Picture on Facebook of a Woman With a Baby Asking for Prayers
Children are a precious gift from God. As adults, we have the privilege and responsibility to intendance for them, pray for all children's protection and safety, and help children around united states alive the total and abundant life God desires for them. Sadly, love and security aren't the reality for hundreds of millions of children who suffer from sexual exploitation, labor in chancy conditions, or struggle to survive on the streets.
In some places, warfare can separate children from their families, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. Children are too forced to join armed rebel groups to serve every bit soldiers, porters, sex slaves, and more. Farthermost drought and hunger force families to make desperate choices about putting children to work or girls into child marriage.
Despite beingness outlawed in many countries, girls are notwithstanding undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM), and some girls aren't built-in at all because of prenatal sexual practice pick. In other places, children are trafficked for sex, sent to work in dangerous factories, or locked into domestic servitude. And in some countries — the U.S. included — gang violence tears families apart and creates a culture of violence that draws youth into harmful activities.
Child corruption, fail, exploitation, child labor, bodily harm, child spousal relationship, and other forms of harm against children — even murder and kid cede — are among the greatest evils in the world. Bring together us in prayer for the protection of children, for an stop to all damage against children, for the children who remain trapped in this nightmare, and for World Vision's work to protect children effectually the globe.
I have come in order that y'all might have life — life in all its fullness.—John 10:10 (GNT)
Samira* loved going to school and longed to continue her education. Nonetheless, at the age of 14, her family could no longer afford that luxury. They sent her to live and work with her older sisters in Bombay, Bharat.
Samira asked her sister'southward husband to detect some work as domestic help in someone's house. He came to her one 24-hour interval saying he'd found a expert opportunity for her, but instead, he gave her to traffickers who pushed her into the world of commercial sexual exploitation in the brothels of Mumbai.
She spent three months in captivity in a brothel.
"What I went through, I would not want any other girl or woman to go through," she says.
She likewise faced the heartbreak that it was a family member who had trafficked her.
Pray for supernatural protection for children.
The criminals who exploit children roam the earth like the predators they truly are, looking to casualty upon the vulnerable. They use lies, threats, coercion, and violence to force children into sexual and other kinds of exploitation. This is an evil business concern of supply and demand. Ask God to eliminate the demand and blind their eyes from seeing potential "supply" in children.
Dear Lord, Your Word is filled with accounts of miraculous protection. We claim that ability for vulnerable children. Brand Your footling ones invisible to people who seek to exploit them. Whisper in the ears of the children to run and hide until the danger passes.
Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the mitt of the wicked. —Psalm 82:3–4 (NIV)
Pray for the prophylactic of children working in hazardous weather condition.
Worldwide, 152 1000000 children are involved in child labor. Of these, 73 million are involved in the worst forms of kid labor, including mining, construction, scavenging, domestic and factory work, and agriculture. Hazardous conditions endanger children's health, condom, and moral development. Ask God to keep children from harm as they struggle under heavy loads and work with unsafe tools and harsh chemicals.
Lord, we know You dear all children, and we pray that when they must work, that Y'all would protect children's growing bodies. Please go along them safe and free of injuries and toxins. Evangelize them from oppressive bosses and hazardous conditions. Make it possible from children at risk to stay in school.
Jesus said, "Let the picayune children come up to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such equally these." —Matthew nineteen:xiv (NIV)
Pray to eradicate the root causes of child exploitation.
Child exploitation means using a child for turn a profit, labor, sexual gratification, or for some other personal or financial advantage. At the heart of child exploitation are complex problems, including extreme poverty that tin can lead parents to sell their children. Sometimes moms and dads are tricked into believing that their children volition work in a wealthy person'south home and volition be treated adequately. But many are held every bit virtual slaves. Throughout the earth, sin leads people to put their evil desires above all else, ignoring how they destroy the lives of innocent children. Ask God to practice what only He tin — soften people'due south hearts and heal their minds.
Dear Lord, Your Word calls us to hunger and thirst for righteousness — a righteousness that leads to compassion for the poor and a renewing of minds. Lead u.s. to this kind of faith that works to brand a better world for all children.
He has told you, O mortal, what is proficient. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to honey mercy and to walk humbly with your God. —Micah 6:8 (NIV)
Pray for an end to kid labor.
Child labor tin be fought at many levels — governments can enact or strengthen laws around human trafficking and labor; corporations can ensure that children are non exploited along their supply bondage; communities can take greater responsibleness for collectively protecting children; families tin can value their children'south well-being in a higher place economics. Pray for the ability of God'due south love to counter greed and desperation to modify the hearts of people who tin create amend circumstances for children.
Lord, You lot are our provider, and we know all good things come from Your hand. Assistance families to find reliable incomes and then children don't accept to work. We pray that laws and cultural practices would help protect children from a childhood of abuse and suffering.
"Considering the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will at present arise," says the LORD. "I will protect them from those who malign them." —Psalm 12:v (NIV)
Pray for an terminate to man trafficking.
After 3 months, Samira and few girls were taken to a hotel for work. A police raid happened while they were there. Some of the girls who'd been at the brothel longer hid, simply Samira saw it as an opportunity to escape. She ran to the police asking for assistance.
Police took her to a shelter dwelling house in Mumbai and so one in Kolkata for a full of six months where she could begin to recover and heal. Finally she was able to return to live with another sister who raised her. She continues to heal by working with a World Vision case worker.
Homo trafficking is modernistic-twenty-four hour period slavery. Most 40.iii one thousand thousand people worldwide are existence trafficked for the sexual activity trade, forced labor, forced union, and other illegal purposes. And evidence from Alliance 8.seven suggests that 1 in 4 modern slaves are children. Many are sold into prostitution to pay off family debts or abducted from the streets and forced to piece of work in brothels. Children who escape or are rescued face a difficult concrete and emotional recovery process — often suffering with PTSD, anxiety, low, and substance corruption.
Beloved God, at that place are times when it is right — and righteous — to be angry. It is right to exist angry virtually people who exploit children. Let that righteous anger fuel activeness, Lord. Don't let information technology fade into self-approbation.
Speak up and guess adequately; defend the rights of the poor and needy. —Proverbs 31:ix (NIV)
Pray for female person genital mutilation (FGM) to cease.
Sixteen-year-old Religion loves didactics and longs to study nursing at the academy. She was on course when COVID-19 caused schools to close down in Kenya.
"I was afraid of going home considering ane of my friends had gotten married off and another underwent FGM during the Dec 2019 schoolhouse holidays," she says, at her abode situated in West Pokot County, Kenya.
Breaks from school pose a danger for girls in communities that still exercise FGM like Faith'southward. World Vision encourages communities to abandon FGM through mentorship programs such as the Republic of kenya Large Dream Project. Participants receive Alternative Rites of Passage training, which offers a mode to affirm traditional values while also upholding girls' dignity.
Girls transition into womanhood through alternative methods, without existence circumcised and married off. Both girls and boys larn well-nigh reproductive health, child rights, proficient health, and the harmful effects of FGM.
Boys, men, girls, and women all participate in the preparation sessions then they can become anti-FGM champions in their communities.
In fact, Religion's mother told Religion about the workshops. She accompanied Organized religion to the training and became an abet against FGM afterward the first day. Now they both visit communities sharing what they've learned about the harm that FGM causes and offer girls and boys alternative rites of passage.
World Vision and other organizations are educating and empowering girls and their communities to end FGM, ofttimes substituting positive rites of passage for teen girls and boys.
But COVID-nineteen has taken a toll. Due to pandemic-related disruptions in prevention programs, an estimated 2 1000000 FGM cases could occur over the next decade that would otherwise have been averted.
Lord God, aid families that practice FGM run across its damaging effects on girls and young women. Motivate these families to plow away from inhumane practices, and we pray that You protect their female children from all forms of harm, including FGM. Help the Alternative Rites of Passage programs that take been delayed by the pandemic exist restored so that more girls don't take have to undergo FGM. Lay a paw of protection over girls at risk of FGM.
Exist devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. —Romans 12:x (NIV)
Pray for an end to kid marriage.
In developing countries, one-third of girls are forced to ally earlier their 18th birthday. Fear of premarital pregnancy, rape, hunger, homelessness, and harmful traditional practices are all drivers of child marriage. Girls will also marry because of threats and compulsion. Of the 25 countries with the highest rates, the majority are afflicted by conflict, fragility, or natural disasters.
Girls trapped in child marriage tend to be poor, under-educated, and live in rural areas where birth and death rates are loftier and conflict is common. They are more likely to experience domestic violence, forced sexual relations, and poor reproductive health.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts to end child marriage, which may issue in an estimated boosted 13 million child marriages taking place between 2020 and 2030 that otherwise would non have occurred.
World Vision helps organize local leaders, parents, educators, law enforcement, and social services to back up girls in pursuing education and fugitive child union. And World Vision children's clubs empower girls with data, especially on child rights and salubrious physical development.
Lord, nosotros echo the psalmist's conviction that Yous will deliver those who cry out to You lot for help. See to the needs of precious girls and boys vulnerable to child union or already trapped in its grasp. Hear and answer their cries for help. Remove the barriers caused by the pandemic and protect those who are most at-risk for child marriage. May cultures where it is accepted and encouraged learn of the harm it causes to children and change these societies.
For he will deliver the needy who weep out, the afflicted who take no ane to help. —Psalm 72:12 (NIV)
Pray for an end to child sacrifice.
Child sacrifice is an anathema. In certain districts of Uganda, witchdoctors convince people desperate for money to bear children or to rid their bodies of disease that tin can but be cured past traditional medicine mixed with a kid'due south body part, such every bit the head, fingers, or private parts. Ritual demands that the parts be removed while the kid is still live and conscious. World Vision's Bister Alert-style program is taking on child cede in Uganda.
Father, we come to You lot in prayer to protect Your children from abductors who prey on the most vulnerable. Bless the radical partnership between leaders of all faiths, police force enforcement, traditional healers, and communities to stop child sacrifice once and for all. Comfort grieving parents in their fourth dimension of unimaginable loss.
Rescue those existence led away to death; concord back those staggering toward slaughter. —Proverbs 24:eleven (NIV)
Pray for children to detect their identity in Christ — not gangs.
Drug trafficking, gang activity, piece of cake admission to guns, and ineffective justice systems take contributed to high levels of criminal offence and violence in Central America and urban areas worldwide. Even people living in small towns fear being robbed, threatened, extorted, or kidnapped. In a 2019 report released by The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice — a United mexican states City-based advocacy grouping — 23 of the nigh 50 well-nigh violent cities in the globe are in the Latin America/Caribbean region. Pray for Globe Vision's work, which helps young people find their identity in Christ — non gangs — and teaches them vocational skills so they can better resist the temptation of like shooting fish in a barrel money from criminal activities.
Lord, chaos and fear cripple communities overrun by gang violence. Thank you then much for the gift of Your Son. Through Him, we truly get a new cosmos. We merits Jesus' blessing for peacemakers in Matthew v:ix. Help young people encounter themselves the manner Yous see them, so they can help bring peace and hope to other people'southward lives.
"Blest are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." —Matthew v:9 (NIV)
Pray for all eyes to be opened about child exploitation.
Child exploitation isn't but a problem "somewhere else." Information technology's an issue everywhere, including the most developed countries. Anyone can be exploited or trafficked, regardless of race, class, teaching, gender, age, or citizenship. Ask God to open the hearts and minds of people everywhere to recognize the signs of child exploitation and give them the courage to take a stand for protection.
Beloved Lord, Your Discussion tells us that it is a sin to do nothing when it'south in our power to assist someone in need. Aid us to speak out like Angel against crimes against children. Prod us to human activity whenever we suspect that a kid is in danger. Don't finish prompting u.s. until we do the correct thing.
"Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed." —Isaiah ane:17 (NIV)
Pray for World Vision's work to protect children.
Inspired by Earth Vision founder Bob Pierce's prayer, "Let my eye be broken with the things that break the heart of God," World Vision works to protect children from all forms of harm. This includes preventing children from being trapped in calumniating circumstances; protecting children with shelter and healthcare; and restoring children through life-skills preparation, educational activity, and reintegration with families. Pray for force and courage for staff at the forefront of this work and for donors to give generously to help even more than children.
Prince of Peace, You know the challenges our brothers and sisters confront in helping people and working for peace. Nosotros ask that You give grace to World Vision's staff to fulfill the responsibilities You've placed in their hands. Thank you for empowering them to exist Your hands and feet.
"Let u.s. not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." —Galatians vi:nine (NIV)
*Name changed for protection
Kari Costanza, Chris Huber, Denise C. Koenig, and Kathryn Reid of World Vision'due south U.Due south. staff, Martin Muluka of Globe Vision Kenya'southward staff, and Neola D'Souza of World Vision's India staff contributed to this story.
Source: https://www.worldvision.org/child-protection-news-stories/matthew-25-protecting-children-prayer
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