Basque Country Prayer Points for Week of May 28, 2023
Prayers points:
- On May 28 elections were completed for the local (city) and regional level. I was incorrectly stating the national level in the past editions. The regional and local levels have several different political parties who are looking to either maintain or gain power to make changes. In the Basque region the party who was currently in control retains that control, though the margin is much lower than 4 years ago. Other places in Spain saw a similar shift with several regions moving to be more conservative. Pedro Sánchez, a member of the socialist party, and the current PM called for the national elections to be pulled in from December to July 23. That was quite a surprise after the results that happened on Sunday.
- Pray for the newly elected leaders and the coalitions that will need to be formed over the coming weeks to start the legislative process. Additionally, pray for the upcoming national elections.
- *Note: If you’d like to have more information on the voting process let me know and I’ll share what I’ve learned thus far.
- Young people are looking for more security, flexibility of hours and other advantages offered by the public sector compared to the private sector. Over the last 4 years the public sector has been hiring more workers than the private sector. The private sector has been highlighting this gap and they are looking to understand what can be done to ensure they get the talent they need.
- Pray for the public and private sectors as they look to find solutions in hiring young people.
- A cold front recently came through that was very wet. One area saw the rain falling at the rate of ~65 gallons/minute. With that amount of rainfall in a short time it caused some significant localized flooding for those residents. One area saw damage to 240 homes and businesses and 95 vehicles.
- Pray for those who have been impacted by the floods and as they look to recover
- On Tuesday, May 16 a woman was shot and killed by her ex-partner, who then killed himself. This happened in a public park while several people and children were also in the park.
- Pray for those who have been impacted by this event and search for answers.
- The EU has communicated to the Spanish Government that adjustments need to be made to adjust their spending to be within a 3% deficit. This means the Spanish government will need to reduce ~9 Billion euros from the current budget. One area to be considered is the government subsidies that are in place, which have an anticipated cost of ~14 billion euros.
- Pray for leaders as they review budgets and make adjustments to satisfy the request from the EU.
- Recently a few fans made racial remarks towards a professional football (soccer) player, which is not often talked about here. The government has a number for people to report these incidents should they witness them. The local paper also interviewed 6 different people who live in Basque country who shared their experience with racism. Some have experienced name calling and another was detained in Germany in security while traveling without explanation.
- Pray for those who commit and are impacted by racism
The verse for the week:
Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!
Psalm 143:10