Monthly Prayer Focus

What does it mean to have compassion? By definition, compassion means taking pity on those less fortunate. It is reaching out and offering a helping hand to others, and it is the fundamental purpose of GFA World’s Compassion Services.

GFA workers toil to bring healing and hope. They touch thousands of lives with the tangible love of God through slum, leprosy, medical and disaster relief ministries. Thanks to them, men, women and children who otherwise might have gone without help due to their circumstances have been blessed with much-needed aid.

Please join us in praying for GFA World’s Compassion Services this month.

The slums of South Asia house more than 171 million men, women and children.¹ Surrounded by squalor and disease, many families eke out a life in cramped huts and homes. Illiteracy keeps them trapped in poverty; their future the rags and huts that surround them.

GFA workers serve in these slums, offering literacy programs to uplift children and break cycles of poverty; hygiene awareness programs to help spread the knowledge of good health, helping stamp out disease; and income-generating gifts to give slum residents a way to better provide for themselves and their families.

Pray our GFA workers can continue to bless slum residents and break the chains of poverty that keep them from having a better life.

1 “Urban population living in slums.” Our World in Data. 2014.https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/urban-slums-total?tab=table

Many GFA relief workers operate in areas prone to experience natural disasters and are often on the scene during such disastrous events. These brave men and women wade through waist-high flood water to bring people food or medical supplies, pick through the rubble of an earthquake to rescue those trapped inside or help families evacuate before an oncoming cyclone. They turn their church buildings into relief camps when people’s homes are too dangerous to return to, and long after a natural disaster ruins people’s livelihoods, they’re there to help rebuild lives.

Pray for our brothers and sisters who serve during natural disasters, that God may shield them from harm and give them the strength they need to be a blessing to others.

A core part of GFA World’s Compassion Services is bringing hope and God’s love to marginalized and downtrodden communities. GFA workers can be found in slums, ministering among millions of families trapped in poverty. They also work among leprosy patients, who dwell apart from society, shunned into begging because of the stigma surrounding their disease. And, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, these workers are right in the middle of it, providing food and encouragement to those suddenly at risk of starvation or disease. As they minister in these communities, they help men, women and children understand they have value, despite their circumstances.

Pray for the communities where GFA workers serve, that every person may feel the palpable manifestation of God’s love and understand they are cherished by the Creator. Pray communities find peace and hope.

Children living in impoverished communities are more at risk of dying in childhood than those living in better circumstances.² Children who grow up in extreme poverty are deprived of the chances offered through proper development to improve their conditions in adulthood.³ Knowing God’s heart for children, GFA World workers do their best to stave off the poverty and sickness that surrounds these precious children through various educational and hygiene programs that will help give them a hopeful future—and will show them God’s love.

Pray workers can offer hope through God’s love to children caught in the same cycles of poverty and sickness as their parents.

2 “Child Poverty.” UNICEF. 22 December 2020. https://www.unicef.org/social-policy/child-poverty

3 "1 in 6 children lives in extreme poverty, World Bank-UNICEF analysis shows.” World Bank. October 20, 2020. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/10/20/1-in-6-children-lives-in-extreme-poverty-world-bank-unicef-analysis-shows

Whether it be a gift distribution, a medical camp or disaster relief, thousands of people get to experience God’s love firsthand through GFA World Compassion Services—some for the first time. Discovering the fact that they are loved and cherished by God may radically transform their entire life. Many of the men and women touched through Compassion Services come from difficult backgrounds or have fallen on hard times. Despite the despair and helplessness surrounding these individuals, GFA workers attempt to show them the true depths of God’s love through every word and deed.

Pray the people ministered to through GFA World’s Compassion Services will be truly touched by the love of God and that peace and joy will replace the fear and sadness that may rule over their hearts.

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