Burma
- Pray for children in Burma who are affected by armed conflict. Pray for those recruited to be soldiers and those who are victims of sexual violence in the theater of conflict. Pray for children used by the Burma Army as porters, kitchen workers, farmers, laborers on road construction, and aides to high ranking officers. Pray for those recruited into resistance forces and village militias (like the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army [DKBA], the Kachin Independence Army [KIA], the Karen National Liberation Army [KNLA], the Karen National Union-Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council, the Karenni army, the Shan State Army-South [SSA-S], and the United Wa State Army [UWSA]). http://www.irrawaddy.org/
article.php?art_id=21286 - Pray for working and unaccompanied children who are recruited from the streets, railway stations, or other public places. And pray for children recruited from their homes or villages by family members or soldiers promising them a better life.
- Pray for the freedom of children who are forced into servitude or combat in areas of conflict. Pray for their healing and the restoration of their innocence. Pray that all children affected by armed conflict will be provided effective protection and relief.
Uganda
- Please keep in prayer the girls and women of Northern Uganda who have returned to their communities after being abducted and forced into the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Many were made to carry guns and fight, or be sex partners, spies, porters, cooks, or logisticians for the LRA. Pray for those who are stigmatized and not accepted in their homes or communities because they were in this rebel group. Pray for those who have been forced from their ancestral homes and now make a living by prostituting themselves, brewing alcohol, washing clothes, fetching water, or weeding neglected land.
- Pray for the children to whom these women and girls have given birth in the bush after being forced to serve as “wives” to LRA commanders. Pray for these “bush children” who are treated with hostility and shunned by family and community because of the circumstances of their birth.
- Pray that more reintegration facilities will be opened to help these female ex-combatants, as well as their families and friends, readjust. Please pray that they will be able to reintegrate socially as well as economically into their communities. Existing programs for these returnees don’t provide sufficient skills training for marketable jobs or access to education. Pray that medical care will be more available for those who have been victims of sexual violence and physical trauma during their captivity in the LRA. http://tinyurl.com/3tw5rk6
United States
- Please keep the children and people of Missouri and other Midwestern states in prayer following a season of very severe weather. Seventy tornadoes were produced by a storm system that affected states from Texas to Michigan. Pray for those in Joplin, Missouri who experienced a monster tornado (the deadliest tornado in U.S. history since 1953) that tore a six mile wide path through their city. Pray for those who lost family and friends, homes and schools. http://tinyurl.com/3oga82n
- Please continue to keep in prayer the children, youth, and people of the Spirit Lake Reservation in north central North Dakota. Over seventy percent of the population on the reservation is under 25 and there is a high incidence of suicides, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, and children giving birth to children.
o Pray for those affected by continued flooding on the reservation—many have longer treks to school and work because of it. http://www.spiritlakenation.
o Pray for the family and friends of two children, a 9-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, who were recently found murdered. Pray for their mother, who found their bodies in their father’s home on the Spirit Lake Reservation—the parents had recently separated. Please keep the other two siblings, a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, held close in prayer during this frightening and difficult time. Pray for justice for these children and comfort and peace for their family. http://tinyurl.com/3u7ld75
Faces of Children
- Please continue to pray that more churches and individuals will join with the ministry of Faces of Children in spreading awareness about children in crisis and inviting more people to pray for children at risk.
