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δέομαι

7 Days of Prayer: Sunday, 15 to 21 November, 2026

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Each day’s prayer entry is drawn from this week’s headlines, noted in my Weekly Roundup. For each we provide four prayers drawn directly from Scripture, just to give some ideas about how to pray. You can pray along with us with these, or freely as the Spirit leads you to pray.

15th Nov. After the Taliban barred girls from school past the sixth grade, a few teachers began holding classes in private homes, and RFE/RL's Radio Azadi has filmed them. The girls describe the fear of being caught and the care they take not to be seen, but they keep coming. The Afghanistan Analysts Network asked midwives and doctors what they are seeing, and most reported "more teenagers, married and pregnant," pushed by the school ban and by families' need for a bride price. Nearly half of Afghans are under fifteen. We pray for the teachers and students in these hidden classrooms, and for the girls married off instead.

You are the secret place of the Most High, and those who dwell there rest in Your shadow. Somewhere in Afghanistan a front room is a classroom this morning. Shelter the teacher and her pupils inside it, deliver them from the snare of the fowler, and let no one come knocking at the door. (Psalm 91:1-3)

Children are a heritage from You, and the fruit of the womb is Your reward. They are not a bride price. Girls who should be starting the seventh grade are being handed over as wives because there is no school to keep them. Turn their fathers' hearts, and let these girls be kept as daughters. (Psalm 127:3)

You gently lead those who have their young. The midwives are delivering babies to mothers who are barely more than children themselves. Carry these girls safely through pregnancy and birth, steady the hands of the doctors who treat them, and gather their newborns in Your arm. (Isaiah 40:11)

You promised a day when the deaf would hear the words of the book, and the blind would see out of darkness. Half of Afghanistan is under fifteen, and its girls have been sent home from their books. Let them hear the words of Your Book, and let them see Your Son out of the darkness. (Isaiah 29:18)

16th. In 2007 Uganda was the first African country to send troops to Somalia, and its soldiers helped drive al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu. Now they are going home: the first contingent of 109 left Mogadishu in late October, and all are due out by the end of 2027. "After 20 years of a lot of blood and sacrifice, we are handing over security to our Somali brothers," wrote army chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the BBC reports. We pray for ordinary Somalis while it is tested, and for the hidden believers who live within al-Shabaab's reach.

You told Joshua, as the work passed into his hands, to be strong and courageous, because You would be with him wherever he went. After twenty years Uganda is handing Mogadishu to Somali hands. Give courage to those who now take up the post, and bring the 109, and all who follow them, safely home. (Joshua 1:9)

You promised a peaceful habitation, safe dwellings and quiet resting places. When the last Ugandan convoy leaves, the markets and minibuses of Mogadishu will find out whether the handover holds. Give ordinary Somalis quiet streets and safe homes, and let the guns stay silent in the gap the soldiers leave. (Isaiah 32:18)

Jesus did not ask You to take His followers out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. Some of Your children in Somalia live a village away from al-Shabaab, and no one but You knows their faith. Keep them, Father, right where they are. (John 17:15)

You said, "I am found by those who didn't seek me," and You called out, "See me, see me," to a nation not called by Your name. Somalis have known twenty years of soldiers and very few believers. Show Yourself to them through a dream, a phone screen or a neighbour, and let many find You. (Isaiah 65:1)

17th. President Trump says the war with Iran is "effectively over," yet tankers still burn in the Gulf and Iran still threatens assassinations abroad. If the Revolutionary Guards are left in charge and turn their attention inward, what becomes of the church? Some doors are already closing: RFE/RL reports English exams have all but vanished from Iran, and one student paid about $600, more than six months of the average wage, to sit one in Armenia. Marziyeh Amirizadeh, told by an Iranian judge she would hang for leaving Islam, recounted it this week to the Jerusalem Post. We pray for Iranian believers as the regime turns inward.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told the king that their God could deliver them, "but if not," they still would not bow. Marziyeh heard a judge speak of the gallows, and she did not bow. Give that same "but if not" to Iranian believers as the Guards turn inward, and stand with them in the fire. (Daniel 3:17-18)

Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you everlasting doors. Iran is closing its doors one at a time, down to the exam hall where a student might have learned a language of the wider world. Lift what is closing, and let the King of glory come in through the doors that are still open. (Psalm 24:7)

You rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" and there was a great calm. The war has been called over, but tankers are still attacked in the waters of the Gulf. Speak that word over those waters, and still the fighting on every side, so that "over" becomes true. (Mark 4:39-41)

A light from the sky shone around Saul on the road to Damascus, and the hunter heard, "Why do you persecute me?" Shine on the Revolutionary Guards as they turn inward to hunt Your church. Let their interrogators fall to the ground and ask, "Who are you, Lord?" (Acts 9:3-5)

18th. A 33-year-old man from Ghana came to Cambodia in November 2025, promised a $1,000-a-month job as a receptionist. Instead he was taught to run online job scams, and when he wanted out he was beaten daily for a month in a dark room, knowing his freedom would cost $6,000. AP reports he spent almost a year trying to get home. Tens of thousands of people were drawn into Cambodia's scam compounds. No one knows how many have come out, and some of those who have are sleeping on Phnom Penh's streets, treated as offenders, not as people who were trafficked. We pray for their care, their journeys home, and justice for those who sold them.

You bring Your people up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and You set their feet on a rock. The dark rooms of the compounds have held thousands. Bring up those who are still in the pit, and give the ones already out a firm place to stand. (Psalm 40:2)

In Jesus' parable, the Samaritan saw a man beaten and left by the road, and he did not walk past. Some who escaped the compounds now sleep on Phnom Penh's pavements and are treated as offenders. Raise up Cambodian believers to bind their wounds, bring them in, and take care of them. (Luke 10:33-34)

You promised that Your people would not leave in haste or in flight, because You would go before them and be their rear guard. Getting home from Phnom Penh can take a year of papers and fares. Go before the others now, and guard them all the way home, to Ghana and to every other land. (Isaiah 52:12)

You told the king of Judah to deliver the one who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, and to do no wrong to the foreigner. The recruiters and compound bosses have grown rich on stolen years. We pray that Cambodia's courts would deliver the robbed and bring those who sold them to account. (Jeremiah 22:3)

19th. Milad Malak, twenty, was a deacon from Sebarbay, Egypt, who went to Libya in September for work. On 4 October Islamic State militants seized him in Zliten with two Muslim friends; the friends were ransomed, but Milad, the only Christian, was pressed to convert. "Even if you cut me into pieces, I would never renounce my faith," he told them, International Christian Concern reports, and they killed him. His family buried him on 28 October, eleven years after twenty-one Christians were beheaded in Libya. We pray for his family, for the Copts who still cross into Libya for work, and for Libyans who have never met a believer.

You promised the crown of life to those who are faithful to death. Comfort Milad's mother and father in Sebarbay, who have buried a deacon instead of welcoming home a worker. Let them hear You say that their son was not lost but received, and crowned. (Revelation 2:10)

You keep our going out and our coming in, from this time forward and forever. Young Copts still take the road west into Libya, because the work is there. Keep them from evil on the building sites and farms where they labour, and bring every one of them home on his own feet. (Psalm 121:7-8)

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Across North Africa, small groups of new disciples are already multiplying. Let Milad's death bear fruit in Libya too, among people who have never met a believer. (John 12:24)

Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, so we pray for the men who killed Milad in Zliten. Do not let them forget what he said to them. Turn them from the sword to the One he would not deny. (Matthew 5:44)

20th. Saudi Arabia has closed 97 job titles to foreigners or capped how many they may hold, the Kathmandu Post reports. A hotel receptionist or telephone operator must be Saudi, and from October sixty-nine office and administrative jobs went entirely to citizens. About two in five people in the kingdom are foreigners, and among them are most of its believers: Nepalis, Filipinos, Indians and Kenyans who send wages home. Meanwhile the war with the Houthis has reached Riyadh's financial district, and Syria is weighing whether to send troops. We pray for foreign workers whose jobs are going, for the expatriate church among them, and for Saudis who have never heard the gospel.

The eyes of all wait for You, and You give them their food in due season. A telephone operator from Nepal and a receptionist from Manila are watching their jobs pass to someone else. Open Your hand to them, give them new work, and keep wages going to the families who wait for them at home. (Psalm 145:15-16)

When the church in Jerusalem was scattered, those who were scattered went around preaching the word. Many of the believers in Saudi Arabia may soon be packing for Nepal, the Philippines, India and Kenya. Let the expatriate church go home carrying Your word, and let it take root wherever it lands. (Acts 8:4)

At Pentecost there were Arabians in the crowd, and they heard the mighty works of God in their own language. Let Saudis who have never heard the gospel hear it now in Arabic, from a colleague at work or a voice online, and be amazed. (Acts 2:11)

You still the roaring of the seas and the turmoil of the nations. The fighting has reached Riyadh's financial district, and Syria is weighing whether to join it. Still the turmoil before it spreads. Let no more troops be sent, and let both sides lay down their weapons. (Psalm 65:7)

21st. Pakistan's Supreme Court has acquitted two brothers of blasphemy: not the Ayubs we prayed for on 12 November, but Liaqat Ali and Umar Draz, sentenced to death in Jhang in 2006. Umar Draz had declared in writing he had left Islam. Three medical boards examined them, and the last two found both men suffer from bipolar disorder; the court gave them the benefit of the doubt and asked that their treatment continue. "The appellants have spent around 20 years behind bars," the judgment said, Dawn reports. We pray for two men coming home ill after twenty years, for their families, and for those still held under the blasphemy laws.

"I will not die, but live, and declare the LORD's works." Two men sentenced to death in Jhang will now live. We thank You plainly for Liaqat Ali and Umar Draz, acquitted and coming out. Let the years ahead show them that You had not forgotten them. (Psalm 118:17)

You send Your word, and heal, and deliver from the grave. Three medical boards looked at two troubled minds. Now send Your word to Liaqat and Umar and heal them. Give them patient doctors, and treatment that continues as the court asked. (Psalm 107:20)

You set the lonely in families, and You bring out the prisoners with singing. Two men are coming home to relatives they have not lived with since 2006. Set them back in their families, and give those families patience with what twenty years and an illness have done. (Psalm 68:6)

You tell us to remember those in bonds as though we were bound with them. Others are still held under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, Qaisar Ayub among them. Keep us remembering them, and bring each one before judges who will give them the benefit of the doubt as well. (Hebrews 13:3)

Where do these prayer requests come from? This is a weekly guide to beseeching (δέομαι/deomai, Matthew 9) the Lord of the Harvest for the unreached peoples and places of the world. AI helps me create this, using the Weekly Roundup, my notes, prayer suggestions from the field, prayer guides, past deomai prayer requests, and pre-approved Scriptures. I read through the whole issue before publication. If you're interested in the longer Roundup (out each Friday), click the link below to see a sample.

Check out the free Weekly Roundup, out each Friday