Call to Prayer and Fast

Written by ​Archbishops Ben Kwashi and Foley Beach

GAFCON Chairman Archbishop Foley Beach and General Secretary Archbishop Ben Kwashi issue a call to prayer and fasting for this Sunday, 22 March, interceding against the spread of COVID-19 across the globe, swarming locusts in East Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and famine and hunger in regions of Africa. 

In these days where global fear and anxiety are on the increase due to the pandemic spread of the Coronavirus, and the exponential growth of locust swarms and famine, we look to our Sovereign Lord God for refuge, consolation, intervention, wisdom, cure, and provision. 

We know from Scripture and experience that God acts differently when we pray. We believe that He not only hears our prayers, but that He uses people like our leaders, scientists, and medical professionals to accomplish His will. We pray that God would grant them wisdom, insight and strength in these coming days. We pray that in this time, people will call on Jesus in their pain, suffering and worries and find the rest and hope that only He can provide. 

We call on Anglicans around the globe to join together in the Holy Spirit, in prayer and fasting this Sunday, 22 March 2020.   
Let us pray and fast for our nations: 

• repenting of our sins and asking God's forgiveness
• asking God's intervention to stop the spread of this virus
• asking God’s intervention to stop the locusts
• asking God for healing for those who are sick
• asking God for miraculous provision for the hungry
• asking God to use us, his people, as agents of love and compassion
• asking God to draw people to himself through the saving power of Jesus on the cross.

“Return to Me with all your heart,” says the Lord, “with fasting, weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts, not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who know whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him.  Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast.”                   - Joel 2:12-15

Let us pray:
Eternal God, whose son Jesus Christ bore our grief and carried our sorrows, hear us as we pray for those in distress:
the hungry and the homeless; 
the incapacitated and the handicapped; 
the mentally afflicted and depressed; 
the sick and the dying; 
the aged, the lonely, and the bereaved. 

Help us, O Lord, who offer these prayers, to bear the sufferings of others as we seek to minister to them in your name, demonstrating your love and bringing your grace to bear in their lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Increase, O God, the spirit of neighborliness among us, that in peril we may uphold one another, in suffering tend to one another, and in homelessness, loneliness, or exile befriend one another. Grant us brave and enduring hearts that we may strengthen one another, until the disciplines and testing of these days are ended, and you again give peace in our time; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.                    BCP, 2019 #44, page 659 
​
Faithfully in Jesus Christ,
Archbishop Foley Beach, Gafcon Chairman
Archbishop Ben Kwashi, Gafcon General Secretary ​