Good morning everyone,
I hope you're familiar with The Micah Challenge -- they're a global
Christian campaign (active in 32 countries) to achieve the MDGs and EGR
is part of their steering group. Part of their mission is a weekly
prayer emailing like the one I'm reprinting below. You can receive it
in your email box every week by sending a blank email to regine.nagel@micahchallenge.org
with the words "subscribe prayer" in the subject line. We also post the
prayer email every Friday on the EGR blog (www.e4gr.blogspot.com). I also
hope you'll check out Micah's excellent website -- www.micahchallenge.org.
I'm posting today's Micah email because what they are lifting up in
prayer is the Lambeth Conference ... and in particular the bishops'
efforts to eradicate global poverty. I hope you'll read, reflect, pray
and distribute. More than that, I hope you'll be buoyed by the
knowledge that non-Anglicans all over the world are holding us up in
prayer and taking notice of our grasping of God's mission of global
reconciliation.
Christ's peace,
Mike+
----------------
Reflection
‘If
Zambians work like donkeys, why is poverty so rife especially among
communities where people work in the morning, at noon and evening?’
asks Lawrence Temfwe from Micah Challenge Zambia, reflecting on a
recent article in the national newspaper and a song by a Zambian
musician.
One of the reasons, he argues, is the lack of long-term planning: ‘most
of our people work that they have food to eat at night.’
In
Genesis 41: 25-38 we
read of Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream and his
recommendation to be good stewards of resources in the years of
abundance so to be prepared for the years of famine.
Prayer
Let us pray:
*Lawrence
asks us to pray for our political and civil society leaders, that they
may ‘provide guidance on how we should live and perform duties in order
to profit from the abundant resources God has blessed us with’.
*Next
Thursday, July 24, more than 600 Anglican bishops, their spouses and
other faith leaders from around the United Kingdom will march through
central London on a
Walk of
Witness - a symbolic moment of solidarity and coming together for
the fulfilment of the
Millennium Development
Goals to reflect to the world God's desire for justice and concern
for the poor.
Please pray for:
*
The Micah Challenge
team as they help to organise this event and further participate in
specific sessions around global poverty issues at the forthcoming
Lambeth conference.
*A joint statement that will be issued
by the Anglican Communion as a call to action towards achieving the
MDGs to world leaders gathered at the UN summit in September.
*The
‘Virtual March for the MDGs’
which is organised by Micah Challenge US steering group member
Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation to
coincide with the Walk of Witness. The aim is to march virtually by
sending emails to Washington, D.C. asking US leaders to share our
commitment to the MDGs and halve poverty by 2015.
For more information and to sign up
please click here.
Reflecting
on the statistic below: we praise God for the progress that was made in
achieving education for all by 2015. We pray for continued good
national policies and a renewed effort of the international community
to invest in basic education which will benefit the poorest of the poor.
Meditate on the
Statistics
As
you spend time in prayer and reflection, you may like to take a moment
to silently understand with your heart the focus statistic we include
each week (see below). Our hope is that you will find this series of
statistics a useful resource in preparing presentations.
Goal 2: Ensure access to
primary schooling for all children
Target
3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike,
will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
‘Primary
school enrolment rose from 647 million to 688 million worldwide between
1999 and 2005, increasing by 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and 22% in South
and West Asia. As a result, the number of out-of-school children
declined, with the pace of this decrease particularly marked after
2002.’
‘The cost of schooling remains a major obstacle to
education for millions of children and youth despite the abolition of
primary school tuition fees in fourteen countries since 2000.’
‘Illiteracy
is receiving minimal political attention and remains a global disgrace,
keeping one in five adults (one in four women) on the margins of
society.’
‘Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled
between 2000 and 2004 but decreased significantly in 2005.’
Source: Education for All by 2015: Will we make It? -
Global
Monitoring Report 2008, UNESCO, July 2008
--
The Rev. Mike Kinman
Executive Director, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation
MKinman@gmail.com + 314.348.6453
http://www.e4gr.org + http://www.e4gr.blogspot.com
