World Prayers for November 19 – 25: East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines

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A Filipina farmer. Vicente Villafranca for Bread for the World.

Bread for the World believes prayer is central to the work of ending hunger by 2030. Hunger happens in every corner of the world. In this blog series, we will provide a prayer for a different group of countries each week and their efforts to end hunger.

This prayer series will follow the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle, a list compiled by the World Council of Churches that enables Christians around the world to journey in prayer through every region of the world, affirming our solidarity with Christians all over the world, brothers and sisters living in diverse situations, experiencing their challenges and sharing their gifts.

We will especially be lifting up in prayer the challenges related to hunger and poverty that the people of each week’s countries face. In prayer, God’s story and our own story connect—and we and the world are transformed. In a prayer common to all of us—the Lord’s Prayer/the Our Father—we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” This line from this prayer can also be a prayer for the end of hunger.

We invite you to join Bread in our prayers for the world’s countries to end hunger. And we encourage you to share with us your prayers for the featured countries of the week or for the end of hunger in general.

For the week of November 19 – 25: East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines

Lord, make us realize that our Christianity is like a rice field: when it is 
newly planted the paddies are prominent, but as the plants take root and grow taller, these divided paddies gradually vanish, and soon there appears only one vast continuous field. So give us roots that love, and help us grow in Christian fellowship and service, that your will be done in our lives, through our Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ.
(From the Philippines. A Procession of Prayers: Meditations and Prayers from around the World, comp. John Carden, WCC and Cassell, London, UK, 1998, p. 174.)

Percentage of the population of these countries living below the national poverty line:

East Timor: 41.8
Indonesia: 11.3
Philippines: 25.2

Source: World Bank World Development Indicators as found in the 2017 Hunger Report.

Prayer is a central part of Bread for the World’s work. Learn more about how you can get involved with prayer at Bread. 

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