Faces of Children: Prayer Concerns for This Week

Faces of Children is an ecumenical prayer ministry under the auspices of First Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas. Our mission is to initiate ministries of prayer for children in churches, communities, and neighborhoods. In doing so, we seek to provide an opportunity for people of God to join together, learn about children and their needs throughout the world, and celebrate Christ's love (especially as it relates to children).

Prayer Concerns for the Week of 11/26/14

Bangladesh

• Please keep in prayer girls at risk of being forced into marriage at a young age in Bangladesh. This South Asian country has the second highest rate of child marriage in the world.
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• Pray the Bangladeshi government will reconsider new legislation that proposes to lower the minimum age of marriage for a girl from 18 to 16 years. Please pray their government leaders will instead reinforce a largely ignored 30-year-old law that bans marriage for girls under age 18.
• Pray for girls who are forced into marriage before their bodies are mature enough to engage in sex or safely carry a pregnancy to term. Pray for child brides who are denied the opportunity to attend school, who are isolated from society, and for those who are forced into a lifetime of economic dependence.
• Please pray for the estimated 74 percent of Bangladeshi women, currently aged 20 to 49, who were married off before they were 18 years of age. Pray for those who have experienced rape, domestic violence, and forced pregnancies because they were coerced into marriage at a young age.
• Pray the practice of forced child marriages will end…that the social acceptance of this form of child abuse will stop.

Syria

• Keep close in prayer an estimated 150 children who were kidnapped and tortured by Islamic State militants (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Syria. The children, most from a Kurdish town on the Syrian border with Turkey, were kidnapped last May as they returned home from taking school exams in Aleppo.
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• Pray for children who were forced to watch videos of Islamic State militants in combat and beheading captives. Pray for those who were beaten with cables when they didn’t conform to the strict religious indoctrination and training forced on them by these radical Islamist militants.
• Pray for children who were singled out by the militants because of their connections to the Kurdish militia. Children with family members in the Kurdish militia were forced to give IS the addresses of those relatives and were then told these Kurdish militia members would be hunted down and killed.
• Give God thanks for the release of these young hostages. The last of them were released late last month when they were told their religious education was now over. Pray they will find safe shelter and be reunited with their families. Pray God will provide them with the resources they need to heal from long months of trauma and torture. Pray for their physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental healing.
• Pray for the freedom of those still held by IS militants and for an end to the brutality IS dispenses so ruthlessly.
• Pray for peace in this troubled region.

United States

• Please pray God will bring healing and peace to 26-year-old Paige who has been given a terminal cancer diagnosis. Pray this young mother and her husband Kevin will experience God’s comforting presence through the love and support of their community. Pray for their 2-year-old daughter Olivia during this season of confusion and sickness. Pray God will sustain Kevin as he takes care of his little girl and his dying wife.
• Give thanks to God 17-year-old Taylor* will graduate next month from her therapy program at a residential treatment facility. Taylor was diagnosed with a serious mental illness last year and has worked hard to regain her emotional and physical health as well as strengthen her resiliency. Thanks be to God for this amazing treatment program and the staff and therapy specialists who have helped Taylor during this challenging season.
     o Please pray for Taylor as she returns home next month…that she will remember all the tools she’s worked hard to acquire in her time away. Pray she will experience God’s peace that surpasses all understanding as she reenters home life.
     o Continue to keep in prayer Taylor’s siblings, 19-year-old Ernest* and 13-year-old Melissa*, as they have been deeply affected by their sister’s mental illness. Pray God will bring healing to their hearts and minds and their relationships with their sister.
     o Please continue in prayer for Taylor’s parents as they bring their daughter home. Give thanks to God for the hard work they have done in family therapy to learn how best to help Taylor and their family. Pray God will sustain them in this new chapter and continue to guide them.

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.

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If you have prayer requests about children, those who care for them, those who have authority over them, or those who harm them (the really hard prayers to say sometimes), please send them to Chris Laufer, FOC Coordinator, at claufer@facesofchildren.net