‘…And great shall be the peace of your children.’ (Isaiah 54: 13)

Opening Charge

‘As Christian social workers, who have been on the field of Social Empowerment Advocacy for Children and their custodians in the last 15 years, we begin to feel that public advocacy is not enough, particularly as it appeared that the more we advocated, the less impact we saw. We began to think that public advocacy without public invitation of God into the matters of our children may not deliver to us the desired results for our children and their custodians. We realized that ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…’ (2 Corinthians 10:4)… We invite every stakeholder in the life of the child to join us tomorrow, The Day of the African Child, June 16, 2012 at Chrisland School, Ladipo Oluwole Street, off Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, 9.30AM prompt to pray for the Great Peace of our children. According to Abraham Lincoln, ‘the state of humanity is in the hands of the child.’

Hello friends, I am glad you are doing great today. I am deeply sorry I could not come around yesterday. It was that kind of day when the spirit was willing but the flesh was too weak to catch up with the spirit. Today, I will be departing temporarily from our series on child discipline and development.

I want to focus on our prayer meeting slated for tomorrow, Saturday, June 16, 2012. I must hasten to add that one of the formidable and failure proof tools of child discipline and development is prayer. Thus we are separating time to pray tomorrow. Looking around us, we see an onslaught of bizarre abuses on our children, from sexual abuse (including incest), emotional abuse, physical abuse, abuse by neglect to child trafficking. Besides our teenagers and young adults are also under series attack in the hands of negative media, recently, children phonographic film makers made an entry into our nation.  Many of our children are addicted to vices like sexual immorality, pornography, homosexuality, lesbianism, just to mention a few

We do not think that there has been a time in our history that the Nigerian Child and youth have been under this kind of seemingly insurmountable onslaught. The state of the matter is that our children have been denied the great peace promised them by God, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ to give them life and peace abundantly.

As Christian social workers, who have been on the field of Social Empowerment Advocacy for Children and their custodians in the last 15 years, we begin to feel that public advocacy is not enough, particularly as it appeared that the more we advocated, the less impact we saw. We began to think that public advocacy without public invitation of God into the matters of our children may not deliver to us the desired results for our children and their custodians. We realized that ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…’ (2 Corinthians 10:4).

As we began to think in this direction, we received an instruction from God to organize a Public Prayer Summit for our children and their custodians (parents, guardians, school leaders and management, teachers, consultants in the school system, Christian children ministers, including children church teachers and youth leaders, social workers, leaders of children-focused Non-Governmental). God further gave us a theme of the Public Prayer Summit as ‘Great Peace for Our Children.’ (Isaiah 54: 13)

The crux of the mandate is two-fold: to help children and their custodians first is to establish a national public prayer consciousness (which may hold quarterly, bi-annually or annually); using Lagos State as a pilot and the second is to create a private prayer consciousness, which must be a daily affair in our closets.  The latter was the revelation Susan Wesley, the mother of John Wesley caught and she transformed the lives of her children on her knees.

In obedience to the foregoing divine mandate, we have decided to bring together children, youths, men and women of like passion to pray for the Great Peace for our Children in every area of their existence. Prayers will be led by the seasoned leaders in the areas of children and custodians identified above.

The Summit Holds as Follows:

• Date: We have chosen by divine guidance The Day of the African Child, Saturday, June 16, 2012 as the date of the Public Prayer Rally. The Day of the African Child commemorates the sacrifices made by South African children and youths, who protested the inferior quality of their education and many of them were in turn massacred by the apartheid Government in South Africa.

• Venue: Chrisland Educational Organization, Ladipo Oluwole, off Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, Lagos

• Time: 9.30AM- 1.00PM

Join us to Pray

We invite every stakeholder in the life of the child to join us to pray for the Great Peace of our children. According to Abraham Lincoln, ‘the state of humanity is in the hands of the child.’ Therefore a prayer for the Peace of our children and their custodians is a move to save humanity and it is a move we must all join hands to make in obedience to God and in the defense of the best interest of our children.

Prayer Categories

 Notable Custodians and lovers of the Nigerian Child will lead prayers in the following categories:

• Children in general
• Challenged Children (sick, physically challenged, orphaned, displaced and others)
• Prayer for Teenagers
• Parents/guardians
• School leadership
• The school system workforce (academic and non-academic staff)
•  Government agencies, policy makers, NGO and Social Workers
• State of the Nation in general as it relates to the family and children.

We look forward to receiving you tomorrow.

Thank you and stay INSPIRED.