August 22 marks the start of Ramadan, and the beginning of the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World.
Beginning in 1992 as a YWAM prayer movement to pray for the Muslim World “The 30 Days” movement has moved beyond YWAM and now involves hundreds of thousands of Christians from around the world.
The 30-Days International Chairman states that, “The “30 Days” movement emphasizes God’s love for Muslims. We encourage all believers in the Messiah to cultivate a spirit of humility, love, respect and service toward Muslims. Jesus died for them.”
There is a prayer guide developed every year for the 30-Days of Prayer. This year it is a 52-page book that is available in 42 different languages. The booklet includes information about Muslim people from around the world and helps to educate the readers about the Muslim World.
You can read more about the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World, and find out how to get the prayer booklets, here.
Youth With A Mission has partnered with many other agencies around the world to work towards the abolition of slavery and human trafficking. At my previous YWAM location in Australia part of what we were doing was “Voice in the Dark” and “The Voice for the Voiceless”. Recently YWAM has partnered with Not for Sale in the fight against human trafficking.
Part of the ministry of Not for Sale is the “Slavery Map“, a site designed to “record and display instances of human trafficking across the globe”. You would be surprised where instances are recorded, as there are a lot of instances recorded in so called “developed” nations. There is even one recorded here in Calgary…
The Slavery Map has started to make an impact on how businesses and people operate, and helps to make these people’s stories heard. You can read about one such incident on the YWAM International Web-site here.
When I opened up my e-mail about two weeks ago I got very excited when I found about a dozen stories submitted to this web-site. Unfortunately though they were all spam.
For the moment I will be shutting down the story submit feature on this site until I find a solution that doesn’t allow through so much spam. I might look at adding a Captcha module to the site or changing the plugin used for submitting the story, but hopefully it will be back on-line soon…
I read a post tonight that me laugh about what else YWAM is an acronym for. Of course it officially stands for “Youth With A Mission“, but there are many other things that it could stand for, and here are a few of my favourites:
Youth Without Any Money
You Will Always Move
Young Women After Men
Young Wolves After Maidens
Yes, We Arrange Marriages
Youth With A Meeting
There are close to a dozen other options for the YWAM acronym on the post I was reading, and you can check them out here.
This weekend also marks the beginning of an HIV – AIDS Seminar in Worcester, South Africa. The seminar is three weeks of lectures and practical experience in the area. The topics that will be covered during the seminar are:
HIV – AIDS Basic Education
ARVs
Fighting Stigma about HIV and AIDS
God and Suffering
Loss and Grief
Legal Aspects of HIV – AIDS
Knowing your rights in the different areas of society
YWAM Worcester has an active ministry to sufferers of HIV – AIDS called “Garden of Hope”.
You can read more about the three week HIV – AIDS seminar, and Garden of Hope (GOH) here.
