A call to prayer for COVID-struck India

INDIA - The International Lutheran Council (ILC) is encouraging Christians around the world to continue to remember India in prayer as the country struggles with a deadly wave of COVID-19.

Infections peaked in May, with new cases of the disease exceeding more than 400,000 per day. By April, India officially became the second country to pass the 20 million mark of confirmed cases overall. As of early June, India had the third most fatalities as a result of COVID-19 with more than 340,000 official deaths, although there are suggestions the true number could be much higher.

The most recent wave proved particularly deadly, with hospitals turning people away due to a lack of supplies to care for the infected—notably, oxygen and hospital beds. Media reported people dying outside hospital doors, unable to gain admittance, as well as funeral homes and crematoriums overwhelmed with bodies.

Among those suffering in the midst of the crisis are members of the India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC). “We are losing our dear ones every day,” wrote IELC President Y. Suvisesha Muthu in early May. “Our members, young and old, are dying almost daily. Many have tested positive and are waiting to get treatment.”

Two of the church’s pastors had died early in the third wave, as did a retired pastor. Others were left sick. Several faculty members of the IELC’s Concordia Theological Seminary, Nagercoil required medical care for COVID-19, with the seminary’s principal needing critical care.

“The situation is very grave,” noted Rev. Dr. Timothy Quill, General Secretary of the International Lutheran Council. “We call on Lutherans worldwide to lift up India in prayer, that God would provide relief from the current crisis. In particular, pray that God would continue to bless the work of medical providers in the country, that He would provide assistance from within and without the country in the provision of needed medical supplies, and that He would bless the rollout of India’s vaccination program. May God have mercy on a suffering people.”

ILC News