Viva World Weekend of Prayer

Hope you’re all well. This weekend gone, some of you may know, was the Viva world weekend of prayer for children at risk. Projects, city networks and Churches worldwide have been putting on events to pray for children all over the world who are suffering.

Here in Cochabamba we had the stadium booked which was awesome! Leaders and children from various projects stood up front and talked about their projects and prayed. It was emphasised throughout and leading up to the event here that children are the inheritance of God given to parents, the community, the state, and the Church and that therefore it is important that we pray for them and with them.

The 5 main points of prayer were for:
- Children suffering from violence.
- Children that do not have a family.
- Children who have no access to education.
- Children who go hungry.
- Children suffering from HIV or AIDS.

We also had singing, games and clowns on show too! After the service all the projects grouped up. Each had banners, balloons, faces painted etc. We all left the stadium, stopped the traffic and marched out onto the street. We did a bit of a round trip and ended at a plaza where we all prayed together for the last time and then let off the balloons. On the day we reckon about 2000 were involved which is amazing!

Overall, the day was extremely encouraging and did wonders to further enhance the work of Early Encounter in Cochabamba. Awareness was raised in abundance. All the projects are so grateful for the help they receive from the network through training, funding and prayer and they were all really encouraged for us all as a whole to get together on this day. Everyone knows and sees it is a model that works. Television cameras were about on the day – in the stadium and while we were marching - interviewing project leaders, children and the Early Encounter coordinator. Since I have been here more Churches and projects have been joining the network, children from projects have been on television talking about their dreams for Bolivia’s future and in a couple of regions the local Governments have shown interest. The work is not just impacting on a local level but on a state level too. Politicians and big organisations are showing interest which is exactly part of the Viva mission too – a global movement.

And it’s fantastic to see it happening.

Thanks for reading.