Lord, this week as we acknowledge
Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, we pray with broken hearts for all Palestinians who
have suffered or are still suffering in Israeli prisons. It is not that we stop
to remember them, because we think of them daily – of our neighbors, our
brothers, our husbands, and even our children who have been arrested, so often
merely for resisting the daily injustices of occupation. We pray especially for
all people being unfairly imprisoned as administrative detainees, awaiting
charge and trial for indefinite amounts of time. Lord we thank you for the
courage and hope of detainees like Samer Issawi, who resist through one of the
only means available: hunger strike. We pray for the health – indeed the
survival – and quick release of all such prisoners, and for the families who
must endure the maddening wait. Lord, in your mercy...
God, we especially pray for all
the Palestinian children who experience arrest, interrogation, detention, and
imprisonment – a shocking 8,000 of whom have been arrested since the year 2000,
with a 99% conviction rate. We pray especially for Mohammad Khaleq, a
14-year-old Palestinian-American boy arrested last week for throwing stones,
who was mistreated during the arrest, not provided a lawyer during his
interrogation, and received inadequate assistance from the US government. Lord,
when will the United States and other countries stop making excuses for Israel
as it refuses to abide by international law? Please show Israel the
self-destructive hypocrisy of terrorizing Palestinian children in order to
achieve “security” for their own children. Lord, in your mercy...
As Sabeel programs continue and
with much work to be done, we pray for this Saturday’s interfaith conference on
nonviolence, for Friday’s General Assembly meeting, and for the Nazareth Youth
as they prepare for Sabeel Nazareth’s Orthodox Easter program. May Sabeel’s
work be always relevant, always motivated by love, and always mirroring the
life of Jesus. Lord, in your mercy...
Finally, we pray with the World
Council of Churches for the countries of Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and
Taiwan. Lord, in your mercy...
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