How to Pray for the Most Oppressed People Group in the World

So Kristen Welch, author of the upcoming Rhinestone Jesus: Saying Yes to God When Sparkly, Safe Faith Is No Longer Enough, well, she may be my long lost soul sister. We’re prayer warriors for one another, I kneel with her on the Board of Directors for Mercy House Kenya, and you know how together, for the next 40 some days, we’re praying through #40LessMeMoreHim?

How we’re praying: Give us a North American Lent that lends to the Lord. That instead of saying: It’s not my child, not my community, not my problem, a Lent that says: It’s not happening on my watch. Give us a Lent that goes with less stuff so others can simply live … so we can feel wildly alive.

Well, #40LessMeMoreHim.… might find itself fully alive right here… Especially with tomorrow being International Women’s Day:

by my soul sister Kristen Welch:

She was barely 14 years old when she walked more than a mile to and from school every day.

But this wasn’t a hardship.

It was an opportunity to receive an education. It’s something most girls in Africa dream of and don’t take for granted.

It was just another day after school, when she was grabbed by a strange man on the dirt road home. She didn’t know what it was called rape, but she knew it wrong.

She tried to wipe the dirt stains from her uniform and the tears from her dusty cheeks. But she didn’t tell her aunt, who had reluctantly taken her in after her parents died.

 

Maybe her aunt sent her to the city to work as an indentured servant because she recognized her niece’s swelling stomach. Maybe it was just the burden of another mouth to feed.

But months later, alone and working hard in a large city for an unkind employer, she gave birth prematurely to a tiny baby. She didn’t know her body produced life for her newborn and so she dripped water from a damp cloth to try and hush her crying baby. For three days.

On the third day, both weak and wracked with infection, they were taken to the hospital and became residents of Mercy House.

Unfortunately, her story isn’t unique. She is one of thousands living in a cycle of violence and poverty every single day.

Do you know who the most oppressed group of people are in the world?

Girls.

All around the world, girls long to receive an education, to live without the absolute terror of violent sexual crimes committed against them at home, in their neighborhoods, as they walk to school. The cycle of poverty and violence and the unbelievable injustice in our world runs deep and we cannot ignore it another day.

“Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined,” Nicholas D. Kristof Nicholas D. Kristof

Simply put, in many countries, it’s life-threatening to be female.

At Mercy House, we seek to break this cycle in the name of Jesus. And I’m convinced, this is done through prayer.

And so, we invite you to pray for the endangered girls in our world today with this simple idea:

It’s a bit of twine.

And a single heart.

It’s a simple reminder to pray.

It’s an easy way to share their story.

It’s a bracelet that’s supposed to fall off.

Get yours today? They are $10 each, free shipping and 100% of the profit benefits endangered girls in Kenya.

How to pray for the oppressed girls in our world:
1. Pray for their salvation.
2. Pray for their safety.
3. Pray that the cycle of violence that goes hand-in-hand with extreme poverty would be broken.
4. Pray for the end to corruption of governments that are unjust and ignore the oppression of girls.
5. Pray for the shattered, violated hearts of wounded girls around the globe.
6. Pray that the strongholds of violence, oppression and hopelessness would be broken in the name of Jesus.

This is the perfect service project for you and your kids, family, and groups.

Order a Love Mercy Bracelet Kit (Makes 25 Bracelets):

This idea was inspired not only to raise needed funds to help more girls in Kenya; it was also inspired as a practical hands-on service project activity for families, kids groups or Bible studies to do together.

If you’d like to do a service project with your family, a church or children’s group, you can order a kit of 25 for $10 (to cover expenses and shipping) and serve Mercy House by putting the bracelets together. You can return them for us to sell or you can help by selling them to friends and family for $10 each. Kits are available here.

Service Project: Easy 3-step instructions and supplies to make 25 bracelets are included in each kit. We’d love for you to sell the bracelets to family and friends and we ask that any unsold bracelets or funds are returned within 30 days of receipt.

This instruction guide is included with each kit:

Today, this momma and her adorable two year old daughter still live at Mercy House and are a testimony to the miraculous.

She has been transformed and healed. She is a wonderful mother, an amazing student and a follower of Christ.

Prayer is the most powerful tool we possess to empower oppressed girls in our world.

 

 

Related:Will you join us, especially with tomorrow being International Women’s Day: Your Love Mercy bracelet? #40LessMeMoreHim

A North American Lent: When You Want An Appetite for More of God

A different kind of Lent: #40LessMeMoreHim

Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}