Pray with Fiji, April 13, 2025
Lectionary Selection: Luke 19: 28-40
Prayers for Fiji
God of the ocean, land, and sky. God of our ancestors who fared this vast sea, guiding our forefathers and mothers from island to island. You were the wind behind the sail. The sun on their faces. The rain in the storm soothed the pain and fear of tribal wars, famine, and disputes that caused our people to sail the high seas. God, you were also the courage behind their aspirations to find new land, life, and beginnings. Today, in new oceans filled with hatred and capitalistic surges without fear or shame, we find ourselves lost again in the darkness of political storms. We search for land and light but are assaulted from every side. Help us cross this ocean. Please give us the strength, stamina, and willpower to weather the storm. But when we as a people and nation are afflicted beyond our strength to withstand, give us the grace to forgive and not to hate in return. Sail with us to new beginnings, dear God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Mission Moment from Fiji
The racial rift in Fiji has not healed since its first military coup d’état in 1987. Following two more coups in 2000 and 2016, Fiji experienced three constitutions, with the latest being forced on the people by the last government without national-wide consultations. The government has set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to unite the people. At the heart of this critical work is the Fiji Council of Churches. The Christian churches were either involved in past nationalistic campaigns or sometimes complacent. However, it has now realized its holy and divine calling to gather the people of God (all people of all races and religions) in this nation.
Fiji is at the crossroads of a political reformation, which could be for the good or the bad. This is why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work is vital. Healing political wounds is not an easy task. However, the faith and generosity of church leaders to whom this enormous amount is given require the support and prayers of many, even beyond Fiji. Equally important is the cultural and societal morality of Christians in Fiji, which is to rise above frivolous humanistic desires that separate and divide. We have hopes in our church leaders; more so, we have hopes in the God who liberates when souls are enslaved and oppressed, a God who answers when blood calls out from the land and ocean. As Christians in Fiji, we listen intensively and intently to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and in hearing, we become God’s answer to the Fijian call today.
Written by Nikotemo Sopepa, Pacific Theological College, Fiji
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