Prayers for Encouragement
More than 35 million people worldwide are living with HIV and AIDS, and the vast majority of those infected live in low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization. Since 2007, Upper Room Ministries has published Prayers for Encouragement: Hope for Persons Living with HIV and AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and Other Serious Diseases.
This “little red book” has been translated into Afrikaans, Arabic, Chichewa, English, French, German, Hindi, Ilokano, Kiswahili, Korean, Myanmar, Portuguese, Sesotho, Setswana, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Xhosa, and Zulu.
In Jesus’ time, lepers were the most stigmatized of patients. Yet he demonstrated great compassion toward them. Today, HIV & AIDS patients suffer many of the same discriminations and rejections that first-century lepers did.
As the popular saying goes: What Would Jesus Do? And how willing are you to do likewise?
Like its predecessors in the Pocket Prayer Series, Prayers for Encouragement is a 32-page booklet of comforting meditations developed for a specific need—in this case, serious diseases affecting many of the world’s poor.
“The church has a special role in providing spiritual comfort, strength, and prayers for encouragement to people in need,” says Don Messer, author and executive director of the Center for Health and Hope (Focusing on Global HIV and AIDS). “Where there is human suffering and crisis, Upper Room Ministries wants to provide openings to God’s healing and reconciling grace,” said Sarah Wilke, publisher of The Upper Room daily devotional guide.
Packaged and priced so that you can share copies freely, Prayers for Encouragement is a perfect gift for hospital or home visitation or for anyone in pain and need of encouragement. As one contributor says in Prayers for Encouragement, “As we face uncertainty, pain, illness and other trials, we can remember: Jesus, bigger than any problem, is holding me tightly to his heart.”
To learn more, visit the Upper Room International Ministries website at international.upperroom.org