Dear ACW members, as we pause this weekend to reflect on Anzac Day, let us also pray for our sisters in the member countries of the Asian Church Women’s Conference (ACWC). Many of them, and their families, are currently experiencing serious conflict and threats to democracy in their countries. Many also have had family members who served, fought and fell alongside our Anzacs as brothers in arms, as well as foes on the battlefield.
War is a terrible, tragic event, as it brings only misery and suffering to the masses as power-hungry aggressors ruthlessly impose their tyranny on their opponents, who are often powerless to defend themselves from such assaults. So, yes, let’s stop and pray this weekend and be determined to call out all forms of oppression and injustice.
A reminder that the 19 member countries of ACWC are:
Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand.
There is much class and religious division, racism, injustice, persecution, political extremism and denial of human rights existing in all of these countries, and the perpetrators are becoming bolder and more violent. At the moment, consider particularly our sisters in Hong Kong and Myanmar. The situations in these two countries threaten their own citizens with arrest and much worse, even death, as their liberty has been seriously and rapidly eroded by recent political oppression.
Conflict and war do not deliver peace—
forgiveness and unity do.
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