Where to start with world peace?!

A few weeks ago at St. James’ Church Youth Group in Taichung, we had the challenge of praying for the world.  Challenge accepted!  We prayed for the 16 countries officially listed as being located on the Tropic of Cancer, of which Taiwan is one (see that post here).  This past Saturday was part 2, this time with a focus on world peace.

We prayed for countries where war is a current reality.   Wikipedia’s List of ongoing armed conflicts is very extensive, so we focused on 16 of the worst-affected countries.  Not all are ‘at war’ in the traditional sense – the list includes the Mexico Drug War, as it has one of the highest number of causalities in recent years.  And of course, just because a country is not officially listed as being ‘at war’, does not mean that it is at peace.  Nor does it mean that a country is not involved in wars elsewhere.

Each of us was responsible for praying for one country at war.  More specifically, using paper people, each of us made our paper people into a family of 4, covering 3 generations, and researched how the people in ‘our’ family could be affected by the war.  Then we prayed and sang and committed all families in war-torn countries to God.

Partly inspired by the Gospel reading for yesterday when Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection (Luke 24), saying, “Peace be with you” ~ and that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Repentance and forgiveness.  We need a bit more of that in the world.  A lot more, in fact.  And in countries affected by war, it’s a particularly big challenge.  So, pray on!