EDUCATION ARENA

God gave authority to parents as the first and primary educators of children.  Over the years, and especially since 1960s, this role has been eroded and others e.g. government, schools, Family Planning, have moved into the gap.  There has been a “shift in authority from family to government which is strategic and dangerous”. (Landa Cope)  Now the education system and Family Planning are the primary educators of children in sexual matters. God’s views of life, His values and standards are now well out in right field – too righteous, and restrictive, for the average person!

PRAYER POINTS:

v      Pray for a groundswell of concern among parents to arise so that their God-given role as first educators of their children will be claimed back.  Pray for the corporate, bold voice to be heard.  There is a Govt initiated programme called Parents as First Teachers.  Parents with babies are visited regularly and given tips on their baby’s development and what to teach next, intellectually.  Pray for this to be developed into the moral/sexual/pro-life area, for parents to teach facts and display values naturally, formally and informally, using life’s situations as they arise.

v      Our warfare with this world is the warfare of ideas and beliefs.  Pray 2 Cor 10:2-5

v      Pray for the grip Family Planning has on the education system in NZ to be loosened, for individual schools to begin to close the door to Family Planning, and for doors to be opened to Christians to fill the gap, to teach truth, pro-life values and to outline the consequences and effects of abortion.  Pray for the Church to rise up into their God-given role to educate.

v      Pray about education in the areas of purity, virginity, abstinence, and respecting others. See Whistle No 9 for list of pro-life groups working to education in these areas.

v      Pray about the Teen Units being set up in schools.  Fraser High School in Hamilton has 33 mothers studying at the Teen Unit there.  “Everyone who enrols at the unit must complete a pregnancy and childcare course which takes 10-12 weeks and counts for NCEA credits.  The unit also teaches about healthy diet and basic cooking skills.  The philosophy is just because you are pregnant it doesn’t mean it’s the end of your education.  In the past as soon as they got pregnant they got thrown out of school.” (Waikato Times)

v      “Statistics NZ figures show the number of young boys becoming fathers is rising. 

In 2007, there were 15 new fathers in NZ aged under 15 – up from four in 2006. 

In 2007 there was one 12 year old mother and six 13 year old mums.

The number of teen age mothers is increasing – there were more than 5000 new young mums last year.  35 of them were 14, down on the 45 in 2007.

A total of 5224 girls under the age of 20 had children in 2008, c.f. 4955 in 2007.

NZ has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy among developed nations.  Family Planning’s chief executive Jackie Edmond said more education was the key to tackling teen pregnancy rates”.  (Waikato Times, Feb ’09)

Pray for NZ to wake up to the fact that Family Planning’s “more education” message is not the answer.  Their message, which results in “worldly sorrow that brings death”, must be replaced with truth, a message that brings “godly sorrow, repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.”  2 Cor 7:10

SECTION TWO:   Vision from “Grand Illusions” by George Grant

“Commitment that does not back down is called vision in the Bible.  It is the willingness to sacrifice unceasingly for the Gospel’s sake, to bypass immediate gratification, instant satisfaction, and momentary recognition for the good of the future.  Vision is the ‘hope of things assured of, the seeing of convictions’. (Heb 11:1)  Visionary men and women are confident, assured, and undaunted even in the face of calamity because they can see beyond the present, remain sure and steadfast because they have a broader perspective.  They can plot and plan far in advance of the day of vindication and victory.  They are future-orientated.  Though progress may come in very small stages, visionary people know it will eventually come.  So they remain faithful.  Vision catalyzes and empowers faith. 

It is vision that releases faith from the safety zone of irrelevancy to the war zone of cultural transformation.

Biblical characters, e.g. Josiah, remained steadfast; so we are to remain undaunted, immovable in our devotion to truth, justice and righteousness, determined to adhere to God’s standards, to uphold His statutes, to apply His principles and to enforce His decrees.  If we are to have any success in confronting the evil of Planned Parenthood in USA, (Family Planning equivalent in NZ) we must develop that kind of vision.” 

PRAYER POINT:

v      Pray for each of us in particular, for Christians in NZ generally, to develop this kind of vision so that the stronghold of Family Planning can be pulled down and permanently demolished and a new structure replaces it, based on the Word of God and taught by the Body of Christ.

SECTION THREE: RU 486

RU486 is a pill designed to facilitate a medical abortion.

It has been used at an abortion clinic in Auckland for 2+ years. 

Recently Family Planning announced their intention to apply for permission to distribute this pill.

From “The Facts of Life” by Brian Clowes:

The pill “imitates progesterone, the hormone that signals the uterus to become receptive to the fertilized egg.  The abortion pill is used in tandem with a prostaglandin that prepares the uterus for evacuation….The blastocyst (early growing human being) is denied attachment and simply starves for want of nutrients and oxygen.  He/she is expelled after several days.  RU486 is used in the first eight weeks of pregnancy….This pill is a true abortifacient.”

“The manufacturer of RU486 abortion pill is the French company Groupe Roussel-Uclaf, a subsidiary of the West German pharmaceutical giant Hoechst.  Hoechst changed its name from the I.G. Farben after WW2 in an attempt to shake its loathsome reputation.  They made a tidy profit during the war from the manufacture of the cyanide gas Zyklon-B, used to exterminate Jews and others in the Nazi death camps.  Now they make a tidy profit by exterminating millions of pre-born babies.

The pill’s inventor was Etienne-Emile Baulieu, a Jew, who worked for France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research.  He changed his name from Leon Glum, in 1942, to avoid being killed by the Zyklon-B gas made by the company he works for today.”

PRAYER POINTS:

v      By the blood of Jesus, pray and cut NZ off from the original manufacturers of RU486, and all the prior ‘death products’ made by that company, all consequences and effects.

v      Pray that all lies and claims about RU486 will be exposed; that NZ will be educated about this pill and all its consequences and effects.

v      Pray that permission for Family Planning to distribute RU486 will be denied permanently.

v      Pray for Jews, who are often at the forefront of medical research, to be strongly pro-life.