Happy days. Family, education, food, health, work and play are all things that should be enjoyed by children wherever they live. We see all around us that often this is not the case.
What can we do? One thing is to pray! Saturday 1 June is this year’s Worldwide Day of Prayer for Children at Risk. Latin Link is joining thousands of other Christians in this annual event to pray for children and those who seek to change lives through the love of Jesus Christ.

‘Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet.’ Isaiah 58:1

Additional information and prayer material is available from *Viva Network, P O Box 633, Oxford OX2 0XZ. Website. www.viva.org Tel. +44 (0)1865 320101.

diary

1 Worldwide Day of Prayer for Children at Risk.

7 England v Argentina!
9 Mexico v Ecuador
13 Costa Rica v Brazil

12-15 Mission for the Third Millennium Conference in London. A packed programme includes George Verwer, Wednesday evening, John Stott, Thursday morning, and Federico Bertuzzi from Argentina leading several sessions. Please pray! Please go along!

27–30 Leader’s training and Step Orientation for 10 Summer teams going to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru and Spain.

29 International Team Leader John Chapman will be ordained at St Paul’s Cathedral. Pray for John and Debbie and family as they move house and take up their new roles at a church in Ealing.

2 The beautiful game. Love it or hate it, the World Cup is upon us, nowhere more keenly followed than in Latin America. Thank God for the barriers football crosses and the opportunities a shared enthusiasm brings. Some Latin American players are professing Christians—pray for them, and remember Latin Link Step Teams in Latin America during the World Cup.

4 Football evangelism. ‘At first it was very difficult as nothing seemed to interest them,’ says Latin Link’s Margaret Saunderson of a new work with teenagers in Surco, a part of Lima’s old town. ‘It is wonderful how things have developed. We got to know a Christian there who loves football, who has managed to get a whole group of young people together to play. Young people from La Tablada, one of the more established shantytown churches, are going there to play football and build friendships so that they can share the gospel.’

• Please pray for all the groups in Surco, for children and teen-agers, to grow in God, and also for parents to open up to God.

8 *Viva Network. Latin Link’s Charles and Suzanne Windsor are part of the newly formed branch of this Christian support group in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Please pray that their efforts to link up the various children’s ministries will be effective, and that many families will be reached.

11 From John Hart, Orphaids, Ecuador: ‘Victor Manuel, five months old, is out of hospital for the first time in his life — and struggling to survive HIV. He is succumbing to infections before his antiviral medicines can make a difference. If he makes it to June, a thousand prayers a day would probably come in very handy!’

16 New Latin Link members. Vet, Linda Bethell, asks prayer for practical details as she moves to rural Yapacani in Bolivia to start work with a live-stock project, after completing her language study at the beginning of June: ‘We have team planning meetings with World Concern the week of the 16th — pray for wisdom, unity and God’s leading in all discussions, and that decisions taken would be well received by the wider community.’

• Join us in praising God for his provision for Martin Bone who is studying Spanish in Lima prior to taking up his post as a water and sanitation advisor with Asociación San Lucas,
  the Luke Society, in Moyobamba, Peru.
• And for Brenda Greenslade (right), preparing to start her new work with Camp Hope, a home for disabled children, in Quito, Ecuador, next month.

Please pray for the happy adjustment of Brenda and Martin in their new areas.

19 Children’s homes threatened. The Ministry of Social Welfare in Quito, Ecuador recently announced plans to close the string of Remar homes, started by a Spanish Christian charity – for no apparent reason. Since the Spanish Embassy intervened the immediate threat seems to have passed – but it has upset plans for new projects, like a clinic. ‘Please pray the Lord would soften the Ecuadorian authorities’ hearts,’ asks María Augusta Cowan, who works with a home for abandoned girls.

22 Students on the right road. Stuart Oliphant has spent time in Viedma, a town three hours south of Bahía Blanca, after some students wrote asking for help in starting a Christian student group there. ‘This miraculous opening is part of a project — Route 22 — that we want to develop’ writes Jenny. ‘Route 22 is a road with towns along it, but without ABUA (University Bible Association of Argentina) groups. We have a few contacts so we want to see where these lead, and if we can get groups off the ground in Punta Alta, Roca, Viedma and Choele-Choel.’

25 New head needed. Please pray for a new head teacher for the little infant school in the Rio Pequeno favela, or shantytown, in São Paulo, Brazil. The present head, Renata, has been unwell and is unable to continue. Latin Link’s Gwen Griffin has been standing in but, ideally, a new head should start in mid-July.

• Gwen is also looking for someone to take over her Sunday school class in the favela before she returns to the UK in November. Please pray for someone who is used to the favela and able to read and write with ease.

30 The deaf hear! Deaf children in the Santo Domingo area of Ecuador are starting to benefit from help from England, including six donated hearing aids. Please pray for more help and resources, and praise God for:

• Two audiologists from Charing Cross hospital currently working with Latin Link’s Tim Pawson who has arranged a busy schedule of school visits to screen a number of children.
• Tim’s help in better equipping a local Deaf school, including an acoustic false ceiling — awaiting installation.
• Judith Marsden from Kent will return to Ecuador this summer to do some specialised training for teachers of the deaf, unavailable in Ecuador.
  

One Minute Window on Colombia

Colombia has a brand new President. He is Álvaro Uribe, the favoured candidate of right wing paramilitary leaders, who has pledged to defeat the left wing guerrilla forces active for 38 years. Part of his plan is to mobilise a million civilians to gather intelligence and inform on guerrilla activity. A fear is that this will simply draw more ordinary citizens into the violence. Another fear is Uribe’s stated openness to US military involvement. George Bush has already identified Colombia as another legitimate target in the war on terror. Please pray:

• for calm, following the election result
• for measured decision-making by the new president, Álvaro Uribe
• for caution on the part of the United States
• for the few Latin Link members in Colombia, and Americans in mission, under threat because of their nationality
• for the prayers and peaceful actions of many Colombian Christians to effect a seemingly intractable situation

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