Prayer for peace in Sri Lanka

On Saturday evening at St Johns Seven Kings we held a time of prayer for peace in Sri Lanka together with friends from the Tamil Church in East London. Our aim was to stand alongside our Tamil brothers and sisters locally in their anguish at the bloodshed occuring within their country.

As part of this time of prayer we viewed powerpoint slides and a dvd clip giving brief background details to the current crisis. Over the past 60 years:

• more than 100,000 Tamils killed and disappeared;
• more than 20,000 Tamil orphaned children;
• more than 35,000 Tamil widows;
• hundreds of thousands of schools, houses, hospitals, churches, temples, villages and livelihoods destroyed;
• more than 600,000 Tamils internal refugees; and
• nearly 1 million Tamils made to flee the country.

After the Election of President Rajapakse there has been an escalation of violence by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Government sponsored Paramilitary. The Sri Lankan Government has de-merged the Tamil Homeland in the North-East of the country and unilaterally abrogated the Ceasefire Agreement from January 16, 2008. The Sri Lanka government is intensifying a full scale war on the Tamil Homeland to impose a military solution and calling it a “War on Terror.” There is no credible political solution under discussion by the Sri Lankan government.

Tamil civilians are being targeted through disappearances, daily aerial bombings, road-side bombs, shelling, and extra-judicial killing. Over 5,000 Tamils have been killed since the election and an average of 57 Tamils are being killed daily.

Yesterday, an informative article on the current situation - Traumatised Tamils live in fear of new crackdown in Sri Lanka - was published in The Observer.

In our service we prayed the following prayer:

The weight of grief bears heavily upon us
but it is a load we need not bear alone.
Let us offer our burden to Jesus,
Lord of life and of death,
of the present and of the future.

We bring before you, Lord,
our confusion in the face of shock,
our despair in the face of tragedy,
our helplessness in the face of death.
Lift from us our burden,
and in your power, renew us.

We bring before you, Lord,
the tears of sorrow,
the cries for help,
the vulnerability of pain.
Lift from us our burden,
and in your power, renew us.

We bring before you, Lord,
our sense of frustration,
our feeling of powerlessness,
our fears for the future.
Lift from us our burden,
and in your power, renew us.

We bring before you, Lord,
our frustrated hopes,
our unfulfilled desires,
our unfettered sadness.
Lift from us our burden,
and in your power, renew us.

God of the desolate and despairing, your Son Jesus Christ
was forced to carry the instrument of his own death -
the cross that became for us the source of life and healing.
Transform us in our suffering
that in the pain we bear you might be for us
a fount of life and a spring of hope;
through him who died for us,
yet is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
now and for ever.
Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On / What's Happening Brother.

Prayer Vigil & Palm Sunday Procession

There are two events being planned for next weekend by folk at St John's Seven Kings which may be of interest.

The first is a Prayer Vigil for Sri Lanka which will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday 4th April. This Vigil is being organised at the request of our Tamil members and together with one of the Pastors from the Tamil Church in East London.

At least 300,000 Tamils are currently displaced in a tiny jungle area in the north of Sri Lanka, which is continuously being bombed and shelled by the Sri Lankan army and air force. More than 2,000 Tamils have been killed since the beginning of January, many of them children. During the Vigil we plan to provide information about the situation faced by civilians in the LTTE-controlled areas in the Wanni and to pray for a ceasefire and the unrestricted flow of food, medicine and international aid agencies into the conflict zone.

By organising this Prayer Vigil we wish to stand alongside our Tamil members and friends in their distress at what is occurring in their mother country. We cannot stand idly by while displaced people face death through conflict and lack of relief. Therefore, this Vigil is both to pray for and raise awareness of the urgent need for a ceasefire and for aid to be allowed into the region.

The second event is a shared Palm Sunday Service and Procession with St Paul's Goodmayes. The shared service will begin (9.45am for a 10.00am start) at St Paul’s with the opening section of our Palm Sunday liturgy. We will then process from St Paul’s to St John’s via Atholl Road, Woodward Recreation Ground and Meads Lane singing hymns as we go. We will stop in Woodward Recreation Ground to read the Gospel and bless palm crosses before completing the procession to St John’s where we will receive communion together.

We will be accompanied on the procession by a real donkey and are inviting children to dress up as disciples to accompany the donkey on the procession. We are also asking adults to bring greenery from their gardens to wave as we process. The original Palm Sunday featured a joyful procession as Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a colt and the people praised God and spread cloaks and palms on the ground. Our hope is that the service and procession will be a joyful celebration for us and a visible act of witness to our community.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swarnalatha - Neeye Nirantharam.