• Introduction
• An international movement
• Coordinating a WDP service
• WDP 2009:
  Papua New Guinea
• WDP 2007: Paraguay
• Quadrennial 2007
• History
• Information Sheet
  (MSWord: 320K)
• WDP ordering information

World Day of Prayer 2008: Guyana

World Day of Prayer Report: 2008

This sign invited people to the WDP service in Stouffville, Ontario, on a very snowy evening. (Photo by June Dyer)

Participants across Canada were pleased to involve people from the Guyanese community in this year's World Day of Prayer service, held March 7, 2008. Although there were snowstorms in many parts of the country, the service, written by the women of Guyana on the theme "God's wisdom provides new understanding" was well attended.

Right: The WDP decorations at St. Benedict's Monastery in Winnipeg, MB, bring to mind the rivers and jungle of Guyana. (Photo by Joan Mormul)

A number of coordinators reported enjoying Guyanese songs, dance and food at their services, while other services featured colourful displays of Guyanese handcrafts and pictures. In Ottawa, for example, the High Commissioner for Guyana welcomed members from the local Women's Inter-Church Council to his office and supplied several groups with large colourful posters of beautiful Guyanese scenery.

Every year, it is thrilling to see how various communities have brought to life the worship service offered by the women of the WDP host country. Creative ideas this year included the distribution of 70 handmade butterflies -- a symbol of Guyana featured in the DVD presentation -- by the women of Vegreville, AB; and a tabletop water fountain on the chancel steps, surrounded by tropical plants, created as a reminder of Guyana "the land of many waters" by the community in Whitehorse, YK.

The WDP service helped to link Canadians with those around the world praying with and for the people of Guyana. Please continue to remember Guyana in your prayers, as the issues the people are facing are ongoing. (See the story below for more information on current issues of concern.)

Over 250 people attended the WDP service in Chilliwack, BC, hosted
by St. Mary's Catholic Church. (Photo by Rena Sieben)

Memories of Guyana

A surprise visitor brought a personal connection to Guyana to this year's
World Day of Prayer "Festival Day", organized by the Metro Toronto
Women's Inter-Church Council each fall. Patricia Wendy Dathan, third
from left, is the author of Bauxite, Sugar and Mud: Memories
of Living in Colonial Guyana 1928-1944 (Shoreline, 2006).
Through the Bishop's High School Alumnae association, she contacted
members of the Guyanese community participating in the Festival
Day event, and made a special trip from her home in New Brunswick
to attend. (Photo by Hazel Campayne)

Pray for the country of Guyana

Guyana this year, 2008, is a country on the brink of chaos and anarchy as its inhabitants, especially the voiceless working poor, live in constant fear of violence from criminals who kill, maim and destroy with impunity as they walk and stalk the land at will. The institutional forces of law and order visibly appear incapable of dealing with heavily armed and highly trained criminals and bands of criminals who are intent on creating mayhem in the society.

Within the past three weeks, 20 civilians, one soldier and three policemen have been killed. In the early hours of the morning of January 26, a band of about 20 heavily armed gunmen in execution style slaughtered 11 residents, including five children, in their homes in therural coastal village of Lusignan on the East Coast of Demerara, and injured several others. A day or two earlier, a young soldier of the Guyana Defense Force (the Army) was killed in an encounter between the army and criminals in Buxton, the village that borders Lusignan. Then, on the evening of February 16, right across on the western side of the country in the interior mining township of Bartica in the County of Essequibo, a band, reportedly of about the same number and armed in the same way as in the previous slaughter at Lusignan, invaded and rampaged the township unhindered, and brutally slaughtered 13 persons including three policemen in the Police Station and injured several others.

“Living in a society of terrifying unknown,no one knows what will happen next or to whom it will happen or where it will happen,” was the saddened cry of someone writing to one of the national papers. The people pray silently and openly for relief from the violence and other misdeeds of “man’s inhumanity to man” and the resulting conditions that degrade the sanctity of human life and human living.

Please intensify your prayers with and for the traumatized people of these communities and of all Guyana for God’s wisdom to provide new understanding to those with the responsibility to find effective ways to urgently and quickly bring relief from the heavy burden of the current evils that beset the citizens of Guyana. Prayer has become more desperately needed not only on March 7th, World Day of Prayer, but ongoing, for as long as possible, until peace, harmony and security are restored to this once beautiful Guyana. “When all voices are joined together in one united voice, what a powerful voice it will be?” Please help the people of Guyana by raising your voices in prayer with them and for them in their pleas to the Most High for relief, even if such relief resides in miracles.

In terms of other concrete action, much help is also needed from people in Canada and in every other country to plead with their various governments and people of goodwill at all levels to petition the people in the central institutional sources of power in Guyana to promote measures that will serve to protect the people from the ravages of evildoers and ensure peace, security, stability and human and social progress in the society.

Statement by The  CANADA GUYANA FORUM – 21 FEBRUARY 2008

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