February 17th 2007

We met for the first time after a long time at the Richmond Pentecostal Church. The facility was given to us free of charge which was an answer to prayer. We started sharp on time; 5;30pm

The evening of prayer, set on the verse in 2 Chronicles 7:14 saw 60+ people attend to pray and intercede for the country called the pearl of the Indian Ocean. It started with the singing of the Canadian National Anthem & the Sri Lankan Anthem sung in Sinhalese & Tamil. Worship was lead by Elissio leading in 6 songs, followed by Janet Fierbach from Intercultural Network who elaborated on the same Scriptural passage- exhorting us who are children of God, to humble ourselves, to cry out to God because the problems Sri Lanka faces today are beyond our comprehension and control.

Esther Illangakoon representing the Singhalese, Sam Alangaramoney representing the Tamils, Wyndham Blom representing the Burghers and Yasmin Mihlar Shu representing the Moors, the four ethnic groups came together in repentance before God in an act of faith that God will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. We took time to pray at our tables, led by Yasmin who walked us through praying for leaders and influencers, for the hurting and the wounded, against the persecution of the church, the ongoing corruption, and the anti-conversion law.

Aaron Rogers from Global Aid Network, also shared with us his eye-witness accounts of the damage the Southern coastline had suffered from the 2004 tsunami. While there is a lot of civil, political and religious tension present, there were also glimmers of hope that much good would come out of these tragedies. More than 100 church pastors had led the way to bring food and equipment to all who needed it, thus taking the opportunity to share the Gospel to an otherwise hostile crowd. It was an awesome time of coming together to seek God's face for a country where we simply believe that God is not done with bringing the lustre back to this beautiful country of Shri Lanka.