Dear Friends,

We have received these prayer concerns for the Philippines from one of the Christian leaders here. Let's please keep these concerns in our hearts before God during the coming days.

Thanks for praying,

John Robb

Thank you for your messages, prayers and concern for our current situation in the Philippines. As you know, a super typhoon named Haiyan (deadlier than Hurricane Katrina that had swept the US) ravaged the provinces in the central part of our archipelago last Friday. These cities are a plane ride away from Manila, so those of us live in the capital city are safe. Before the typhoon struck, Christians were praying that the Lord would change the typhoon's course. As it was however, fierce winds and tsunami-like waves totally whipped these provinces, killing an estimated 10,000 helpless victims. Warnings and preparations for evacuation and relief work were no match for the winds and rain. Many cities now look like no man's land.

But our Lord is sovereign over all; He never fails us and we believe that as a nation, this is an opportunity to show our spirit of unity, deep faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and demonstrate our selfless giving. We have not seen in our history such a generous outpouring of aid and supplies from within the country (through the private sector), and from countries around the world, (some of them erstwhile 'enemies' of the Philippines). Everywhere, we see people wanting to help out and give their support. Please pray with us through the weeks and months ahead of relief, rescue and rehabilitation work, on behalf of the millions of Filipinos who are helpless victims of this tragedy.

These are our specific prayer requests:

1. Pray that our Lord will give an extraordinary amount of wisdom, steadfast spirit, keen insight, quickness to respond and political will among our national, regional and local government officials in mapping out and implementing a sustained plan of action for relief, rescue and rehabilitation. Pray that the Lord will give them the mind of Joseph who knew how to direct the people when the seven years of famine struck Egypt. Such was his wisdom that no one lacked. Pray that the millions of aid will be wisely distributed and allocated.

2. Pray for our Compassion Philippines Rapid Response Team to be able to carry out relief assistance and to provide comfort, prayers and support to our afflicted children, their families and local churches. Pray for the safety and health of Noel (our Ph Country Director), Toyditz (our Asia Regional Advocacy Director), and the rest of the Rapid Response Team as they are in Cebu and Leyte for a few days to carry out the relief work.

3. Pray that Satan, the Enemy will be 'padlocked' so that unscrupulous people/thieves/robbers will not be able to carry out looting, robberies, or resort to killing; pray that no corrupt officials will be able to lay their hands on any of the relief money or goods for their own selfish motives.

4. Pray that the Lord will give our Filipino brothers and sisters with unwavering faith in the Lord that they will receive timely help in terms of food, water, medicines and a safe place to sleep for the weeks and months ahead.

5. Pray that the US military personnel sent to help will be able to quickly train Filipino local officials so that all (and not only a few) affected towns and provinces will receive timely relief help. Pray that the aircraft sent to airlift goods and supplies will be safe and will help bring food especially to those towns where people have not eaten a single food since Friday.

6. Pray for miracles of healing to those who are ill, and for thousands and millions of Filipinos in central Philippines to come to know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior through the mighty work of the Holy Spirit. Pray that the body of Christ in the Philippines, represented by the thousands of local churches will be a source of sustained blessing to the typhoon victims, in word and deed.

7. Pray that as we see the rehab work successfully accomplished, we will be able to declare: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20,21)

With sincerest thanks,

Menchit

These suggestions and recommendations come from the Children in Prayer global consultation. For more information or to get involved, please contact Tety Irwan This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Irma Chon This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

MIDDLE EAST
Strategy to connect children of Egypt and the Middle East in a new real effective and practical way.  (From different backgrounds)
Creative arts to children (Music, dance and painting) and also other creative ideas.
New ideas in media to reach out to children of this time in a challenging and encouraging way.

NORTH AMERICA
A. Identify prayer networks that currently exist. Ask people to share what they are doing as a report. We can categorise what's happening.
B. Identify existing ministries to support these especially focused on the youth ministries, many of which are already interdenominational to bring these to a different level.
Connect these (intergenerational to 4-14 window)
Vision to see 24-7 house of prayer (intergenerational vision)
Follow-up to determine next step.
Possibility: local pages on IPC website

EUROPE
Start from one church locally à pilot project
Do family- oriented activity. Legislation/parents need to be present.
Music/ musicals/ discipling (JCPPII- Choirs in Finland)
Moms in prayer/ Deborah arise!
Prayer triplets for children

AFRICA
Prayer: Pray for open doors in order to be able to reach out to the children and youths.
Action: Reaching out to them in local churches, neighborhood and communities and also networking with those that are children workers so that we cab bring/share our prayer elements with them.
Identify youths and support youths and children with talents.
Find/discover the needs of these children and youths and get them supported.

INDIA
Database development of churches, denominations, Para churches working among children and youth. Deadline 31st Jan 2014. Onasis will send in the available information
Vision Casting and Networking ( State or Regional ). Regional leaders will host this.
Identifying challenges faced by children and youth. Regional meetings will carry out this task.

IPC - SOUTH EAST ASIA
Raise Awareness among churches through advocacy (also using the website as a tool)
Provide information on what and why to pray in order to ignite prayer
Collaborate- partnering for training.
 
SOUTH AMERICA/ BRAZIL
To equip and train teams to reach children and youth according to the context where they live. Example: Teams to go to street kids, who are often drug addicts and pray for them. To young people in universities or college students.

To make the website available to entities like daycare and schools offering them the availability to the team to go and develop nuclei of prayer with them.
To create an App, a prayer application for teenagers and youth

The app should also include:
-     Request of prayer à international, national
-     Prayer strategies
-     Contact young intercessors
-     How to become a young intercessors
-     And more