“It’s an enormous chain of prayer that sweeps the world,” says Mimi Barton, Chair of the England, Wales and Northern Ireland Committee. “The first service takes place in Tonga and the last one some 36 hours later off the coast of Samoa. It’s a truly global chain.”
The day of prayer is organised by women with a special focus on their needs, but all are welcome to take part. The point, Mimi stresses, is to bring Christians together in praying for the needs of a particular country as seen through the eyes of the women there. The country of focus changes each year and this time, support material for the services has been produced by Christian women in Papua New Guinea.
“Supporting people in other countries is just such an important thing to do and it is such a wonderful way of getting to know more about other countries, of understanding their needs and bringing their needs before God,” says Mimi.
“We are part of an enormous global community and there is indeed one body, we are all members. But we can be quite insular at times and this is breaking us out of our insular mode and making us look to other people.
“Not only will it make us appreciate how fortunate we are, but from the point of view of blessedness, we need to extend God’s compassion and love and mercy to other countries as well and pray with them and for them.”
In a country as diverse as Papua New Guinea, it’s not surprising that the theme for this year’s day of prayer is: “In Christ there are many members, yet one body.”
She explains: “In Papua New Guinea you have a country that consists of 600 different islands and 800 totally distinct languages. Since Papua New Guinea gained its independence it’s been trying to build one people, one nation, but it is a tremendous task. It is, however, a Christian country and the message we are trying to get across is that they can find their unity in Christ. In all this diversity there is one thing that can unite them, and they should be looking to find their unity in Christ as members of the body.”
