Pray with Venezuela, May 19, 2024
Lectionary Selection: Acts 2:1-21
Prayers for Venezuela
Dear and loving God, our Father and Mother, thank you for your presence in Venezuela and the accompaniment and critical presence of Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ in Venezuela.
We continue to pray, our God, for the unity of the church and all creation. Venezuela and the world have become battlefields, fighting with teeth and claws. The world that you created good is deeply divided by political ideologies, gender, race, and social classes. Dear God, we pray for an ecumenism of the spirit, an ecumenism of solidarity and liberation that leads to overcoming our divisions and liberating creation from its bondage of corruption.
We pray for Christian unity, that we may all be united and together (Acts 2:1), overcoming the divisions to which we have been submitted by those who believe themselves to be the masters of the world. Help us unite to establish your kingdom of righteousness, peace, and dignity. Our struggle, dear God, is not between Christians and atheists. Our struggle is against a predatory global system that dehumanizes us and destroys all the good you have created in our world.
Oh God, our Father and Mother, we pray for Venezuela and the whole created world. Send your holy spirit! Renew all creation! May your holy spirit anoint us in this day of prayer with Global Ministries with the same spirit that anointed Jesus of Nazareth and transform us into prophets of the poor peoples of the new times!
Renew us, God, in the strength of your spirit to continue serving and accompanying our impoverished, afflicted, disoriented, dispersed Venezuelan people. Come, holy spirit, and consecrate our lives to save our beloved Venezuelan land from the aggression, siege, threat, and plundering that it suffers so that we may cover it with beautiful and fragrant shoots of productivity and hope-filled solidarity. Amen.
Mission Moment from Venezuela
We lift up the Missionary Covenant between the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the United Church of Christ, and the Pentecostal Churches of the UEPV in Venezuela. The UEPV-Disciples-UCC partnership has a long history. It began in 1963. In that year, Reverend Juan Marcos Rivera was received as a missionary. He remained for 25 years as a missionary in Venezuela. In 1967, Reverend Carmelo Alvarez was received as a missionary, renewing and reaffirming his appointment through today. Over the years, the partnership covenant has been formally reaffirmed. We continue to pray and be grateful for this relationship that began in 1963.
We lift up the joint work and common witness between UEPV, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the United Church of Christ. These joint efforts include an integral health and food emergency program and a medical mission project. Putting faith into action, the churches brought together Cuban doctors, Venezuelan doctors, and doctors from the Disciples and UCC churches in the USA and Canada. Impoverished children of the community of Los Hornos received medical attention and medicine from Venezuelan, Cuban, and North American medical hands. God blessed this community and the churches that participated in this medical mission. May God continue to bless this community and the churches participating in this medical mission.
I was sick, and you visited me, I was naked, and you clothed me; you gave me food to eat when I was hungry. The Lord said to them: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
Matthew 25
The Woman to Woman Program from the Women’s House of the Women’s Missionary Union (UMIFE) in Venezuela created a missionary exchange between Pentecostal women of the UMIFE-UEPV, Disciples of Christ women, and women of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
More information on Venezuela: http://www.globalministries.org/venezuela
Make a gift to support the work of the Evangelical Pentecostal Union of Venezuela (UEPV)