Prayers for American African Kids to Read
Children are a precious souvenir from God. As adults, we have the privilege and responsibility to care for them, pray for all children's protection and safety, and assistance children around us live the total and arable life God desires for them. Sadly, dearest and security aren't the reality for hundreds of millions of children who suffer from sexual exploitation, labor in hazardous atmospheric condition, or struggle to survive on the streets.
In some places, warfare can separate children from their families, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. Children are also forced to join armed rebel groups to serve as soldiers, porters, sex slaves, and more. Farthermost drought and hunger force families to make desperate choices about putting children to piece of work or girls into child marriage.
Despite being outlawed in many countries, girls are still undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM), and some girls aren't born at all because of prenatal sexual practice selection. In other places, children are trafficked for sex activity, 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, neglect, exploitation, child labor, bodily harm, child union, and other forms of harm against children — fifty-fifty murder and child sacrifice — are amongst the greatest evils in the world. Join us in prayer for the protection of children, for an end to all harm against children, for the children who remain trapped in this nightmare, and for Earth Vision's work to protect children around the world.
I have come in social club that yous might have life — life in all its fullness.—John 10:10 (GNT)
Samira* loved going to school and longed to proceed her education. However, at the age of 14, her family unit could no longer afford that luxury. They sent her to live and work with her older sisters in Bombay, India.
Samira asked her sister's husband to detect some work as domestic help in someone's house. He came to her one 24-hour interval maxim he'd found a adept opportunity for her, only 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 become through," she says.
She also faced the heartbreak that it was a family unit fellow 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, compulsion, and violence to force children into sexual and other kinds of exploitation. This is an evil business of supply and demand. Ask God to eliminate the demand and blind their optics from seeing potential "supply" in children.
Honey Lord, Your Discussion is filled with accounts of miraculous protection. We claim that power for vulnerable children. Brand Your little ones invisible to people who seek to exploit them. Whisper in the ears of the children to run and hibernate 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 hand of the wicked. —Psalm 82:3–4 (NIV)
Pray for the safety of children working in hazardous weather.
Worldwide, 152 million children are involved in child labor. Of these, 73 one thousand thousand are involved in the worst forms of child labor, including mining, construction, scavenging, domestic and factory work, and agriculture. Hazardous conditions endanger children'south health, safety, and moral development. Ask God to continue children from harm as they struggle under heavy loads and work with unsafe tools and harsh chemicals.
Lord, we know You lot love all children, and we pray that when they must work, that You lot would protect children'southward growing bodies. Delight proceed them safe and gratuitous of injuries and toxins. Deliver them from oppressive bosses and hazardous atmospheric condition. Make it possible from children at risk to stay in schoolhouse.
Jesus said, "Permit the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such every bit these." —Matthew 19:xiv (NIV)
Pray to eradicate the root causes of kid exploitation.
Child exploitation means using a child for turn a profit, labor, sexual gratification, or for some other personal or financial reward. At the heart of child exploitation are circuitous bug, including extreme poverty that tin lead parents to sell their children. Sometimes moms and dads are tricked into believing that their children volition work in a wealthy person'due south home and volition be treated fairly. But many are held as virtual slaves. Throughout the globe, sin leads people to put their evil desires above all else, ignoring how they destroy the lives of innocent children. Ask God to practise what only He tin — soften people's hearts and heal their minds.
Beloved 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. Pb us to this kind of faith that works to make a ameliorate world for all children.
He has told you lot, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. —Micah half dozen:8 (NIV)
Pray for an cease to child labor.
Kid labor can 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 chains; communities tin take greater responsibility for collectively protecting children; families can value their children's well-being above economics. Pray for the power of God's love to counter greed and desperation to change the hearts of people who tin can create better circumstances for children.
Lord, Yous are our provider, and we know all good things come up from Your paw. Aid families to find reliable incomes so children don't take to work. We pray that laws and cultural practices would assistance protect children from a babyhood of abuse and suffering.
"Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will now arise," says the LORD. "I volition protect them from those who malign them." —Psalm 12:v (NIV)
Pray for an cease to man trafficking.
Subsequently 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 every bit an opportunity to escape. She ran to the police request for help.
Police took her to a shelter home in Bombay and then i in Kolkata for a total of six months where she could begin to recover and heal. Finally she was able to return to live with another sis who raised her. She continues to heal by working with a World Vision example worker.
Human trafficking is mod-day slavery. Nearly twoscore.3 million people worldwide are beingness trafficked for the sex trade, forced labor, forced marriage, and other illegal purposes. And bear witness from Brotherhood viii.7 suggests that 1 in iv modern slaves are children. Many are sold into prostitution to pay off family unit debts or abducted from the streets and forced to work in brothels. Children who escape or are rescued confront a difficult physical and emotional recovery procedure — often suffering with PTSD, anxiety, low, and substance abuse.
Honey God, there are times when it is right — and righteous — to be angry. Information technology is correct to be angry about people who exploit children. Let that righteous anger fuel action, Lord. Don't let it fade into self-approbation.
Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. —Proverbs 31:9 (NIV)
Pray for female genital mutilation (FGM) to terminate.
Sixteen-twelvemonth-erstwhile Faith loves education and longs to study nursing at the university. She was on course when COVID-19 caused schools to close down in Kenya.
"I was afraid of going home because one of my friends had gotten married off and some other underwent FGM during the December 2019 school holidays," she says, at her home situated in West Pokot Canton, Kenya.
Breaks from school pose a danger for girls in communities that still practise FGM like Faith'south. 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 grooming, which offers a mode to affirm traditional values while also upholding girls' dignity.
Girls transition into womanhood through alternative methods, without being circumcised and married off. Both girls and boys larn about reproductive wellness, child rights, skilful health, and the harmful effects of FGM.
Boys, men, girls, and women all participate in the training sessions so they tin can become anti-FGM champions in their communities.
In fact, Faith'due south mother told Faith about the workshops. She accompanied Faith to the training and became an advocate against FGM after the get-go day. Now they both visit communities sharing what they've learned almost the harm that FGM causes and offering girls and boys culling rites of passage.
World Vision and other organizations are educating and empowering girls and their communities to cease FGM, oft 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 ii one thousand thousand FGM cases could occur over the next decade that would otherwise take been averted.
Lord God, assist families that do FGM see its damaging effects on girls and immature women. Motivate these families to turn away from inhumane practices, and we pray that You protect their female children from all forms of harm, including FGM. Assist the Alternative Rites of Passage programs that take been delayed by the pandemic be restored so that more girls don't take have to undergo FGM. Lay a manus of protection over girls at risk of FGM.
Be devoted to one some other in love. Honor one another in a higher place yourselves. —Romans 12:10 (NIV)
Pray for an end to child union.
In developing countries, one-3rd of girls are forced to ally before their 18th birthday. Fright of premarital pregnancy, rape, hunger, homelessness, and harmful traditional practices are all drivers of child marriage. Girls will besides 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 union tend to exist poor, under-educated, and live in rural areas where nativity and death rates are loftier and conflict is common. They are more than likely to feel domestic violence, forced sexual relations, and poor reproductive wellness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts to finish kid marriage, which may effect in an estimated additional thirteen million child marriages taking identify betwixt 2020 and 2030 that otherwise would not have occurred.
World Vision helps organize local leaders, parents, educators, law enforcement, and social services to support girls in pursuing education and avoiding child marriage. And World Vision children's clubs empower girls with information, particularly on kid rights and healthy physical development.
Lord, we echo the psalmist's conviction that You will deliver those who weep out to You for assist. See to the needs of precious girls and boys vulnerable to child spousal relationship or already trapped in its grasp. Hear and respond their cries for aid. Remove the barriers caused by the pandemic and protect those who are well-nigh at-risk for child union. May cultures where it is accustomed and encouraged learn of the harm it causes to children and alter these societies.
For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no i to help. —Psalm 72:12 (NIV)
Pray for an finish to child sacrifice.
Kid sacrifice is an abomination. In certain districts of Uganda, witchdoctors convince people desperate for coin to bear children or to rid their bodies of illness that can only exist cured by traditional medicine mixed with a kid's body part, such as the caput, fingers, or private parts. Ritual demands that the parts be removed while the child is still alive and witting. World Vision's Amber Alarm-manner program is taking on child sacrifice in Uganda.
Father, nosotros come up to You in prayer to protect Your children from abductors who casualty on the about 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 time of unimaginable loss.
Rescue those beingness led away to expiry; hold dorsum those staggering toward slaughter. —Proverbs 24:11 (NIV)
Pray for children to observe their identity in Christ — non gangs.
Drug trafficking, gang activeness, like shooting fish in a barrel admission to guns, and ineffective justice systems have contributed to high levels of criminal offence and violence in Central America and urban areas worldwide. Even people living in small towns fear existence robbed, threatened, extorted, or kidnapped. In a 2019 report released by The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice — a Mexico City-based advocacy grouping — 23 of the about 50 most violent cities in the earth are in the Latin America/Caribbean region. Pray for World Vision'southward work, which helps immature people discover their identity in Christ — not gangs — and teaches them vocational skills so they can meliorate resist the temptation of piece of cake money from criminal activities.
Lord, chaos and fear cripple communities overrun past gang violence. Thank you and then much for the gift of Your Son. Through Him, we truly become a new cosmos. We claim Jesus' blessing for peacemakers in Matthew five:9. Help immature people run across themselves the fashion You lot come across them, so they can help bring peace and hope to other people's lives.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they volition be called children of God." —Matthew 5:9 (NIV)
Pray for all eyes to exist opened about child exploitation.
Child exploitation isn't only a problem "somewhere else." It'southward an result everywhere, including the virtually developed countries. Anyone can be exploited or trafficked, regardless of race, class, didactics, gender, historic period, or citizenship. Inquire God to open the hearts and minds of people everywhere to recognize the signs of kid exploitation and give them the courage to take a stand for protection.
Dear Lord, Your Word tells us that it is a sin to do zero when it'south in our power to help someone in need. Aid usa to speak out like Angel against crimes against children. Prod us to act whenever nosotros suspect that a kid is in danger. Don't terminate prompting u.s.a. until nosotros do the correct thing.
"Learn to exercise right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed." —Isaiah 1:17 (NIV)
Pray for World Vision's piece of work to protect children.
Inspired by World Vision founder Bob Pierce's prayer, "Let my heart be broken with the things that suspension the heart of God," World Vision works to protect children from all forms of harm. This includes preventing children from existence trapped in abusive circumstances; protecting children with shelter and healthcare; and restoring children through life-skills training, teaching, and reintegration with families. Pray for strength and courage for staff at the forefront of this work and for donors to give generously to help fifty-fifty more than children.
Prince of Peace, Yous know the challenges our brothers and sisters face in helping people and working for peace. We ask that You lot give grace to Globe Vision's staff to fulfill the responsibilities You've placed in their hands. Thank Yous for empowering them to be Your hands and feet.
"Let united states of america not get weary in doing good, for at the proper time nosotros will reap a harvest if nosotros exercise not give up." —Galatians vi:9 (NIV)
*Name changed for protection
Kari Costanza, Chris Huber, Denise C. Koenig, and Kathryn Reid of Earth Vision'due south U.S. staff, Martin Muluka of World Vision Republic of kenya'due south staff, and Neola D'Souza of Earth Vision's India staff contributed to this story.
Prayers for American African Kids to Read
Source: https://www.worldvision.org/child-protection-news-stories/matthew-25-protecting-children-prayer