Basque Country Prayer Points for Week of May 8, 2023
Prayer Points and verse for the week:
Prayers points:
- On May 28 elections will be happening at the local (city), regional and national level. The regional and local levels have 5 different political parties who are looking to either maintain or gain power to make changes. Leaders across the different parties are communicating messages for why people should support them and their party.
- Pray for the people as they look to determine which candidate will best represent them in the coming years to make legislative decisions.
- The regional government is building a new location for those who are affected by male violence. It will have space for women with children, women who are solo and for people who are in need of additional privacy or monitoring. They have double the number of spaces available over the last 5 years.
- Pray for women & children impacted by the violence, men who are acting in this manner and workers who support those impacted.
- Concern about the Basque Pubic health care system continues. A couple of weekends ago thousands of people in the 3 Basque capitals took to the street to protest the situation. Many are seeing that making certain types of appointments are taking months to get or that the local health care centers do not have enough staff to support the needs of the community. The leader of the system provided comments that contradict this view talking about the investments that are being made in the system, which have increased over the last 10 years.
- Pray for those who are looking for care, the workers and leaders as they all work to navigate the current situation.
- The effects of the low national birth rate are continuing to be seen. The latest area of impacts is in the education system. The number of students enrolled in schools over the last 5 years has dropped by ~8500, which has resulted in reduction in the overall number of classrooms. Even some schools have closed or consolidated with others due to this drop. Another effect is the decrease in first communion in the catholic church, with another reason being secularization of the population.
- Pray that young people will start to have a desire to have more kids and for leaders as they navigate the current situation.
- Last year the price of electricity was the topic of considerable discussion as the price was very high. Thankfully this year the price thus far has gone down, with the daily rate recently being ~62€/MWh compared to ~178€/MWh on the same day last year. Another area where costs have also been high is food items. The local paper over the last year has shared the cost of the same items in February, March and now May. While the overall cost is being recorded at historic highs, thankfully this month saw a slight overall decrease, though some items in the list saw an increase.
- Praise that people are seeing some lower energy bills after having high electricity & gas bills. Pray for people as they look to determine the best way to spend their money.
- Over the last several years a group of historians in Basque Country have been researching the biographies of soldiers with Basque heritage that participated in World War II. They believe in total ~2500 soldiers are in that profile, and they are working on biographies of 1600. Recently they made a presentation in Texas about their findings. They also have a desire to have a monument built for the 85th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in either California, Nevada or Idaho where there is a large population of people with Basque heritage.
- Pray for these historians as they look to show the contribution of Basque people during World War II.
The verse for the week:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32 ESV