Pray For Cashew-Producing Guinea-Bissau

by Clyo Beck

Guinea-Bissau from Wikipedia

Chicken cashew, Chicken cashew salad, Thai cashew chicken, and cashew brittle are just a few of the cashew recipes that people love. If you landed here looking for these recipes, the links above are for the best recipes I’ve found.

Yet, whether or not you like cashew nuts, today I ask you to stop right now and pray for a tiny nation whose sole source of income is being destroyed by a military coup. (A prayer is at the end of this post.)

The nation is Guinea-Bissau. The selfish reason to care about this land and these people is because Guinea-Bissau supplies the rest of us with the highest-quality cashews in the world.

Cashews account for 98 percent of Guinea-Bissau’s export revenue. According to The Wall Street Journal, nine out of ten (adults and children) in this nation of 1.6 million people are employed by cashew farmers in reaping the cashew harvest. In other words, the cashew crop is this entire country’s ticket to survival.

Yet, right now, as you read this, political civil war is unfolding. A nightmare, it is a replay of the nation’s 1998 civil war during which soldiers ruined the Spring harvest by tromping through cashew orchards and burying land mines.

Roads are blocked and raw cashews are rotting in heaps, unable to be transported. Good people, who have worked long and hard, are in turmoil. Farmers will see their land at risk because, with no profits, they will be unable to pay back their loans.

So why should you care? After all, for North Americans, the misery that is being visited upon these people may simply mean we will have to pay twice as much for inferior cashews.

I ask you to care because, for those in Guinea-Bissau, if this conflict continues to rage it will mean chaos, hunger and death. There are always civilian casualties in war and there is no reason to think this conflict will be any different. When this type of military revolt happened in Ivory Coast, more than 3,000 people were killed.

In summary, for Guinea-Bissau – a poor nation with only one export – this is a disaster and a threat to their lives and livelihood. So I ask you to speak this prayer for them.

As you pray, imagine yourself coming across a new news article with a new headline, and give thanks for it:

Guinea-Bissau: Peaceful and Prosperous

The people of Guinea-Bissau are open to spiritual guidance and Divine contact. According to On the Radio Waves in Guinea-Bissau, religious leaders within the country are urging calm and forgiveness. Lyrics to a song used as background for one message say: “We should stop using force. We should put our hands together. Our country is small.”

So let us lend our own spiritual energy to their cause of peace and reconciliation.

Prayer For The People Of Guinea-Bissau

Dear God,

You made us one Stream, one Being, one Mind.
There is no division, no separation between us.
As I heal, so do others heal.
As they heal, so do I heal.

My people in Guinea-Bissau suffer, Lord.
I choose now that they live in joy.

So I take responsibility.
I take full responsibility for the conflict in Guinea-Bissau.
I take personal, spiritual responsibility
For whatever has caused these events.

Please heal whatever is in me
That is contributing to their unease.

In Jesus’ name, I ask you to help me help them
By reaching into me and removing
What calls to be removed.

I am sorry.
I’m sorry that conflicts exist within me
And that these soldiers are acting out
And mirroring my own desire to rebel.

I am sorry for every time
I ever sent anger to anyone.
I am deeply sorry
For any and all resentments I have held
Against anyone for anything.

I am sorry for feeling powerless without weapons.
I am sorry for not listening to Your call
To forgive all, and to bless those I fear.

I am sorry for any belief I have
That change can only come about
Through physical force.

I am sorry for any justification
I have ever offered up
On behalf of war.

I am sorry
For pinning my errors on others
And then saying,
“Look at how barbaric they are.”

Heal the barbarity in me, Lord.
Heal the warmonger in me, Lord.
Heal the power-seeker in me, Lord.
Heal the part of me that refuses to forgive.

Transmute the energy in me
That would trample and destroy others
Out of fear, anger or impatience.

Please forgive me.

Forgive me for all that is within me
That has contributed to this discord.

Forgive my blindness in not seeing
That what I do to another, I do to myself,
And I do to you.

Thank You.
Thank You for Your Grace which You heap upon me.
Thank you for ending this conflict in me and in them.
I know you are healing me of all need for conflict,
And as you heal me,
You heal my brothers in Guinea-Bissau,
With whom I am one in Heart, Mind and Spirit.

I love You.
I love You, God, and I send love to them.
I send love to the soldiers.
I send love to the government.
I send love to the people.
I send love to all of you
Who are confused, angry, or afraid.

There is no space and no time and I say to you now:
There is nothing to fear.
Peace be with you.
I love you all.
I see love and peace filling your situation.
The powerful Love of God fills every man, woman and child.
You are not afraid. You breath peace.
You feel the joy of God in your hearts.
You are unwavering in your faith that peace is now.

I see all soldiers laying down their weapons.
I see Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Jr. released and smiling.
I see the people of Guinea-Bissau rejoicing.
I see the land beautiful and safe to farm.

The land is bountiful and all share in her bounty.
I bless all those in Guinea-Bissau.
May they feel my respect and appreciation for them.
God blesses them
And the wonderful cashews they grow for the world.
They prosper and are happy.

To the People of Guinea-Bissau I decree:

May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May your lives be filled with ease and peace.
The peace of God is with you now and always.

I think peace. I see peace. I am peace.
You think peace. You see peace. You are at peace.

As I speak the Word, so it must be.
Thank You, Merciful God,
For dissolving all conflict
Back into the nothingness from which it came.

The nation of Guinea-Bissau is peaceful and prosperous.
Her people are united and happy in Your Love.
And so it is.
Amen.