40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 7 of 7)

Day 35 of 40 - Prag

My name is Prag. I am the wife of Levy. Currently, we are serving in South Africa. Please stand with us in prayers for our region, South Africa. You will hear me use the word sangoma. Sangoma means being involved in ritual practice or being trained as a witch doctor, or traditional healer or ancestral worship. Please pray with us for our Care Workers, Primary Caregivers, and our children who have been involved in sangoma practice.

Sangoma practice has really affected our community with fear. Currently, we have one of our most vulnerable child who has been taken to be trained as a sangoma. She’s required to pay a thousand Rand. She is treated like a slave by the people who are training her. Please, pray with us, that God will give us wisdom and courage on how we can intervene in this situation. Pray with us that God will raise local church leaders, together with our local Service Centre office, to stand and to have courage to share the truth in our communities.

Please pray with us, as the Word of God says, “We shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” Please pray with us that God will give us courage and will give us strength as we walk into our communities, that we will share the truth about Jesus. Thank you.

  • Have you ever felt pressured to do something even though you know it’s wrong? Have you ever seen a friend do something that could be dangerous for them and you didn’t know how to help them?

Day 37 of 40 - Vivian

Good day everyone. My name is Vivian. I work with Hands at Work, and I serve at Lagos Service Centre [Nigeria]. I would like you to please pray with us today. Please pray for our Youth Boys in Amakoko Care Point, in Ilaje community.

One thing we’ve observed in the community is that the men don’t take care of their wives. The culture encourages a man to marry as many wives as possible and to get as many children as possible A man can have up to four wives, can have up to six wives, and he can get like eight children, 10 children, and even more than. But he will not take care of the wife. He will not take care of the children.

He will not support the wife. He will not support the children. The responsibility of feeding the children, the responsibility of buying clothes for the children. The responsibility of treating the children when they are sick, the responsibility of even providing shelter is mostly on the woman.

While the youngest child of the house is still crawling, the woman is pregnant again with another child, the culture forces the children into child labour. Sometimes children are sent to go and work in order to take care of themself and also the family.

Sometimes children are not allowed to go to school. They are forced to stay at home in order to take care of the younger ones while their mom will go and sell fish in order to be able to provide food for the family.

Please pray for our youth boys that even as we’re raising them in the Care Point, even as we’re sharing the word of God with them and showing them the way that the Holy Spirit will minister into their hearts and that the Holy Spirit will open their eyes to see the culture for what it is, that the culture is a culture that endangers the lives of women and children.

Please, let us pray for our youth boys that our youth boys will not follow in the steps of their fathers - their fathers, their brothers, their uncles - this is a culture they have known since they have been born. Let’s pray for our youth boys that they’ll not follow in the footsteps of their parents. That the Lord will deliver them from that evil mentality of having many children and many wives that you cannot care for.

Let’s pray that our youth boys will not be influenced by this evil culture, but rather they, themselves, will begin to influence the community positively. Please let’s pray our youths will know the truth and that the truth, which is the word of God, will set them free from this evil culture and this evil mentality.

Please pray for our youth boys that when it’s time for them to settle down, they will take one wife and they will only bear children that they can care for, and that the change will begin with them. Thank you very much.

  • Has your mom or dad ever asked you, “If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you also do it?” Do you ever feel like it is easier to go along with what everyone else is doing, even if you know it isn’t right?

Day 39 of 40 - carolyn

Friday has come. The crucifixion. Jesus was on the cross. From noon until three there was absolute darkness. Jesus cried out just after three. The curtain tore from top to bottom. The earth shook. Rocks split. Tombs broke open. Why do we call it good Friday? Actually, if we think about it, common sense would say, “There’s nothing good about it.” But, that terrible Friday has been called Good Friday because it led to the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death and sin.

Let’s pray today, that we can recognise in the darkness, Jesus took all our sin. His father turned his head away from him. He could not face him for all our sin. The miracle of that curtain tearing from top to bottom, the earthquake, the rocks splitting, let us take a moment and pray for ourselves. For the forgiveness of our sins. To pause and to acknowledge and to try and consume or think or absorb what Jesus actually did for each one of us on that day. He died for us, but yet we know that in three days he will rise because he promised. He said, in three days, I will rise. Grace, be with you all. Peace to you. Bless you.

  • Think of the most painful thing you’ve experienced.  What Jesus went through for you was much, much worse, but he did it for YOU. Talk with your mom and dad about what Jesus did for us, and take time today to thank him.

Day 40 of 40 - Levy

Hi everyone. Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Levy, married to Pragcidence, and we are serving together in Hands. Today is Easter Sunday and we are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ it gives us hope. Hope for salvation. Hope for our community. Hope in our life. For discipleship. I want all of you, wherever you are, across Africa and outside Africa, to pray with me - that our children in the community, they’ll have hope in Jesus. And those who know Jesus, they’ll continue to believe in Him. And those who don’t know Jesus, let’s pray together that they’ll know Jesus. Pray with me for the Primary Caregiver, the Gogo, the Auntie who are looking after our children, that they’ll have hope in Jesus.

As they go through difficult times when they’re looking after our children, because they’re the ones who face the challenge every day. Pray with me for our Care Workers who are visiting our children, that they will have hope in Jesus. Pray with Hands and our Care Workers who share the Jesus we know to our children, that there will be more children who shall receive the salvation.

Pray that Jesus Christ, he’ll guide them. Jesus Christ, He will be on their side and let them have hope. Pray with me that us in Hands at Work, we’ll go to share Jesus to make discipleship. As you know in Hands, we don’t hire but we make sons and daughters. Sons and daughters are those we disciple them and they grow in faith. They start, also, to share Jesus.

Thank you so much. God bless you. And all of you, there’s hope in Christ because of his resurrection. Thank you.

  • Spend time today thanking and praising God for raising Jesus from the dead, for offering us salvation, and bringing hope to the world.

40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 6 of 7)

Day 29 of 40 - Royie

I am Royie from Dedza, Malawi. I am working with Hands at Work in Africa organisation. With the help of my fellow friends, we are serving in 10 communities.

Currently, we are caring for over a thousand orphans and vulnerable children. Please help us to pray today for these children that we are serving. Most of them are rejected by their own mothers and fathers. As is custom, when the mother dies, the father leave the children with Gogos or aunts, who struggle taking care of them. The same way if the mother has been divorced. She leave the children and go away to look for work far away from home. In this case, the children, have very much been rejected.

So, I would like us to pray for this spirit of rejection that is within the fathers and the mothers who normally rejected their children. So, we may ask God to take control over these children because the parents may reject them, but God will not reject them. Jesus does not reject them. He died for them. He cares for them. We need to stand with these orphans and children in the community, so that, when they know Jesus, all the rejection issues will not be there because he cares for everyone. Thanks very much for listening.

  • Have you ever felt left out? Maybe at school you weren’t picked for your sports team or weren't invited to a party. How did that make you feel? Royie mentioned that many children feel left out and rejected. Please pray that children will know that they are loved and cared for. Pray that they will have people who make them feel included and that they will know that God will never reject them.

Day 31 of 40 - angel

My name is Angel Masuka. I’m serving with Hands at Work in Likasi Service Centre in the DRC. We are supporting nine communities, altogether 900 children who are coming from the most vulnerable families. I’d like to share the prayer request on behalf of our families.

In most of our communities, we see the most vulnerable families. They do have many children, and they are facing challenges on how they can care for their children. We do have the example of one family in Kikula B. One of the children name is Alex. He’s coming from the family of 11 children. The parents, they have this number of children, not because they liked it, but because they didn’t have any information about the family planning. They don’t have any job, and they are facing challenges on how they can provide for them and care for them all. So, three from these children, they are in a bad condition of malnutrition. Another example is from Toyota, one of the children from the family of four as she’s five years old, but weight is eight kg. She does have three siblings. The parent, they don’t have any job and they can’t provide for them. She’s facing a bad level of malnutrition as well. We also see from the youth camp we had, many of our youth, they are wounded and broken because they have to be breadwinners for their own families. They have to provide for themself and to provide for the whole family. They have to stop school to go to look for piece work to sell vegetable, fruit and eggs so they can get something to provide at home. Please pray for God to give us wisdom on how we can care for these children and on how we can support these families well, on the side of family planning and on the side of care. Thank you.

  • Angel mentioned that many children in the DRC don’t have enough food to eat. It’s hard to imagine being so hungry that we get sick and need to go to the doctor. Pray that children will have food to eat and parents will be able to provide for their children. Specifically, pray for the two families mentioned above, that they will be completely healed and will recover their energy.

Day 33 of 40 - Erick

My name is Eric from DRC. I’m one of the Zambia leaders, but I’m living in Likasi. I would like to share to you on this 40 Days of Prayer about Kikula community. Kikula is one of the five communities that the local Service Centre is supporting - over 900 children! So, Kikula has a background story where the community was affected by genocide in those years, 1992, 1993, and people have been killing each other and the community was left abandoned. This side of Kikiula B, where Sylvia is, is a poor place. The community has been affected by those wars, by those rebel fights. In this place we do have most vulnerable children. We are trying to care, and we are trying to go even more than the number we are having because the poverty is on the extreme.

So in this community, I’m sharing to you the story of Sylvia, who is eight years old. She’s a girl. She lost the father three years ago and the mother died a month ago or so. I visited Sylvia two weeks after the mother died, and I could see Sylvia, she was looking so desperate.

I saw in that house where there is poverty, misery, you know, there are many orphans staying in that house because they are cousins. Some have lost their fathers, some mothers. There are a lot of orphans in that place. Among those children, Sylvia is there. But Sylvia, she’s sick. She was looking so desperate. We discovered that she was suffering with spleen disease. So, with spleen disease, Sylvia is looking anaemic and malnutritious.

So, I’d like you to join me, in this 40 Days of Prayer so we can pray for Sylvia that the Lord may intervene, for Sylvia to receive the proper treatment, even surgery from the doctor on this disease too far to be healed. Because Sylvia saw how the mother died so Sylvia is scared. She’s thinking maybe she’ll pass away like the mother. Let us pray for Sylvia that the Lord restore hope and bring healing, even for the medical doctor doing this surgery just to remove the sickness in her body. That Sylvia will be healed totally. Bless you.

  • Have you ever been in hospital or taken to the doctor because you were sick? How did you feel? Were you scared? Erick shared about a young girl named Sylvia, who is very sick. Pray that God will heal her. 

40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 4 of 7)

Day 17 of 40 - Carolyn

“Today’s prayer request contains mentions of self-harm and suicide. It is an important challenge to understand, but parents may want to listen first before sharing it with younger children.” - Pinky

Greetings. My name is Carolyn and my husband is George. We serve wherever we are needed. The prayer request I have is to stand together against the spirit of self-harm and suicide. Committing suicide years back was hardly heard of. As the years have gone by, and particularly this year in 2023, so many cases of self-harm and of suicide have come to our attention. The increase is within our children, our Primary Caregivers, and the Care Workers within Africa. They lose hope that they, they think that things are way beyond their abilities. Even the spirit of suicide - witchcraft - is heavy in our community. Recently, we had a young boy of 12 say he heard a voice telling him to commit suicide right there at school. This is the type of thing I would love everybody to pray against - the spirit of self-harm and suicide that is going around our communities in Africa and in the world. Stand with us. Stand in the gap for our children, our Gogos, our Care Workers, our Primary Caregivers. Stand for our friends across the world that they who are are struggling will have the ability to be able to share with others, to know that we have a Father that cares for us deeply. Jesus loves each one so passionately. He wants the very best for us and does not want us to go before our time. So I trust that this will be a day where we can stand together, we can pray against those feelings and temptations. That we can bring hope and surround people. That God will speak to others, like he did with the young boy’s friend, and intervene . Thank you for taking the time to pray with us today.

  • Sometimes people can feel so sad and troubled that they can feel like there's no hope. Sometimes people can be ill physically but also spiritually and emotionally - this can cause people to feel hopeless.

  • This is so sad. Please pray that people that find themselves in this position will know they are loved and there IS hope. Pray that everyone feeling like this will have someone they can talk to about how they feel

Day 19 of 40 - Busie

My name is Busie Jones from South Africa, currently based in Australia. Today we are praying for Hands at Work Life Centres across Africa. When Three Essential Services begin in a community, children gather daily at a Care Point to receive food and care. As some of you might know, many years ago, we began pushing towards transforming these Care Points into Life Centres.

The very word “Life Centre” speaks of the purpose - to bring a taste of God’s peace, a taste of life and care to our communities, and their orphaned and vulnerable children. We dream of our Life Centres to embrace a culture of care.

Let us pray that this dream becomes a reality in many of our communities as our local offices, Regional Support Teams, and international teams visit our communities, working alongside Care Workers and supporting them in developing these Life Centres for the benefit of our children. Let us pray that our Life Centres would be places where the broken, the wounded, and the hurting would run and find hope, love, and care. 

Let us pray that our children, the Caregivers, and the Care Workers would experience God’s healing in these Life Centres through different activities that are happening daily. Let us pray that these Life Centres would be beacons of hope and that they would shine the light of God so brightly in our communities, that the communities that were once known for darkness would be known for light. That people would experience what it means to walk in the light.

Lord, how we long that our Life Centres would be like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. That people would experience God in his fullness, in these Life Centres. That they will be a taste of heaven for many, many people. This is Your dream! We believe it and we trust you with it because you have come to give salvation to our children, to our Care Workers, and to our Caregivers.

  • Where do you go for help when you are in trouble or scared? If you need someone, who do you run to?

  • Where do you have the most fun? Where is the place where you laugh and play with your friends?

  • Busie mentioned in her prayer requests that Hands at Work want to create Life Centres. Life Centres are where children can experience fun, laughter, play and care. Pray that each community Hands at Work supports will have a Life Centre - places where our children love to be.

  • If you could design your own life Centre for your community, what would it look like? Draw a place you would love to attend. What would it have?

Day 21 of 40 - Sam

Okay, so I’m with Pastor Sam Shin from Wellspring Church in San Francisco, who’s been a partner with Hands at Work since 2006, even before we started Hands at Work. Sam and a group of his men from his church visited us, and since then, sam has been in Africa multiple times and sent multiple teams, and he’s still supporting the work very strongly. We are in Zambia right now. Sam, I wanna ask you, “Out of your heart, how would you ask the international community to pray for Hands?”

Thank you, George. And first of all, it’s been a privilege to be here. I could not have imagined after almost two decades of life together with Hands, still being always surprised by what the Lord shows me about his heart for all of us. And I think knowing Christ is absolutely the best motivation by which we do what you’re doing, and by what we see.

Prayer-wise, I was thinking about this question and I thought this, until Jesus returns, it’s not going to get better. That means even after you are gone from this world, the problem will still be the same. I see you and I see a man who loves the Lord deeply, and I’m so thankful for just your ministry and heart as you run into the fire getting ready to go to Goma. My heart’s prayer is that that desire for why Hands exists, which is for Christ and His glory, and what he has done for you and for all of us, that that motivation would continue. And so, unless those all around the world are praying that the Lord would bring about an individual or a group of individuals who have that same heart, first for Christ, and out of that heart, having a, a burden for the most vulnerable, the poorest of the poor, if that happens, Hands will be in the safest, most productive, most God-glorifying place. It’ll be a place that will, Lord willing, even exceed anything that you’ve had an opportunity to see in your lifetime.

  • Do you have any family traditions that have been passed down through your family? Maybe you always celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, or every Sunday you sit around the table and have lunch.

  • Sam shared that his prayer is that the same heart that George and Carolyn have for Jesus and the most vulnerable will be passed down to more and more generations and that the work will carry on. We are going to need to continue caring until Jesus comes again. Pray that we will be joined by more and more people who have a heart for the vulnerable in the years to come.

40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 3 of 7)

Day 11 of 40 - Audette

“Today’s prayer request contains mentions of sex. It is an important problem to understand, but parents may want to listen first before sharing it with younger children.” - Pinky

Hi everyone. So my name is Audrey or Audette. I serve here in Chimoio, Mozambique, and we are serving four centers in three different communities, which is in Macadeira, Chigodole, and Matsinho, and we are serving 516 children each day. Macadeira is the most vulnerable community, so today, may you please help me to pray for Macadeira.

Pray that God will raise men and women who stand as good examples to our children in the community. One man marrying one wife and having a healthy family. Our children, most of them come from broken families, where each sibling has a different father, or each sibling has a different mother. This is not only affecting the lives of our children or the families in the community, but also even with the pastors around the community. Pastors are having three wives or they are marrying and re-marrying more than three times to three different people.

Now, our children are practicing sex at very, very young ages. Among our Care Workers and even pastors, they have a very high level of HIV, which is now affecting the lives of our children, because our children are losing parents at a very young age, and they have no one else to look up to, to say, “If I grow up, I want to be like this”. Everyone that they are looking at in their community, they are in these very unhealthy relationships, very unhealthy families. So today, may you please pray that God will raise men and women who will be set as examples, that our children will look up to. And they can learn and understand what it means to be a healthy family. Thank you.

  • Audette asked us to pray for children in a place in Mozambique called Macadeira. Many of these children have either lost their parents or don’t know their parents. We want to pray for children who don’t have anyone to look after them, that they would have people who would love and care for them, and treat them like their own children. Draw a picture of what it looks like to be looked after by someone. What might that include?

Day 13 of 40 - Nontobeko

Good day. My name is Nontobeko, working with Hands at Work and currently serving at Oshoek Service Centre. I would like you to pray with us as a community. So one of our prayers would be to pray for our Care Workers who serve in the different communities. Pray that they would find it in their hearts to really get to understand the importance of making Christ the foundation of one’s life.

As Hands, our main goal is not just to serve the kids with food, but also to give them Christ or bring Christ into their lives. So, as Care Workers are the one who mostly spend most of their time with their kids at the Care Points each day, that they would be able to have time to spend with the kids, bringing God to them or bringing Christ to them, as we are wanting to raise mothers and fathers for tomorrow, who will know Christ and who will be serving Christ. With the Care Workers having got the right foundation, it would be of benefit for our kids, as they spend most of the time with them.

That they would know exactly that they serve one God, the God that we know, not to mix God with other beliefs. So, another prayer would be for our local pastors, that God would continue to touch even more pastors, or that more pastors would be mobilised and get to understand the vision and be willing to partake in the serving as they’re also part of this.  Thank you.

  • Who did you hear about Jesus from? What difference does Jesus make in your life? Pray that Jesus would make that difference in other people’s lives.

Day 15 of 40 - Futhi

Good afternoon, family. I’m Futhi in Eswatini. Yeah, we have a prayer request. You can pray for our youth. This year it seems to be tough to our families. They cannot afford school fees for our children, especially for the high school. We can pray that God would help us. We don’t want to lose our children as they’re not going to school.

We know God. I can say he opens the gate for us, that we can bring them close to us. We can introduce Jesus to them, so that even if they won’t finish the school, but they will have Jesus. We hope that can change their lives and we hope that can change the communities as well as the families. You can pray for us that God will help us. We want to help them with some lessons and especially with these youth groups.

Yeah. You can pray for us in Eswatini. We had it announced that in April - we don’t have a date yet - but there will be a strike as in Eswatini we have these political issues. There will be a big strike that’s gonna affect us for a week. Can you pray with us? We know that when there is strike people, they lose life, people are killed, and our children won’t go to school. Many things will be affected and many people here in Eswatini will live in fear. Yeah, you can pray for us that God will protect us and God will help our leaders in Eswatini to come up with a decision where there will be agreement so that we can have peace and stability in our country. Thank you.

  • Do you like going to school? What things do you like about it? What would you like to do when you finish school? Some of our children in Eswatini would love to go to school but aren’t able to because they don’t have the correct documents. Pray that these children are able to go to school and complete their education. Pray that they can then find jobs to help support their families.

40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 2 of 7)

Day 5 of 40 - JACKIE

“Jackie, you are a senior leader in Hands at Work. You’ve been with us for many, many years and currently you are situated, based in Zambia, but you move a lot and you also work in the DRC - Democratic Republic of the Congo, and you work in Nigeria today what would you urge us to pray for?”

So, for DRC, we have our Service Centre team, that is our local Hands office team. Recently we’ve realised just a huge need for more people. We currently have Mama Angel, and Erick, we also have Sammy and Francis. The team is small, but we are trusting God, that God would bring people with the same passion, the same heart, because we care in the most vulnerable communities and we do need Godly, especially female, people that God can add to the team. The other thing that is big is we do have an opportunity to reach out to our local pastors there. We are just trusting God for such a transformation in their lives because most of them, we realise, how much they mix culture and church and traditional things - witchcraft is involved even within the church. So, it’s a big burden of our hearts that we can influence and that they’ll be drawn close to Jesus.

For Nigeria, two things are big. This year we have an upcoming election, and in Africa, election can be very chaotic. That is when there can be a lot of confusion and a lot of distraction comes with that. We are praying that as the election happens in Nigeria, that God would really intervene on behalf of the most vulnerable. That’s a big one.

The second one - we have opportunity this year to start strong in a rural community outside of Lagos, in a town called Ibadan and it’s a small village called Alugbo. God has just opened our eyes to the huge needs there. We do have many children to be reached and even more villages around there that we could start caring for more children. Please pray with us that God would give us favor and would be able to reach out to these children. Also, pray for the team there. We only have two leaders there and we have Toyin and Taiwo. So pray for them as their community expands, we desire that God would also add to them.

  • In the audio, Jackie shares that in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), there aren’t enough people for the amount of work there is to do. Let’s pray that God will help Hands at Work to find great new people to add to the teams in these countries. Would you like to draw a picture of someone who could join the teams? Perhaps you could draw them with a huge heart if you think they will be very loving, or fantasticfeet if they need to walk far, or mighty muscles to protect the children. What other qualities could they have? Once you have drawn a picture of who you think should join the teams in Nigeria and the DRC, pray for that person.

  • Have you ever had to come to a decision with your friends or siblings and you knew that not everyone would agree? What happened? Did everyone accept the result? How can we react in a way that pleases God and ensures peace?

Day 7 of 40 - XOLANI

Hi, my name is Xolani. I am from South Africa. I am married to Sara, currently serving here in Zambia. I want to ask you to pray with us for our children and caregivers who are feeling rejected, unloved and hopeless. I have sat in a home talking to a 73-year-old grandmother who’s looking after seven children by herself, and the oldest of these children was about 12 years old because their parents have left them.

I could see the pain in her face as she shares how hurt she is that they have left and never came back. She has heard rumours that her daughter is married in another village and nobody knows where their father is. She shares how it breaks her heart that she can’t provide for these children and her fear is that one day she will no longer be there.

She shares about how rejected and worthless the kids feel. How they feel like nobody sees them or loves them. Even their own parents have rejected them. And we know that scripture points us into the Psalms, the beautiful Psalms, which says, “even though my mother and father may forsake me, but the Lord will take me in”.

And I pray that God will raise men and women just like our volunteer Care Workers, that will stand in the gap for children like this, that will come alongside our grandmothers because we know that this family represents thousands of families and thousands of children who are feeling the same. And we pray that God will speak and that he will become their Father, and that their script will be flipped and that this will not be their story: that they were unloved, rejected, and worthless, but rather that they will have mothers and fathers who will fight for them, who will love them like Christ loves the church. Above all, we pray that the local church will take its own rightful position as the body of Christ. Those who bring hope and bring good news and care for the most vulnerable. And care for the widows like this Gogo, who’s 73 years old and in need of encouragement, in need of spiritual and emotional support.

We pray against the spirit of rejection, that it will not get hold of our children. That God will be glorified and that he will be our Father and that will be their story. Thank you.

  • Has anyone ever treated in the loving way like a parent? Maybe they helped you when you didn’t know what to do, or maybe they listened to you when you were upset. What was that like?

  • We heard from Xolani that many people feel rejected. Have you ever felt left out of something? Maybe you weren’t invited to a party, or were left out of a sports team or your friends didn’t let you play with them. Think about how that made you feel and pray that people would not feel like that. Think of one or two people you know who might be feeling left out. Are there ways that you could include them in something that would make them feel like someone loves and cares for them?

Day 9 of 40 - KARA

Hello everyone. It’s Kara McLaughlin sending many warm greetings from Kacele Farm here in Zambia. I have the privilege of serving with the team that supports Nigeria, the DRC, and Zambia. So I would like to invite us into a time to pray for our Care Workers, our local volunteers from the local churches who have said, “Lord, send me to take care of the most vulnerable within my community.”

Recently, we’ve had 18 Care Workers come and spend the weekend here in Kachele. It was such a special and rich time, but I was reminded that our Care Workers are carrying huge personal burdens themselves, and yet they are pouring themselves out on behalf of the children every day. So let’s pray for them. Let’s pray for them that they would experience the healing of Jesus. Then during that weekend, we had time to dig into the story in Mark chapter six of Jesus feeding the 5,000, and some of their reflections really struck me. They were saying that they realised that Jesus had compassion. Even before he fed the crowd he first taught them, because he could see that they were sheep without a shepherd. And they were saying, we want that heart of Jesus, that heart of compassion.

Then also they were struck by that part of the story where Jesus says, “go and see” to the disciples. Go and see what you have. And they only had the two fish and the five loaves, but when they offered that to Jesus, Jesus blessed it, and there was even leftovers. There was an abundance. And so our Care Workers were sharing with us that sometimes the need feels so big. They look at the, the brokenness, the pain, the needs that are there, but that if they just offer what they have to Jesus, they can trust him. So let’s pray for them as they see the needs day after day, that they would experience miracles as they offer to Jesus the little that they have, and that they would see him bringing healing and transformation in the communities.

The Care Workers were sharing how they long for their children to know Jesus and to experience the healing because they realise that food isn’t enough. They need and they long for their children to meet Jesus because they long to see a transformation in the next generation. They were sharing that they know they’re being trusted with the lives of the next generation within their communities. So let’s stand and pray with them for that. Thank you everyone.

  • Do you ever feel like you have too little to be generous with, or maybe that you are the one who could use some help?

  • In the audio, Kara mentions praying for Care Workers, who support young people in their communities. Can you think of someone who has helped you in your life? Is there someone you look up to? Maybe it’s a guardian, parent, friend, or teacher. What are some of the things that you like about them? How could you be a bit more like them to those younger than you?

40 Days of Prayer 2023 (Week 1 of 7)

Day 1 of 40 - Pinky

Welcome to 40 Days of Prayer. If you are returning to our Lent season prayers from previous years, you'll remember that we've worked through our 40 day prayer guide, which had specific prayers each day. This year, we are doing things a little differently.

Over the course of the next 40 days, you'll hear prayer requests from members of our Hands family across the world. We'll use this to pray each day for the most vulnerable in Africa. Whether this is your first year or you have participated for many years, our hope is that you'll experience a deeper connection and partnership with God's work here in Africa.

Let's pray that God will help us to set aside time in our busy lives this season to join with others across the world, to talk to him about the things that weigh heavy on the heart of Hands at Work.

May we have eyes to see and ears to hear that these are not just stories and voice notes, but our sisters and brothers calling us to pray for God's children.

We pray that this season would have a greater understanding of the power of prayer and how it changes us, our families, communities, countries, and the world.

Day 3 of 40 - George

I just wanna take a few moments to give you a little bit of an update from Goma in the DRC. I hope your media by now have given you some information, but let me take 60 seconds just to give a bit of a brief overview. That area of North Kivu, where Goma is the capital and we work in the surrounding villages, there's always been conflict since '94 the genocide - and even before that. There's a lot of reasons for that. Promises made. Minerals. Islamic extreme groups. Ethnic cleansing. Hutu groups. Tutsi groups. Nonetheless, it's been always kind of controlled that there was some movement that we could have.

Recently M23 invaded the Eastern Congo again and they have brought what we can call full-scale war. They have invaded even cities that have got more than 60,000 people in it. At the moment, they are circling Goma and they are busy cutting off all the roads to Goma, to starve Goma, because Goma is dependent on the roads bringing food in, and that's gonna force them to negotiate.

That is now directly affecting us. At the moment, none of us can get into Goma. So, the first thing I ask you, please, as a point of urgent prayer, pray that God will open the door for us to be able to go and support our team there. You can imagine they're under extreme pressure, specifically one of our communities, but this can change any moment and more of our communities can be involved. Right now, Luhonga has been surrounded by the M23. They even came into Luhonga. All the grandmothers, our Care Workers and our children fled. They fled to Sake, which is the nearest town to Luhonga. It's about eight to 10 kilometres from there, depending on how you get there. And they ran there. Some of our Care Workers live in Sake, and so they took them into their homes and then a little old school. And so we've got our children together in Sake. And we are feeding them, but it is full on refugee camp environment. You can imagine, cholera, typhoid, all these things. So please pray for our children in Luhonga.

Pray for our Service Centre team: Bindu, who's our coordinator in the Service Centre. Zawadi, Bahati, and Jehosephat, and then Denise, who's our bookkeeper. Please pray for them. They are actually going into Sake from Goma every day. And that road between Goma and Sake is one of the targets of M23. They try to cut that road off because that is the only road left into Goma to take food in. So every time Bindu and them travel on that road, they are very vulnerable and they're doing it virtually every day to get some support to our children in Sake.

So it's really in a tough situation. We have a major crisis in our hands on Goma, which means we are going to have to look for emergency support for medicine, food, tents, ablutions. We don't want our children to go to the traditional refugee camps because it's a very, very dangerous place in the DRC, a refugee camp. A huge amount of trafficking happens there. Boys get taken for military reasons, and girls get abused, and they get trafficked. We have 60 of our children gathered at one church and we expect that number is going to grow rapidly. Most probably close to 150. We've got the food stored in our office, which is only about three kilometres from this church. But our prayer is that there will be an intervention from the international community.

Thank you for your support. Thank you so much for praying and for speaking on behalf of the children and the grandmothers in Goma.

Bless you.