“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40: 28-31)
Oh Lord, why do I feel that I am left muttering impotently about Things. I want to stamp my feet and ask “Haven’t they heard? Don’t they know?”
We pray for the people of France as the Government suggests a thoroughly tested vaccine is not suitable for over 65’s.
We pray for the farmers of India amid escalating violence and viciousness of the barricades
We pray about the increasingly unsettled and violent situation in Afghanistan, increasingly focussed on females of all ages.
We pray for the people of Myanmar, suddenly finding the military has staged a coup against the Government.
We pray for the many unsettled countries across East Africa – Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
We pray for the people of San Salvador as Médecins Sans Frontières suspends work.
We pray for the people of Bolivia as the Government refuses a lockdown and hospitals are overwhelmed.
We pray for the people of the USA, finding a new way with a new Government, already seeing changes in their foreign policy and a task force established to re-unite separated adult migrants with children.
We pray for the team of investigators, led by WHO, in Hubei Province, China, a year after the Doctor who tried to warn about a new virus died.
We pray for the people of Great Britain, with one of the worst Covid 19 outbreaks in the world also dealing with the changes to border controls following Brexit. This threatens the fragile peace in Northern Ireland.
We give thanks for the small signs of hope and joy so often overlooked in our media outlets:
- the women in a small village in Nigeria who saved up some allowances for essentials to buy a car to transport pregnant women in an emergency to their local hospital 30km away where roads are virtually non-existent. This has cut the death rate of women and babies dramatically. Similar help is now available to other isolated villages.
- Chefs with Compassion – a group of chefs in South Africa are using unsold food, which would be dumped to provide meals for those in need. Currently 25% of South Africans are estimated to go to bed hungry from the economic fallout existing before the pandemic hit and is now much worse.
- we give thanks for all those community groups of whatever faith or none, doing any sort of work to help their neighbors in need across the globe; so often this is unnoticed but spreads love and compassion – a healing combination.
Lord, renew our strength to soar into battle over all the problems we hear about; to run to deal with those things we each, as individuals and countries, can sort out; and finally to walk in your way.
Amen
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