Philippine Children’s Ministries Network

PCMN Members and Partners Celebrated the Week of Prayer for Children at Risk

One of the things that the PCMN Coordination team did prior to the week of prayer was to promote the participation of its member-organizations, partners, affiliated local networks and friends in the Week of Prayer for Children at Risk from May 31 – June 6.

A posting of the Rizal working group of 10 churches in Facebook showed that they had their prayer gathering held in Taytay gym on Saturday morning (June 5). It was attended by an estimated 250 children and adults who took the time to pray together for children at risk worldwide. One significant outcome was the signing of a commitment by everyone in attendance that they will pray for children daily. What a joy and encouragement!

Wanting to see how a local church would celebrate the prayer event, I attended yesterday Taytay First Church of the Nazarene led by Pastora Luz Tamayo. The church is PCMN’s partner when a collaborative relief project was implemented to help the victims of the floods brought about by typhoons Ondoy and following. The church has also continued to participate in the current network project to equip faith-based groups in disaster risk reduction and child protection together with 29 other churches and NGOs ministering in vulnerable communities.

The Taytay First Church of the Nazarene participated in the week of prayer and designated June 6 as Children’s Sunday as a fitting culminating activity for the week. In their 10:00 a.m. worship service, the sanctuary was filled with children of all ages and adults. The congregation sang songs like “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” “Jesus Loves Me” and a couple of contemporary praise songs on children. A nine year old girl sang a solo. A team from the US led by Dale and Liz Von Seggen, both children’s ministry specialists of One Way Street Inc. in Colorado led a puppet presentation and a couple of child-focused presentations that were very well appreciated by both children and adults. Dr. Rovina Hatcher of the Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary shared a powerful message based on I Samuel chapters 1-3. The service ended with Pastora Luz, calling on all the children and their parents to the front for a corporate prayer for children. What a lovely sight that I am sure pleased the Lord greatly!

Other groups whether as individual organization or as a cluster of various groups had their prayer times during the week. We look forward to hear from all of them. For all the prayers that God’s people brought before the throne of the Father in heaven, we have the full confidence that something significant has happened and will continue to happen in many lives especially the children because God answers prayers.

Pine Gutierrez
PCMN National Coordinator