
(I wrote this prayer from little bits of news coming out of Ukraine through prayer requests from members of Josiah Venture on the ground... I used it at an Ecumenical Ash Wednesday service in Fitzroy)
On the ground NOW
Ukrainian citizens cowering in underground car parks
Seeking shelter from Russian attacks
Lord may the word become flesh
To move among them.
On the ground NOW
Teenagers, young men and woman, older men and women
Volunteering to defend their country against Russia
With no previous military experience
Merciful Emmanuel, God be with them
On the ground NOW
Women and children on buses across Ukraine
Seeking safe routes to safer places
May you be their refuge and strength
And an ever present help in their troubled journeys
On the ground NOW
Refugees in long queues at border posts
Or already over the border
Leaving home with nothing at all
Lord may they today be delivered from evil
May those who take them in, have daily bread to give them
On The Ground NOW
NGO’s Gathering local information
Imagining how to deploy the aid
May we send what they need
May that help as circumstances change
Lord do do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine,
according to your power that is at work within us
On the ground NOW
International leaders
Imagining, planning how to end this war
How to put pressure on Putin to draw back
Without escalating the violence and deaths
God we pray you would bless the Peacemakers
That the baby Jesus would pour out
Peace on earth and good will to every human soul.
On the ground NOW
We gather here in safety to worship you
May our gathering and our praise and our prayers
And our visual commitment tonight to follow you
Somehow blend into your will for our world
So that swords would become ploughs
Spears would become pruning hooks
Tanks would become tractors
Bomb silos would instead be filled with grain
May your Kingdom come in Ukraine, its surrounding borders
And all across the earth as it is in heaven.