As reports of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa spread, the Rev. Frederick Yebuah, who is a native of Ghana in West Africa, decided to compose a litany for those impacted by the disease. Yebuah, who is a clergy member in the South Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, shared the litany on the website of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. Producers at United Methodist Communications excerpted a portion of the prayer and matched it with music and images from West Africa to create a powerful meditation for use by individuals or in group settings. It offers a way for people of faith to show their support of those who are suffering and to reflect on challenges in their own lives.
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Transcript:
A Prayer for Those Affected by Ebola
Gracious God, we call you the Great Physician.
We pray your healing power to touch those bodies that now shake with fever, ache with pain, and are too weak to sustain the demands of life.
Gracious God, we know you are a Mighty God.
Grant access to medical care for the most vulnerable in West Africa.
Protect doctors and nurses who kneel at the bedsides of the sick and the dying.
Provide resources in places of lack. Guide churches and church leaders.
Empower all who work tirelessly to be Christ's hands and feet.
Gracious God, we believe you are Hope for the hopeless. Hold parents who've lost children.
Gently father and mother children who've lost their parents.
Make your presence known to those who are dying alone, in the streets, in wastelands, without friends or family.
Speak tenderly to all who feel abandoned by the world's governments and systems of power.
Give strength to our friends in West Africa who feel that "life more abundantly" is an unfulfilled promise.
Gracious God, we know you are the Light overcoming darkness.
Why should we be afraid?
Help us, O God, to trust in your unchanging nature in times of uncertainty.
Grant us peace that Ebola or anything in this life that would threaten to undo us, is not impossible for you.
Hear our prayer.
Amen.
Excerpted from, "A Litany in Response to UMCOR's Call to Pray for Those Affected by the Ebola Epidemic" by the Rev. Frederick Yebuah for The United Methodist Board of Discipleship.
This video was first published on October 20, 2014.
