For VIETNAM & EGYPT

Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City 
Gia Dįnh Evangelical Church

During Communion, I pray Lord for this gathering of your people. Guide them in your truth and protect them from the evil one. Meet them by your Holy Spirit this morning as they have come to worship you, the one true God, the only God worthy of our worship and devotion.

Reveal to us what idols we have worshipped besides you this week.

Show us gently where we need to grow, and what attitudes you want to transform.

We worship you awkwardly in a new place, feeling conspicuous as big white foreigners. Praying, singing, remembering your last supper with the sacrament of communion, and listening to the pastor preaching your Word in Vietnamese (and the sweet lady trying to translate for us), we turn our hearts and minds to You and try to comprehend who you are and what you have done to make a way for us. Thankful that you are interested in us, in me, who have done nothing to earn your concern, let alone such a great sacrifice as your Son's incarnation and sinless death in order that we can have this conversation...

We want to honor you in some small way by being here with your people, on this first morning of a new week. 

It is enough that you have made a way for us to be redeemed, and shown your good and perfect true way to a meaningful, but short life on earth; and eternal life somewhere else that resembles the original Eden...

And yet we dare to ask you for more.

This morning, I ask for unity among Christians in this nation. 

I also continue to ask for YOU Almighty God to oversee the transitions and strife in Egypt after the demonstrations of 33 million Egyptians convincing the Army to oust a President with an Islamist agenda. My minority Christian friends report that he was changing the rules to support his Islamic cause rather than democratically lead his people. But Lord, what precedence does this move make for peaceful democracy to work in the future, is the dissidents' and disgruntled (even if a majority) can bring down a democratically elected leader? And how is it possible for there to be peace, when those who do follow Islam, and especially those supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood are surely feeling betrayed by their military and wanting to lash out at what, for them, according yo what they know and have read or heard, is injustice rather than oppressed people demanding and getting justice by removing the leader who has failed to represent and protect them?

And what's happening today in Egypt is small compared to the months of chaos in Syria. Good Lord! What is to be done?

All if Islam and the Middle East is watching and learning from these political events. I ask Lord for you to focus your followers in these places to seek first YOUR KINGDOM and seek opportunities to share your offer of life and peace and hope through the Gospel if Christ, rather than the Gospel of democracy or ideologies.

I pray for the socialist leaders of America to see how they, like the Muslim Brotherhood have been pressing their agenda thru legislation. Theirs is an agenda for Godless liberalism, and limiting the freedoms of your people in US. Wake them up by your Spirit that you are the way, the truth, and the Life. Bring believers into their circle to influence them to FEAR YOU!

Jesus! We need you! We need your ways and righteousness! We need your kingdom to come in earth as it is in heaven!