Global Ministries

Pero el Dios de la paciencia y de la consolación os dé entre vosotros un mismo sentir según Cristo Jesús. Romanos 15:5

La guerra reclama muchas víctimas de muchas maneras y mucho después de que se firmen los acuerdos de paz. Una guerra civil, peleada por el pueblo tamil de Sri Lanka a fines del siglo XX y que se estableció en el siglo XXI, comenzó con la esperanza de establecer un estado independiente tamil en la isla de Ceilán/Sri Lanka. Cuando la lucha se detuvo, la ira no lo hizo.

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May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had. Romans 15:5

War claims many victims in many ways, and long after the peace agreements are signed. A civil war, fought by Sri Lanka’s Tamil people during the late 20th century and settled in the 21st, began in the hope of establishing an independent Tamil state on the island of Ceylon/Sri Lanka. When the fighting stopped, anger did not.

Lectionary Selection: John 1:43-51

Prayers for Sri Lanka:

God of all people and of all hope, we give thanks that you created us to be love, hope and peace for and with each other. 

You trust us all with mighty work in a world of mighty needs. 

Were we to trust only ourselves, we would fail.  We would invite the future we fear most – war and injustice, destruction of resource, possibility and beauty, slaughter of God-created life for our amusement. When we place our faith in you and your presence in us and each other, we become hands, heads, eyes, ears and the possibilities you created us to be.

Open our senses and thoughts to the wonders of being human and of being in this world, our home. Give us courage to dare to be our best when we fear what others will think or say. Inspire our imagination to dare to live a vision of a world when we will all celebrate each other’s gifts and possibilities.

Fill us with a peace that resists angry words, cruel jokes, threats of punishment and pain, violence as entertainment ...  and grant us a sense of justice that seeks not to punish, but to calm, to educate, to understand gentleness as strength.

May these be our weapons against war, hatred, prejudice, our protection against the violence of ignorance and fear. May you be the shield and armor that leads us all to respond with love and hope.

As Jesus taught and lived, so may we ... Amen

Lectionary Selection: Matthew 25:31-46

Prayers for Sri Lanka:

Gracious God, we thank and praise you for the many ways you offer us to be your people – hands and feet, listening hearts and inventive minds - to bring your love and creative spirit of help and healing to your people. In a world that seems increasingly to find reasons to solve problems with threats and anger and violence, we cherish your gift of quiet hope of undoing our most complicated reasons to disagree.

We pray for your soothing touch in our hearts and heads when differences begin to define our relationships. Help us with your love and view of each of us, the possibilities of all of us, and your vision of a world of peace and appreciation, love and sharing for all.  Lead us to live as Jesus taught us to do. May we live for you, for each other, for all your people and all our possibilities. May all come together in your love to shape the world as home and hope for all. We offer our prayer in the name of Jesus, Messiah, teacher, bringer of good news. Amen

Lectionary Selection: Matthew 22: (34-46)

Prayers for Sri Lanka:

Gracious God of all of us, we give you thanks for the many people you have created, each with gifts to offer to the rest of the world. Some of us become famous with the way we help many people. Most of us live according to our best understanding of what we can do with and for each other. We give you thanks for the many gifts we have found among our brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka – joy, sympathy, help, a listening ear, humor, patience, song and celebration, knowledge, laughter, quiet acceptance, respect, a kind word. Remind us that the gifts we can offer need not be spectacular. The love with which the gifts of Sri Lanka are offered makes them precious – and blessed. We give thanks for the One who taught us in your name that we each have something special to give that our world needs. In the name of Jesus our Christ, we pray for our Tamil sisters and brothers of Sri Lanka in the joy and challenges they have in their homeland. Amen.

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The Church of the American Ceylon Mission has been celebrating its 200-year old history of work with missionaries from the United States for two years. Five young men, students of Williams College in Massachusetts, decided to serve God in some area that did not yet know Christianity. They arrived in the northwestern part of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and began learning the language and translating the Bible into the Tamil language spoken by the people living in the area. Soon after they arrived, a man by the name of Dr. John Scudder arrived to live out his strong Christian faith by bringing his medical practice to the area.

Lectionary Selection: Matthew 10:24-39

Prayers for Sri Lanka:

God of all, we give thanks to be in Sri Lanka with people whose origins are deep in the past, and we are grateful for what their past teaches us all.
 
We cherish our shared story of education, healthcare, faith and friendship.  We give thanks that we work with the Church of the American Ceylon Mission (CACM) to continue our shared story. Today the UCC celebrates its 60th birthday – and the CACM is celebrating the 200th year since the American Ceylon Mission began! With joy we celebrate the ways our churches change and work to meet the needs of a challenging future.
 
We pray for what is needed and what is being done to help Tamil people recover from the war that followed years of discrimination against them. With faith in you, O God, the CACM works to reclaim homes and businesses and to prepare tomorrow’s adults for progress and success.
 
As the world grows smaller and more crowded, we pray for meaningful connections. We need your guidance, O Holy One, and the strength and creativity to adapt to a changing world. Help us to judge well what is important for our future and what to leave in history as lessons.
 
We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen

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Spending most of one’s life in the northern United States makes it hard to focus on a spring newsletter when every day seems to be mid-summer! But we’ve had a bit of the rainy season that is about 6 weeks late in our part of Sri Lanka, and it has been cool enough some nights to turn off the fan after midnight!

Just one?  Only one day a year?!

If enough people sing and march on March 8th this year, will we change the world and not have to do this again?

Why is it necessary to choose one day and assert – or advertise – that women are people . . .
          human beings who may not match male strength and size on the average, but are equally capable of being
                thoughtful, intelligent, capable.     
When men were hunters and warriors, women took care of home, bore and raised children,
                prepared the next generations for the future.
Now there are more roles for men, and . . . there are more roles for women,
         yet too many people still think of home as where women belong – not in offices, factories, laboratories.

Sri Lanka

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