Prayer Focus - Week Commencing 25th December 2011

December 16, 2011 - 13:44

Linda McCance, Senior Project Officer, EMMS International

Healthy and Strong

“I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognise him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” . . . “The child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom and God’s favour was upon Him.” Luke 2:10-12; 40

This Christmas, as part of our Fighting Disease and Disability Programme, EMMS International is supporting the Orphan Care Project at David Gordon Memorial Hospital (DGMH), Malawi. Malawi is among the countries with the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS worldwide and, as a result of the deaths of many parents, the number of orphans in the Livingstonia area alone, has reached 6,500. Although the statistics are staggering, DGMH is already caring for 300 of these children, from birth to 18 years of age. Here’s what they are doing in rural North Malawi:

o Supplying food, clothes and bedding

o Building family homes

o Supporting education, paying school fees, buying books

o Vocational training

o HIV testing and counselling

o Encouraging behaviour change and healthy life choices

o Preventing mother to child transmission of HIV

Please pray for the orphaned children who are taken in and cared for as part of an extended family. Give thanks for the love that is shown by aunts, grandmothers and neighbours.
Pray for Josephine Soko and her team, who teach these substitute mothers how to make porridge, and who provide pots and pans, knitted jumpers and clothes to the children who have so little.
Many orphans are the head of their household, perhaps responsible for younger siblings. Youth should be a period of great opportunity but for some it is a time of frustration. Please pray for these young lives.
Pray for the under-5’s who are the most vulnerable. They are at greater risk of malnutrition.
Pray for the families with no adult to care for them, living together on their own.