Praying for the world

Week 25

Displaced people

68.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes worldwide:

• 40 million have fled somewhere else in their own country 
• 25.4 million have left their country as refugees
• 3.1 million are seeking asylum and argue they can never return home.

Of the 25 million who have left their homeland, around two-thirds have come from just five countries: South Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar and Somalia.  Peace and good government in these lands would solve most of the global refugee crisis. 

85% of the world’s displaced people are hosted in developing countries.  The top refugee-hosting countries – and rarely praised by the global community for this – are Turkey, Uganda, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iran. In Lebanon, one in six of the population is a refugee. 

Migrant flows today are nothing unusual in historical terms. Their numbers, as a proportion of the world, have not changed much half a century.

• Pray for the protection of the lives and dignity of all those who leave their homes as migrants or refugees. The path they take is blighted by exploitation, illegal border crossings, rape, torture, and imprisonment; this, in a world of modern nation-states. 

• The presence of large numbers of migrants usually creates tensions and strains in receiving countries; pray for a balance between compassionate care for local people in need as well as refugees.

• Fair sharing between nations would ease the pressure on receiving countries. International cooperation could relieve great evil; pray for justice!

• The Christian faith has often taken root among refugees and in refugee camps. Pray for all who seek to serve refugees in Christ’s name. Pray that Christ will build his Church among those who have lost everything, turning ashes into beauty.

The nations

INDIA

India, with a population of 1.3 billion, dwarfs every country in the world except China. It is the most ethnically diverse nation on earth with over 2,500 people groups, 22 official languages, and thousands of castes. It is home to most of the world’s Hindus, while also hosting the second-largest Muslim population in the world and a small proportion of Christians. It is a secular state, and the world’s largest democracy, and proudly maintains traditions of free speech and freedom of religion. 

India has lifted millions of people out of extreme poverty in recent years, yet no country has greater human need, and its slightly larger rival China has moved much faster and further.

None of the northern states of India, each of which could be a giant country in its own right, are more than 1% Christian. They are also human mosaics of religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity. The Church has a commission to bring the gospel to every network of people and to every person; North India is a greater challenge for the Church than anywhere else on Earth.

• India’s freedoms are being tested by Hindu nationalism. While the main target of the nationalists is often the Muslim community, Christians too face discrimination, persecution and (in some states) anti-conversion laws. Pray that India’s proud traditions of tolerance and freedom will continue and strengthen. 
• India’s Christian Church has seen as many as 100,000 people sent all across India to communicate the gospel, start churches, and work to relieve suffering and injustice. The result has been tens of thousands of new congregations across India. Pray that this amazing missionary movement will transform India through Christ. 

Praying for the World is a free weekly prayer guide to inspire and inform the whole church to pray for the whole world. Visit www.lausanne.org/pray to start any week. Created through the partnership of Operation World and the Lausanne Movement.