Pray for Laos on Sunday, February 12, 2012
Prayers for Laos: Mark 1:40-45
In this Bible passage Jesus had pity on this man, not because of the skin disease but because the man was being ostracized by his community and family because of the stigma of that skin disease. Jesus could also see how that man’s family was suffering because of their forced separation from him. I think Jesus was trying to “treat” the community that ostracized this man thru this act of healing.
Dear God, in this small country of Laos where drug abuse is a big problem among the youth, please help us to have more courage and the chance to train more social workers who can give empathy and understanding to help the youth. Help us to provide healing to the youth and their families who are ostracized by their communities. Amen
Mission Moment from Laos:
This is the story of a carpenter/farmer in a small village in Vientiane, Laos who became the Chief of his village. Mr. Vankham worked for 13 years as manager of the children development center where he learned about social work, social services, about children rights, gender and social problems like child labor, children and women trafficking , drinking problems, drug problems, family and domestic problems, leadership and management.
In JULY 2011 Mr. Vankham became the chief of the village of over 4,000 people. He now manages a village office in all aspects: education, social welfare, youth , women , anti-crime, laws and development. He raises fund to repair roads, to support the temple, and the school. When he speaks, people listen. He loves the youth and children and cares for the elderly people. He has grown from a plain, shy villager, who seldom had to deal with big group of people to a person who now speaks in public with confidence. He is invited to the university to talk about community development. Not a word of English before, now he speaks and writes English fluently. He does computer work, emailing, writing newsletters for his village’s acuities complete with digital pictures.
I think Global Ministries’ fund for capacity building in human resource social development program has given this man an opportunity and now he is making a huge contribution to his village and to the Lao people.
(Prayer and Mission Moment by Xuyen Dangers)
Video Resource on Laos:
Interview with Khampon Kounthapampa: http://globalministries.org/resources/multimedia-resources/videos/video-mission-moments/laos-kounthapampa.html
Global Ministries International Partners in Laos:
- Church World Service has been involved in ethnic minority communities that are caught in a cycle of poor quality education due to a lack of properly trained teachers. CWS has been building education centers and providing quality training to the under-trained community teachers in Vietnam and Laos. Through CWS, Global Ministries works to support after school programs and provide scholarships to local volunteering youths
- The Lao Evangelical Church is an organization of the Protestant Christian churches is Laos. They are working to develop improved educational options for the people of Laos; both through building schools in remote areas of the country that have none and also developing opportunities for advanced students to continue their studies in the Philippines The Church is also challenged to find ways to make medical care more accessible to the poor. Hospitals will give limited assistance to the poor only if the patient can get certification of their poverty status.
More info on Laos: http://globalministries.org/sasia/countries/laos/
Global Ministries Personnel in Laos:
Xuyen Dangers works with CWS in development and social work. For the last several years she has worked and help develop Children’s Development Centers with many schools on after school activity programs to help make school fun to prevent the children drop-out at the early age, provides scholarship to poor children who could not afford even school uniforms and notebooks. Working in a small country with no professional social workers , She also have encouraged local youths to be youth volunteers in these development centers and provide them with scholarships to go to the university to learn to become social development workers ( Bachelor of Sociology and Social Development- BSSD ) at the Faculty of Social Sciences , where she helped introduce social work course at the National University of Laos four year ago.