Annual Day of Prayer 2009

A call for God’s people to pray for the children who have their childhood taken from them and for those who minister among these children.

Special Focus: Compassion and the Lost Childhood

What is meant by “the lost childhood”?

Children, usually between the ages of 5 and 10, are denied the benefits of being a child: playing with friends, creativity and imagination, schooling and gaining basic educational tools, sports, and being free to discover God’s creation.  Instead, they are forced to marry, to work, to fill an adult role for the sake of their family, or the greed of others.

• More than 100 million children are not receiving regular education and many drop out before grade 5 without mastering a minimum set of cognitive skills.
• Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time.
• One in four children in America under the age of 18 is growing up with alcoholic abuse or alcoholism in the family.
• Over the next decade 100 million girls will be married before age 18.
• An estimated 158 million children, aged 5-14, are engaged in child labour – one in six children in the world.  Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery.

Oakseed Ministries International would like to invite you and your church to participate in the Annual Day of Prayer for Children at High Risk.  Fill out the form to receive free bulletin inserts for your church or small group.