Passion and Pain

raised. In the case of divorce, the children are removed permanently from the mother‘s custody at 7 years of age for boys and 9 years of age for girls. The children are then awarded either to the father or to the deceased father‘s family, and the mother is often prevented from visiting her children after divorce. Cases of abductions of Western children by Saudi fathers have received international attention as the Saudi Arabian Government consistently refuses to return the kidnapped children to their foreign mothers despite the rights and foreign citizenship of the children.

Since the year 2000, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly recommended to Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and Colin Powell that Saudi Arabia be designated a country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act for its severe violations of religious freedom. To date, both US Secretaries of State have refused the designation. It is widely believed that human rights concerns are being muted because of the West's ―more pressing‖ interests in appeasing our oil-rich ―friend and ally,‖ Saudi Arabia.

Prayer Points: * Please pray for the protection and deliverance of Christians and other religious minorities in Saudi Arabia; that they will be strengthened in their faith and comforted in their suffering; that God in His mercy will spare them from further unspeakable horror, and raise up intercessors and advocates to lighten their heavy burdens. * Please pray for an end to the harassment, arrests, deportations, detentions, flogging, and torture of Christians by Saudi Arabia‘s Mutawaa religious police and other Government authorities. Please pray for an end to the Government‘s crackdown against Christian converts and house-church members and leaders. * Please pray for an end to the Saudi Government‘s massive financial support of Islamic terrorism around the world, that the religious diversity of its own citizens and residents would be tolerated and protected; that the Government of Saudi Arabia will respect and protect the lives and human rights of women and children within its borders, and that children abducted from Western countries will be returned home. * Please pray that Western governments and other world leaders would cease to be silent over the rampant religious persecution of Christians in Saudi Arabia; that they would have the conviction to place greater value on human lives, human dignity, and religious freedom than on their desire to maintain a ―friendly‖ strategic relationship with an oil-rich power broker in the Middle East.

Recognising that Christians and Muslims, as well as Jews, are all children of Abraham, and that we are all therefore subject to the same commandments that we love God and love our neighbours as ourselves, we pray that God‘s Holy Word will prevail in dialogue and that all of our hearts turn in repentance to saving faith. Pray also for the humility and shame to recognise that the conflict between these three great world religions constitutes one of the greatest scandal the world has ever seen.