Lord, You have promised us your presence. So many around the world feel the need of that presence now – 
for comfort, for strength, for the provision of life sustaining resources, for a new home.

Their energy is sapped. Their routines are disrupted by the horrors of the past and the dangers of an unknown future. 
Sometimes the anxiety is too much. 
Sometimes you must seem distant to them. 
Sometimes they hurt in loneliness as well as in practical humani-tarian terms.
Father, we pray that pain such as theirs will be healed. And we feel challenged to play a greater role in that healing.
Help us to discern how we fit into a
world that is so much larger than our local community. 
Show us how we can, “help this fallen world stand up again”. 

So, Lord, we offer ourselves, our energies, the resources associated with more comfort-able lives than many enjoy. 
Give new meaning this coming season to our singing of, “Joy to the world”.
Make us instruments of your joy and hope and peace. Help us to be the kind of comforters the Apostle Paul wrote about in 
II Corinthians 1:3-4,

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves
have received from God.”

Give us courage to move more directly into this world of pain that we often see only on the evening news. Illuminate our eyes and inflame our hearts that we might 
discern ways to more effectively be used in your service. Show us the opportunities that must surely be sitting right in front of us.

Thank you, Lord, for being with all your children around the world. And thank you for caring for refugees in earlier ages, refugees such as Mary and Joseph as they fled to 
Egypt and refugees like the early Christians who were forced to disperse across the Roman Empire.

We pray this thru Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns in unity with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen