Prayer Topic: Image Bearers
So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV) God created us in His own image. Each of us is loved by our Creator, no [...]
Prayer Focus: Child Abuse
As a mother, one of the most difficult issues for me to delve into is child abuse. I shy away from reading news or books about it. And, to tell you the truth, when I was assigned this blog topic, [...]
Pray: Natural Disasters
If you are like me, you are excited to welcome the New Year, to put last year to rest and start fresh. It is no understatement that 2017 was a very difficult year, especially in terms of natural disasters—wildfires in [...]
God is Able
2017 has been a tough year for me in many ways. Perhaps you’ve felt it too. Some days it seems that the bad news never stops coming, and that the darkness of politics, social divides, violence, fear, and hatred will [...]
Prayer: Ethnic Violence & Genocide
But the truth is that genocide by no means happens suddenly. It is rather like a slow-growing cancer. We often don’t recognize the early symptoms, and sometimes we just don’t want to. Like cancer, genocide grows in stages. It begins simply with the way we start to classify ourselves in contrast to other groups, and then discriminate, persecute, and eventually try to eliminate them.
Prayer: Domestic Violence
Physical violence is rampant, but there are other abuses that wives face. It is painful to watch the sheer contempt and disdain that many men show for their wives, the way they demean and degrade them with their words.
Prayer: Orphans
The first time I watched the movie Lion, I was sitting on a plane between my two kids, on our way from India to the U.S. I was utterly drawn in, recognizing in so many scenes the world I was just [...]
Pray: Addiction
Just one more ooey-gooey sugar-glazed donut! One last episode of Downton Abbey tonight (errr…this morning). One more time checking Facebook, just to make sure I don’t miss anything important. We know overdoing these things is not healthy, but it seems [...]
Pray: Fatalism
I’ve just spent a month in Africa teaching the TCT program. One of the big things we look at during trainings are the beliefs that keep people locked in poverty. There are many. The South Sudanese team shared some really [...]
Pray: Refugees
My earliest memory of being aware of refugees even existing simply involves sitting in a living room with a family I couldn’t talk to (because we didn’t speak the same language), and being served my first cup of Turkish coffee [...]