Pray for East Timor on Sunday, March 26, 2017
Lectionary Selection: John 9:1-41
Prayers for East Timor:
A Man Blind from Birth Receives Sight
“The disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.”
Dear God,
Each day in Clinic Immanuel Lospalos, as we address people’s health concerns, continue to help us provide any physical healing that we can. But people also come to our clinic seeking spiritual healing. God, continue to help us provide patients with another way of “seeing” illness, helping them understand that illness is not just something that someone else, living or passed, makes happen to them.
This way of seeing also holds people accountable, and so help us as we teach people each day how their behaviors directly affect health.
For the mind-body-spirit medicine that is reaching people every day in our clinic in Lospalos, we pray. For the possibility to continue the teaching and healing that happens here, we pray. And for the vision of our partners, the Protestant Church in East Timor, to see how best to support the continued work of Clinic Immanuel, we pray.
Amen.
Mission Stewardship Moment from East Timor:
We have started Peer Group Meetings for our TB patients at Clinic Immanuel Lospalos. The goal is to introduce more health education into the work of the clinic. So each month, we circle as many of our TB patients as possible, offer tea, and provide a forum for them to share their experiences and concerns. We also take the opportunity to teach them about this disease which is so prevalent here, and yet so little understood.
In the text from John today about the blind man, Jesus’ disciples ask him, “Who sinned, the man or his parents?” In America, I have never heard anyone ask such a question relating to one’s health. But today in Lospalos, East Timor, the ancestors are just as important to people’s well-being—or tragedy—as they were in Jesus’ time. In our monthly peer group meetings, I have been trying new ways of helping both the clinic staff and the patients to see, when it comes to TB, “Neither this Patient nor his or her parents have sinned”.
At Clinic Immanuel, we are doing a little bit every day to bring this disease of poverty out of the darkness, both for those sick here in East Timor, and for those who have all but forgotten TB exists in the world.
(Prayer and Mission Moment by Monica Liddle)
Mission Partner in East Timor:
More information on East Timor: http://www.globalministries.org/east_timor
Global Ministries Missionary in East Timor:
Monica Liddle serves as a missionary with the Protestant Churches of East Timor (IPTL). Her appointment is made possible by your gifts to Disciples Mission Fund, Our Church’s Wider Mission, and your special gifts.