World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Yemen

Yemen is prayed for here mainly through war, hunger and a health system stretched past its limits, with cholera, water shortages and cuts to aid named plainly. Refugees living within its borders are remembered as well. These prayers return often to the concern that Yemen is slipping from the world's attention.

May Our Groans Be Prayer: For Gun Violence, Hunger in Afghanistan and Yemen, and Nepal (June 2, 2022)

God, there are hardly any words for these times. You promise that when we are in these unfathomable places Your very Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words. We need that now, as we groan through our exhausted bodies and tattered hearts. May our groans be prayer, be release for all we feel without […]

Relative and Absolute Poverty: A Prayer for Those Slipping Into Want (March 31, 2022)

Creator God, I am so privileged that I don’t know I am!   Living here in the first world it is striking to hear someone explain the difference between “relative poverty” and “absolute poverty.”   We pray that we are forgiven our attempts to pray for the whole world while neglecting to centre ourselves on You.  As the seasons […]

Teach Us to Recognise Your Accent: A Prayer for Ukraine and the Conflicts the World Forgot (March 10, 2022)

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.” Ps 27:8 (New Living Translation) In stillness let us hear your voice, God. Easy to say, but hard to do. The endless whirl and explosion of thoughts in our heads force their way to grab our […]

Sing a New Church Into Being: A Prayer for Human Dignity, Melting Permafrost, and Water (January 13, 2022)

As the scheduled writer for this week, I, like so many others, am finding life in its beauty and complexity challenging, dispiriting, frustrating, with more questions than answers and often don’t want to hear what I think God is trying to say to me as the way forward: more of the same old, same old…? […]

O Come, O Come Emmanuel: Prayers for Migrants, the Michigan School Shooting, and Yemen (December 2, 2021)

O Come, O Come Emmanuel God with us, We are so grateful that you are with us. In every moment of our being. The moments when we feel You beating in echo with our hearts and the moments when we feel completely alone.  We do not have to ask, You are already and always with […]

How Shall I Pray Today: Prayers for Drought and Floods, Afghanistan’s Girls, and David Amess (October 21, 2021)

How shall I pray, today, Lord? So many topics, situations, peoples, needs, joys, and problems all clamoring for attention and my thoughts are whirling and screaming. Calm us, Lord, as you calmed the storm on Galilee for your disciples. “The world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; the earth and all who live […]

Lord, What Is Happening: Prayers for India’s Pandemic, Global Famine, and Mount Meron (May 6, 2021)

Lord, we thought the human world had turned a corner in the pandemic, so we watch and listen with despair at the news from India and pray and hope the same will not happen in Papua New Guinea. Lord, mighty and marvelous, what is happening? We name especially Yemen, Haiti, Syria, South Sudan and Tigray, […]

Lessons from Cranes and Geese: El Salvador’s Election, Afghanistan, and Migrants (March 4, 2021)

As most of you know, World in Prayer is written by a team whose members take turns writing the prayers. And I, who am writing this week – I ran out of words a long time ago. Trapped in what seemed like near-isolation by the pandemic; anguished by its resulting ever-growing number of deaths and […]