Let us Pray:

Leader: For all the women disappeared, taken, and forgotten, left in the

rubble of land fills, and forgotten in our hearts, for all those barely

surviving on our streets, afraid, alone, under oppression of strangers and

perpetrators . . . Oh Creator of Love and Mercy, let us ask forgiveness for

our silence, and;

All: Empower us to create safety and protection for all women and

children.

Leader: For all Indigenous families, communities, and relations, who have

lost daughters, nieces, mothers, aunties, friends, and children, who are left

wandering, searching, mourning, with holes in their hearts, and grief and

rage in their bodies . . . Oh Creator of Love and Justice, let us remember

our sacred relatives and;

All: Empower us to bring them comfort and closure and justice for

all those who have been taken from them.

Leader: For systems that deny Indigenous women and their children

access to transportation, housing, homes, food, safety, education,

employment and health, creating homelessness, and making women and

their children more vulnerable to abuse . . .

Oh Creator of Love and

Courage, let us lament the creation of pass systems and reserve systems,

and lack of resources too many of us take for granted . . .

All: Empower us to create economic and political systems that

provide equal access to education, housing, homes, and health for

all.

Leader: For attitudes of patriarchy that demean and devalue women’s

sacred lives, bodies, hearts, and minds, diminishing the value, creativity,

and contributions that women and women-identifying persons and their

children make to this glorious world . . . Oh Creator of Love and Justified

Rage, let us challenge these attitudes and patriarchal actions and;

All: Empower us to transform our minds and hearts that all of us

view Indigenous women and their children with dignity and

respect.

Leader: For all of us that have felt overwhelmed in the face of these

injustices, creating silos of solitude and silence, inertia and ignorance,

instead of relationships of support, cooperation, and care . . . God of love

and covenant, let us be beacons of hope in word and action.

All: Empower us to build right relations with all those who are

courageous protectors and co-creators of your shalom.