Prayer Updates for Children at Risk for the Week of December 5, 2011

Prayer Concerns for the week of 12/5/2011

West Africa, Ivory Coast

• Pray for the more than 1.8 million West African children involved in the production of cocoa, one of West Africa’s main exports. Pray for their safety and health—many are at risk of being injured by machetes used to cut the husk away from the cocoa pods or from pesticides used to treat the plants. Pray for children trapped in this life of indentured slavery. Pray for those who aren’t allowed to attend school, see their families, or get paid for their work. http://tinyurl.com/bovuezx   http://www.childlabor-payson.org/Tulane%20Final%20Report.pdf
• Pray for the estimated 800,000 children in the Ivory Coast believed to be involved in some form of cocoa production. Nearly half the world’s cocoa—the raw ingredient for chocolate—is exported from the Ivory Coast.
• Please pray for fairness in the production and sale of cocoa. Pray that the chocolate industry as a whole will adopt and use a system that can trace where the cocoa beans originated and if child labor was involved.
• Pray chocolate consumers around the world will learn more about this issue and encourage the industry to sell chocolate that doesn’t involve the exploitation of children. http://tinyurl.com/6yzaxkb
• Pray for an end to the use of child labor in the growing and harvesting of cocoa.

Kenya (Naomi’s Village – http://naomisvillage.com/)

• Please hold close in prayer the children and people of Nairobi’s Sinai neighborhood in the Lunga Lunga slums following a devastating gas pipeline explosion in October. Pray for the families of those killed—many who died in this explosion were children. Pray for God’s healing touch for the more than 100 injured in this tragedy.

http://wn.com/Video-More_than_100_died_after_a_petrol_pipeline_explosion_and_fire_in_Kenyaflv

• Pray for Margret and Esther’s five children who were orphaned by this explosion. The women were cousins and best friends who lived next door to one another and raised their children together. Margret and Esther, who shared the same birthday, tragically shared the same death day as a result of injuries suffered in the explosion.
  • Give thanks that 9-year-old Joel, 7-year-old Esther, 6-year-old Brian, 3-year-old Mary and 6-month-old Baby Joseph weren’t hurt in the explosion. Please pray for these children who have suffered so much—pray that God will heal their heart wounds and provide for their deepest needs.
  • Thanks be to God for the staff and volunteers with Naomi’s Village who are now caring for Margret and Esther’s children. The children’s extended family was unable to care for all five children yet wanted to keep them together so they brought them to Naomi’s Village. https://www.facebook.com/NaomisVillage

United States

• Please pray for the safety and freedom of girls and women who have been pushed into prostitution by street gangs more commonly known for dealing in drugs and weapons. Sex trafficking has become a more attractive money-making enterprise for street gangs because of its profitability, low overhead, reduced risk of being caught, and its victims usually have no way out. http://tinyurl.com/8xfgofz
• Pray for girls and women who are forced to prostitute themselves 10 to 15 times a day, often at construction sites, or in the parking lots of convenience stores and gas stations. Pray for those who are kept under control by the use of alcohol and drugs. Pray for vulnerable or desperate girls who are targeted and picked up by street gangs intent on trafficking them into prostitution.
• Thanks be to God that a 12-year-old runaway was recently rescued from a street gang that trafficked her into prostitution. Pray God will heal the physical and emotional wounds she suffered.
• Give God praise for the work of the volunteers and staff with the Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance for victims of human trafficking. http://www.polarisproject.org/
• Give thanks to God for the recent arrests and convictions of several gang members in Virginia and the strong message their life sentences in prison will send to other street gang-sex traffickers.

Faces of Children

• Give God thanks for answering prayers concerning 2-year-old Andrea*, the newly adopted granddaughter of a Faces of Children prayer partner. Andrea, a foster child with multiple health challenges, was placed with foster parents who were equipped to care for her medical needs and who felt called to adopt her. Thanks be to God for placing Andrea in this loving home with a new forever family.

*Name changed for confidentiality and/or protection.