Children & Poverty: The Bishops Initiative

Prayer Guide: May 2005

Prayer

Prayer Focus: That all children will have a family able to support them.

• May 1-7: Pray for children whose parents work two jobs and still don't earn enough to support their families adequately.
• May 8-14: Pray for children who are members of immigrant families that struggle with economic, cultural, language and security issues.
• May 15-21: Pray for teenagers who need to work to contribute to their families' incomes but cannot find jobs.
• May 22-28: Pray for children and youth who live on less than US $1 a day.

Call to Action

Learn more by studying Community with Children and the Poor: A Congregational Guide (Cokesbury, 1.800.672.1789). Obtain Kids Count published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (www.aecf.org/kidscount) to gather data about child well being and poverty in your state. Use Make Hunger History: Teaching Youth and Children About Hunger www.bread.org) with Sunday School classes and youth groups in your church.

Identify issues related to family economics in your own neighborhood, the wider community or around the world.

Act by involving your church in Heifer International. Serve fairly traded coffee, tea and cocoa at your church. Call Equal Exchange at 781.830.0303 x228; ask for the UMCOR Coffee Project. Organize a group in your congregation to develop Healthy Homes, Healthy Families Kits for distribution by UMCOR. Help establish a community garden in a low-income neighborhood or town in your area.

Plan to subscribe to Christian Social Action published by the General Board of Church & Society (202.488.5621) for articles and resources on critical issues, i.e., justice, environment, peace.