in pain, those who are lonely or in danger, those who are without a voice, and those for whom daily living is a trial beyond belief.
Hear us, Gracious God; your mercy is great.

We pray for all those for whom home has become a dangerous place: for the refugees fleeing to the United States from Central America; for Rahaf Al-Qunun, a young Saudi woman who has been granted refugee status by the United Nations and is being welcomed by Australia; for people from South Sudan, Yemen, and Syria who have been forced to flee home for their very lives. May they find a home in your compassionate love, and may we do our best to provide that love in our own lives and neighborhoods.
Hear us, Loving God; your mercy is great.

We pray for all those for whom justice has become a fleeting dream: for the people of the DR Congo, where the presidential election is still in dispute; for Nazanin Zafhari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian citizen who has been held in an Iranian prison for 1000 days and is being denied medical care; for the countless numbers at the southern border of the United States who long to have their requests for asylum heard; for those caught up in the United States criminal justice system for minor crimes and misdemeanors. Grant us courage to speak up and speak out when we see such injustices; grant us the awareness to see these people as our sisters and brothers, your own beloved children.
Hear us, Just God; your mercy is great.

We pray for those for whom freedom of speech is at risk, especially for the people of Venezuela and Guatemala. When they need someone to speak for them, let us not turn away but speak out in ways that are both daring and healing, that the leaders may know that their citizens have sisters and brothers in other places who care deeply.
Hear us, Courageous God; your mercy is great.

We pray, with thanksgiving, for the ways in which the schools of Capetown, South Africa, are making welcoming accommodations for transgender students, letting them know that they are of value, telling them with actions that they are God’s beloved children. Open our hearts to reach out to those in our own countries, in our own neighborhoods, in our own families, who need our hospitality and our acceptance, even as we need yours.
Hear us, Welcoming God; your mercy is great.

All of this we pray in the name of the One who Loves, the One who Comes, the One who calls us each sister or brother. Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, July 5, 2018

This week’s prayers are adapted, with permission, from a prayer written for U.S. Independence Day 2018 by Leslie Barnes Scoopmire.

(Inspired by the Preamble to the United States Constitution)

In peace, we pray to You, Lord, God:
from our rising to our resting
we give You thanks and praise for all your blessings.

We give you thanks for the 12 boys and their coach found alive after being trapped in a cave in Thailand by rising waters, for the divers who reached them with food and supplies, for all who are working to rescue them, and for the millions throughout the world who have held them in prayer during the search.
We give you thanks for the breakthrough in-vitro fertilization technique that may save the Northern White Rhino species – now down to two surviving females and no living males– from extinction; for all the gifts of this Earth, and all who work to protect and preserve them.

May we seek to form a more perfect union
with You and with each other,
loving our neighbors as ourselves,
sharing each other’s burdens,
seeking to relieve each other’s wants.

We pray for an end to the posturing and tit-for-tatting in the tariff wars started by U.S. President Donald Trump against Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union. We pray for sanity, caution, compassion and courage among U.S. leaders as Trump threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organization and violate its rules with impunity. We pray for all whose livelihoods are at stake.
We give thanks that all 329 municipalities in Bangladesh have agreed to join the United Nation’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign. Low-lying, densely populated Bangladesh is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, hit every year by cyclones that are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change. The UN Campaign will develop local action plans and improve infrastructures to prepare for disasters.

May we establish true justice as our foundation,
justice that builds and creates
rather than subjugates and destroys,
and work for an end to oppression, poverty, and prejudice,
remembering always the many mercies
we ourselves have received.

We pray for those who would want to make national criticism illegal. We pray for Poland, which has reduced the penalties in its controversial law against accusing the Polish nation of complicity in the Holocaust. In response to international pressures, jail time is no longer among the penalties.
We pray for the five people killed in a shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md. (U.S.), and for the courage and commitment of the remaining staff in getting out that day’s newspaper anyway. We pray for the countries where a free press is banned, for those who spread fake news and inflame the public against the media, and for all truth-seekers and truth-tellers everywhere.
We pray for the day when ethics will outweigh profit-making in every business venture. We give thanks that Kenya’s public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of two farm managers and several government officials over a dam which collapsed and killed more than 47 people in May. The dam had been constructed by unqualified staff and also broke environmental laws.
We pray for the day when compassion will universally be valued more highly than conformity. We pray for North Korea, where a high-ranking military officer was executed for giving out extra rice and corn rations to his troops.

May we ensure tranquility
by defending and protecting each other
in compassion and mercy,
that true liberty may be a blessing for all
grounded in our common life together.

We pray for the success of the peace agreement signed this week between South Sudan and rebels, where the past five years of fighting have displaced one in three South Sudanese from their homes. We pray that the promised ceasefire holds, that safe passage is indeed provided through which food, water and medicines can reach those in desperate need.
We pray that Russia, the U.S., and Jordan will use their influence to broker an immediate end to the fighting in southwest Syria – as they did last in persuading the Syrian government and rebels to create a de-escalation zone along the Jordanian border.
We pray for the eventual safe home-coming for the Rohingya people, still trapped in exile in the no-man’s-land between Myanmar and Bangladesh. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the camps earlier this week, hearing “unimaginable” accounts of atrocities.

May we work for the welfare of all
by giving of ourselves in unity, gentleness, and sacrifice,
rooted in God’s love,
grounded in the call to welcome and protect
those who turn to us for help or refuge,
and protecting the least among us always.

We pray for those whose homelands are no longer a place of safety. We pray for those from Africa trying to reach Europe, for those from South and Central America trying to reach the United States, for the many refugees trying to find someplace – anyplace – where they will be welcome.
We pray for the countries in the European Union that have reached a deal in principle on how to handle African refugees and migrants, but differ sharply on the implementation details, with no country yet willing to set up the “secure migrant processing centers” called for in the agreement.
We pray for the families separated by the U.S. “zero-tolerance” policies against would-be immigrants and asylum seekers. We pray for the children – some as young as toddlers – expected to represent themselves in immigration court.
We pray for all who have settled into new countries, only to find that those, too, are not places of safety. We pray for the 3-year-old refugee in Boise, Idaho (U.S.) who died after a man with an extensive criminal background stabbed her, five other children and three adults at her birthday party. We pray for all migrants who face distrust and anger, and all who harbor suspicion and hatred towards them. We pray for all who want to live together in peace.

May we secure the blessings of life, liberty, and happiness
and free ourselves
from all that chains us-
fear,
want,
suspicion,
jealousy,
division,
injustice-
and fully embrace and celebrate each other
in all our diversity.

Bless us and keep us, O God,
that we may dwell in peace, equality, and security all our days. AMEN

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, April 12, 2018

[Jesus] stood among them and said to them, ‘Shalom be with you.’ ~ Luke 24:36

God of creation and creativity, you’ve given us the gift of language and communication so that we might speak of and learn about you, however feeble our understanding might be. We often take the gift of words for granted, forgetting the deep richness of meaning in the words you speak to us. Remind us especially today and always of the meaning of Jesus’ words to his disciples and to us: “Shalom be with you.”

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to peace for all people. Bring calm and reason to world leaders who threaten one another economically, politically, and militarily, especially in Russia, China, and the United States of America. Send people of good faith and compassion to negotiate healing and peace in places of long-lasting and complicated conflict like Syria, Palestine, Myanmar, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and so many other countries around the world where your children continue to suffer.

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to justice for all people. Send your shalom to all governments leaders who are committed to improving lives and working for the prosperity of all. Make us aware of the fragility of our human hearts, so that we can guard against further instances of corruption like those currently playing out in South Africa and Brazil, where key government leaders have been charged or convicted. Remind us of our own role in creating communities of equality, where all people can live in safety and wholeness.

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to health for all people. Bring healing to all who suffer illness in mind, body, and spirit. We pray especially for those who have been abused like Yoshitane Yamasaki, a man in Japan who was kept in a cage by his father for 20 years, and childless women in Guinea, where a scammer sold harmful herbs that made the women’s stomachs swell and told them that they had become pregnant. We pray also for the grieving families of the children who died in a bus crash in Himachal Pradesh, India.

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to wholeness for all people. Embolden us to fight for change as we remember the empty and broken feelings of those who have lost loved ones to violence: the families of students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, USA; the families of those killed and injured in Muenster, Germany, when a van drove into a crowd; and the families of those who mourn the senseless deaths of people they love due to gun violence, terrorism, and hate.

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to safety for all people. Fill us with compassion for people who live in danger every day in Douma, Syria, where gas attacks threaten lives, and in Offa, Nigeria, where violent robberies have become routine.

Remind us that the shalom of God means a commitment to your future kingdom in all its fullness. Give us the boldness to pray as you taught us, “Thy kingdom come,” and then to act on that prayer, working for peace where there is war, justice where there is need, health where there is illness, wholeness where there is loss, and safety where there is fear and danger. Fill us with your shalom, so that we can carry your message of hope, love, and joy to the ends of the earth.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, 7th November 2017

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2, NRSV)

God of comfort, we live in a world that increasingly reveals its disconnection from you. We feel the deepening of the artificial divisions of nation, race, and religion as the Supreme Court in the United States allows a ban to go into effect that will prevent refugees and families from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. Wars and the threat of new conflicts abound, and fears mount as countries like North Korea demonstrate their military might with ever-escalating missile tests. We cry out to you in our exile and ask, ‘How long, O Lord?’ Bring to us the comfort that you have promised. Be present with us in our pain and fear and worry. Cause us to see your face in the faces of our neighbors both near and far.

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ (Isaiah 40:3-5, NRSV)

God of glory, we long for the day of your revelation. Your children around the world continue to suffer in places like Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Myanmar, and so many others. The earth cries out for justice as natural resources are abused and protected lands are exposed, like in the United States’ Bears Ears National Monument, which is set to lose 85% of its acreage in a policy change. The impact of pollution grows in places like Delhi, India, where toxic air quality levels have threatened the health of residents for weeks. Guide us in preparing the way for your coming. Give us hearts for service and wisdom to act with justice.

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’ (Isaiah 40:9, NRSV)

God of hope, in this season of Advent, remind us of the glad tidings of great joy that come to us as a baby in a manger. Open our eyes to the good news of Christ’s presence in our lives and in the lives of all people, especially those who suffer and are in need. And give us hope in the glorious future of your coming kingdom, when your justice shall reign and your love shall transform the world.

See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep. (Isaiah 40:10-11, NRSV)

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, October 19, 2017

Dear Lord,

Your people in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean have looked up into rain flooded skies and out onto destroyed homelands, waiting for water, food, shelter and the provision of medical care. Open the hearts of decision makers to release funds to continue the rescue, to bring relief and stability. Smooth the communications to move people to care as the USNS Comfort (US naval ship) waits for the needy. Help us to grow in compassion as a people as we listen to news from hurricane-devastated places and during the long recovery, not forgetting the gulf coast.

We pray for the Rohingya peoples who await smugglers to take them across the Naf River between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Others make the treacherous journey to safety through jungles and mountains and into refugee camps such as Balukali, Kutupalong and Nayapara, where the depth of need is continually expanding. Dear God, our Comforter and Protector, be with the nation of Bangladesh and the NGO’s as they summon all their capacity to meet the needs of these deeply suffering refugees. Surround exhausted families with nourishing sleep. Tend to the children who make up 60% of the refugees – lost and torn from their families. Open our eyes to the horror of genocide, as a people are being erased from Myanmar’s history and annihilated. Come Holy Spirit. Guide the world as it seeks to address this calamity.

Some look up into smoke and ash filled skies in the western United States barely escaping burning homes and a tortured landscape and yet 10,000 firefighters – including 100 women prisoners working as firefighters – move toward the flames. Renew their energy to endure and guard their steps. We are so grateful for their unique skills in this treacherous work. Dear God, provide shelter to families bereft of everything they owned. Sustain the communities in their great work of serving these families, providing food, a listening ear, counseling and guidance in next steps and getting in touch with family. Be with the 42 families who have lost loved ones and the 68 families with unaccounted for loved ones. Hold them in their distress.

Some hide in the shelter of darkness yet afraid. “Has the fighting stopped?” Oh Lord, how seemingly endless is the noise and dust and calamity of war and the horrific suffering, the interminable loss and degradation. We pray for the peoples caught in the wars within wars, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region of Kirkuk, for the police killed in Taliban raids and bombings in the Paktia and Ghazni provinces in Afghanistan. We pray for the dead and wounded civilians as they were waiting to get their identity cards. We pray for an end to 6 years of suffering in the Syrian civil war displacing 6.3 million people internally, causing the deaths of 400,000 with more than 5 million Syrians fleeing the country.

Open the hearts of combatants to give safe humanitarian access. Our hearts are torn again as we hear about the global food crisis, severe food insecurity, and the increasing risk of full on famine in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Some are too week to sit or even cry, hungry to the point of death. Oh God, you are listening. You surround them. You love them. Open our hearts. Help us to prayerfully consider our time, talent and treasure. Help us to share the wealth from our tables. Bring peace in those places where war creates famine, where conflict creates war, where war seems to be endless.

We watched with deep concern as Ireland and the UK received the effects of Hurricane Ophelia downgraded to a tropical storm. We are saddened at the loss of life as severe winds toppled trees on to cars. We are grateful for advanced warning such that the Irish Defense Forces were ready where needed and schools were closed keeping children safe. Be with families in their sudden grief and with those experiencing the deep deep losses in Portugal and Spain as wildfires fanned by the winds of the very same hurricane have brought further catastrophe. Again we pray for the 6,000 firefighters and nations called to come together in these wildfires. Be with the injured and their caregivers as severe burns are treated. Comfort those who are in mourning of the over thirty-two victims including a one-month old infant taken so quickly. Many weep for their cherished lands and fields, and livestock so vulnerable. Comfort them in their mourning. Give them your strength.

And your people in Mogadishu, where the Somali nation again suffers a bombing so despicable and barbaric with over 276 lives destroyed in an instant. Oh Lord, we take-in this news of the over 300 injured and suffering, and families still searching for the missing. We hear of the need for donor blood, the exhausted hospital staff, and how they keep going, as its populace is weeping, weeping, weeping. Help them as they assemble and arise as a people to discern steps for increased stability and safety in their nation. Comfort your people of Somalia in their great sorrow. Bring them peace.

Guide us in our faith. Help us to seek your will.

May we rush to understand one another, to love urgently, and to grow steadily in becoming more tolerant.

From you comes all blessings and life itself.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, 17 August 2017

We lift this prayer, written from the ancestral home of the llini, Miami, Shawnee, Dakota Sioux, Chickasaw, Winnebago, Delaware, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Huron-Wyandot, and Sac-Fox tribes with full respect for their creativity and courage.

We lift this prayer that will be read within many other geographic and cultural contexts with full respect for the various ways you have inspired leaders and followers to make every human city, and even every human household more like your household, more like the City of God, your city.

We lift this prayer expecting within a few days an eclipse of the sun, and we hope to acknowledge it with the awe Job felt when you answered his feverish complaining with the assurance that there was much he failed to understand.

Indeed, there is so much we fail to understand:

violent racism in the United States, not to mention fear of migrants,
indefinite prison in Jordan to ‘protect’ abused women and girls,
the likelihood of a very long exile for South Sudanese refugees,
the hundreds dead and missing in flooding and mudslides in Nepal and Sierra Leone,
suicide bombings in Nigeria,
those killed and injured in terror attacks in Burkina Faso and Barcelona, Spain,
the dozens killed and over one hundred injured in a train collision in Egypt,
illnesses, injuries, and misfortunes, our own and of others.

Jolt us, we pray, out of our uncompromising certainties.
Explode our imaginations with new possibilities.
Teach us to accept those who hold opinions we cannot approve.
Guide us in protecting interests beyond our own.
Forgive us when we are in error.
Love us into joining you with compassion for all creation.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer Thursday, July 20, 2017

^“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

~ Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)

Heavenly Father, we come before you – worn, weary, and hungry for the fruit of the Holy Spirit to fill out hearts and minds. Accepting this fruit – incorporating these gifts into our daily lives – is so difficult when we see what is happening around the world:

~ We read that there are over twenty million people suffering severe hunger in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria. The United Nations states that this is the worst hunger crisis since it was founded in 1945.

~ We are told that the hardest drought in more than twenty years is occurring in southern Europe and will cripple wheat and olive harvests in Italy and Spain.

~ We hear of the deaths of Hindu pilgrims in a bus crash in Kashmir, India, and of the deaths of a family in a flood in Arizona, US.

~ We see images of fires spreading rapidly, destroying hundreds of acres of land, and creating the evacuation of people from across western Canada, southern France, and California, US.

And yet, Lord, and yet… accepting Your fruit doesn’t have to be that difficult when we see what else is happening around the world:

~ We read that the International Rescue Committee and seven other organizations have joined forces to help fight the global food shortage in eastern Africa by providing water and food to hard-to-reach areas, providing sanitation support, and assisting with mobile health centers.

~ We are told that a group of conservationists in Iceland has formed the Icelandic Wildlife Fund so that they can fight plans to increase industrial-scale salmon farming in order to help preserve and protect fjords and rivers.

~ We hear that a Member of Parliament from Quebec addressed Canada’s House of Commons in Mohawk, speaking in the indigenous language for the first time since the Canadian legislature was established in 1867.

~ We see photographs of inter-species bonding which were taken at the Ngorongoro conservation area in Tanzania where, for the first time, a wild lioness was seen nursing a baby leopard.

Heavenly Father, we know there is political unrest, oppression, and violence of every kind in this world, but we also know there are people helping people every day, and people volunteering their time, talent, and money to make this world better. Lord, stop us from being worn and weary, erase any barriers stopping us from fully accepting Your gifts, open our hearts and minds, and fill our lives with the fruit of the Holy Spirit:

Help us love everyone the way You love us.

Help us lead joy-filled lives as an example to others that joy changes mindsets.

Help us live in peace and offer peace to each other as a way of life.

Help us be patient in every circumstance and with every person we meet.

Help us offer kindness to each other every chance we get.

Help us choose to be good to one another all the time.

Help us be faithful to You, Lord, and to our spouses, children, family, and friends.

Help us opt for gentleness whenever possible.

Help us practice self-control in every facet of our lives.

By leading lives filled with the fruit of the Spirit, Lord, help us change the world we live in and the lives of those around us.

Amen.

World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, June 22, 2017

Lord,

I can see the cherries ripening on the tree outside. The raspberries redden almost quicker than I can pick, but there are those for whom there will be no harvest. As sparrows happily investigate the fruit, they remind me, everyone is of more value than sparrows. Deep down we really know this, however much we demand to know where You are. So, we boldly pray for our world and all the events and circumstances which in such a brash way demand top billing in the news.

We pray for the people of Texas, Louisiana and all along the Ohio River Valley, U.S.A. and all of those who suffer from the effects of flash flooding and tornadoes from tropical storm Cindy.

We pray for the people of northern Britain where torrential thunderstorms follow summer heat.

We pray for the people of Portugal; the fire fighters, those killed, injured and those who care; as wildfire burns across their mountains.

We pray for the people of the Central African Republic where fighting continues a day after a ceasefire came into force.

We pray for the people of South Sudan who the world seems to have abandoned.

We pray for the people of Eastern Africa as drought deepens and now, as in Southern Africa crops are being threatened by the Fall Armyworms.

We pray for the people of the Middle East, today, thinking of Saudi Arabia with the announced change of crown prince, of Yemen with the continuing conflict, famine and now cholera, and of Qatar being blockaded and how all these events work together.

As Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan we pray for our Muslim neighbors; those caught in the car attack near the Finsbury Park mosque, London, U.K.; the sadness of Syria; the effect of a Kurdish independence vote on Iraq and for Iran and Turkey.

We pray for the Philippines as the Government continues its battles against ISIS and communist rebels. In doing so we cannot fail to think of the mounting pressures in the Korean peninsula; of the many conflicting claims around the South China Sea and of the asylum seekers held by the Australian government on Manus Island and Nauru.

We pray for the people of Venezuela as medical crisis and food shortages grip and for the people of Argentina where one in eight children suffers in poverty and food insecurity.

Lord, all this is happening as I sit here complaining that it’s too hot, on the hottest day in June for 40 years in Britain. Remind me that it’s not really that hot and there are many who would love it to be as cool as this! In all these situations and many more You are here asking what we are doing for we are worth more than sparrows. We give thanks that You hear our prayers and make them worthwhile.

Amen.