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δέομαι

7 Days of Prayer: Sunday, 25 to 31 October, 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.

25th Oct. Egypt has pledged "all necessary and possible forms of support" to defend Saudi Arabia against Houthi attacks, and its parliament is weighing whether to send forces. The same week President Sisi, now 71, said his presidency will end in 2030, and that the military academy would train the leaders who come after him. Egypt may be drawn into a widening war and faces a succession the army means to shape. Its church, the largest in the Middle East, lives inside both questions. We pray that Egypt will not be pulled into the war, that the fighting in Yemen will end, and that Egypt's believers will stand steady.

You still the roaring of the seas and the turmoil of the nations. Missiles and drones now cross the water between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in both directions. Still that turmoil: quiet the launchers on every side, and let the fighting in Yemen end before it pulls another nation in. (Psalm 65:7)

Your word says, "seek peace, and pursue it." Egypt's deputies are deciding whether to send soldiers to defend a neighbour under attack. Give them wisdom for their choices, so that whatever they decide serves peace and not pride, and keep Egypt's sons safe, whether they stay home or are sent. (Psalm 34:14)

The kingdom is the LORD's, and You rule over the nations. Egypt's president has named 2030 as his last year, and the generals mean to decide who comes after him. Whoever follows, let him govern under Your rule, and leave Egypt's Christians free to gather and to worship. (Psalm 22:28)

The psalmist set You always before him, and because You were at his right hand he was not moved. Egypt's Copts have lived through bombed churches and burned villages. Now a war is close and the question of who rules next is open. Keep them at Your right hand, steady while the nation shifts. (Psalm 16:8)

26th. On 17 October thousands of Tunisians marched down Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a focal point of the 2011 uprising, in the biggest protest against President Kaïs Saïed in years. Lawyers, doctors and journalists marched beside the unions. "I came from Sfax to stand up for my freedom," one man told Reuters, "and I'm not about to give up, even if I become the last voice in the country." Saïed has ruled by decree since dissolving parliament. We pray for Tunisians hungry for freedom, and for the few believers among them to point to the Son who sets free indeed.

Your prophet said, "Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees." Tunisia has been governed by decree since its parliament was dissolved, and its lawyers and journalists have felt it. Hear their complaint, and bring Tunisia back under just law. (Isaiah 10:1)

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? A man came from Sfax ready to be the last voice in his country. Be the strength of his life, and of every marcher who goes home to a knock at the door, so that fear does not have the last word. (Psalm 27:1)

You bless those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and You promise they will be filled. Fifteen years after 2011, Tunisians are hungry again for a just and free country. Let that hunger lead them past every ruler to You, the only One who can fill it. (Matthew 5:6)

Your Son said, "If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Tunisia's believers are few, and many of them are converts who meet quietly. Give them courage to speak of a freedom no decree can grant and no decree can take away, and let their neighbours hear it. (John 8:36)

27th. Six months after the general who led the 2021 coup became Myanmar's nominally civilian president, life in Yangon looks "surprisingly ordinary," Nikkei Asia reports, but people are "reluctant to speak openly about politics." Beyond the city the civil war goes on, and Yangon's calm is held in place as much by fear as by peace. Yangon sits in the Buddhist Bamar heartland, among the least-reached parts of Myanmar; most of the country's believers are Kachin, Karen and Chin. We pray for people who have learned that silence is the safest answer, that they would find in Jesus One to whom they can speak freely.

You said, "I am found by those who didn't seek me... See me, see me, to a nation that was not called by my name." For centuries the Bamar have looked to the pagodas, and for five years they have kept their thoughts to themselves. Be found by them, Lord, in the quiet where they no longer say what they think. (Isaiah 65:1)

Jesus, you sent your followers to Jerusalem and Judea, and also to Samaria, the neighbour they had long kept apart from. Most of Myanmar's believers are Kachin, Karen and Chin, and old wounds lie between them and the Bamar majority. Give them the courage and the grace to carry the gospel across that line. (Acts 1:8)

You give peace, but not as the world gives. Yangon's streets are calm because people are afraid, and beyond the city the war goes on. Give Myanmar a peace that does not need fear to hold it, and let hearts that have learned to stay silent find in You no reason to be troubled. (John 14:27)

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. For five years the villages of Sagaing and Rakhine have walked that valley under airstrikes the city does not talk about. Be with them there, and comfort them with Your rod and Your staff. (Psalm 23:4)

28th. Do mountains keep peoples from the gospel? Bud Houston of Clarity for the Nations compared nearly 11,000 people groups in 119 countries and found that "the mountains made no difference": if anything, the most rugged groups are slightly more reached than their neighbours. In Tyrol the Reformation was stopped by rulers, not rocks. What can leave a people unreached, he notes, is a life on the move. We pray for the nomadic peoples of the world, and for workers willing to move with them rather than wait for them to settle.

You said, "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also." The Fulani and the Bedouin, Mongolia's herders and Iran's Bakhtiari follow their flocks from pasture to pasture. Bring them also, Good Shepherd, and let them hear Your voice wherever the season takes them. (John 10:16)

We don't have here an enduring city; we seek the one to come. Send out workers who believe that. Send men and women willing to fold a tent and walk with a people, instead of building a church in town and waiting for the herders to settle. (Hebrews 13:14)

If I settle in the uttermost parts, even there Your hand will lead me. Hold the workers already on the move, in the Sahel, on the Tibetan plateau and across the steppe, through heat and cold and far from any clinic. Keep their families well, and do not let them lose heart. (Psalm 139:9-10)

Your prophet called for a highway in the wilderness for our God. The mountains were never the barrier; the road just has to go where the people go. Make a way to the camps that keep moving, and open the routes, the seasons and the languages that let the gospel travel with them. (Isaiah 40:3)

29th. Youth protests in India have reached a ten-year high, with tens of thousands of security personnel, and in places Hindutva nationalists, confronting students, and many arrested. At the same time the old way out is narrowing: Nikkei Asia reports students turning from the US, UK, Canada and Australia to universities at home, driven by stricter immigration rules and rising costs. A generation that once planned to leave is staying, and many of them are angry. We pray for India's young people, restless and hemmed in, to find in Jesus a hope that does not hang on a visa, and for believing students to be steady and wise.

You give a hope that is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast. For millions of young Indians that hope used to be a visa, and the doors to America, Britain, Canada and Australia are narrowing. Anchor them in a hope no embassy can refuse, and show them Jesus. (Hebrews 6:19)

Your word says, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath. Don't fret, it leads only to evildoing." On India's campuses students, police and nationalist crowds face one another, and each has its reasons for anger. Cool the anger on every side before it turns to bloodshed, and let the students be heard without violence. (Psalm 37:8-9)

You execute righteous acts, and justice for all who are oppressed. Many students have been arrested this year for protesting. Where they are held unjustly, bring them justice: fair hearings, release, and judges who remember they are young and have a future in their own country. (Psalm 103:6)

Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse. Give India's Christian students that wisdom: steady in a hostile hostel, gentle in a heated argument, honest about their hope. Let many of their classmates be turned toward You because of them. (Daniel 12:3)

30th. Muhammad Sa'dat is 73, from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, where he once grew lemons and olives. "They say the ceasefire is a year old," he told The New Humanitarian, "but there is no ceasefire here." Ten Palestinians spoke to the reporter, and what they ask for is modest: a 19-year-old medical student wants schools, transport, water and electricity working again. Most will believe talk of rebuilding when they see it. Gaza's small Christian community lives the same days, with the same shortages and fear. We pray for the people of Gaza in a peace that has not arrived, and for the church there to be bread and comfort to its neighbours.

Your prophet grieved over those who said, "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace. In northern Gaza people hear that the ceasefire is a year old and cannot find it. Lord, let the peace that has been announced become a peace that can be lived, for every family on both sides of the line. (Jeremiah 6:14)

"Don't reject me in my old age. Don't forsake me when my strength fails." A man of seventy-three who once tended lemon and olive trees has nothing left to tend. Comfort Gaza's old men and women, who have lost a lifetime's work and have no strength left to begin it again. (Psalm 71:9)

You said, "The poor and needy seek water, and there is none... I, the LORD, will answer them." A nineteen-year-old medical student asks only for water, power, schools and buses that work. Answer that student and the neighbours, and let the pumps and the generators run again. (Isaiah 41:17)

You promise that if we pour ourselves out for the hungry, our light will rise in the darkness. Gaza's few Christians are as short of food as anyone. Let what bread and comfort they have reach their Muslim neighbours, and let Your light rise in those dark streets. (Isaiah 58:10)

31st. In Japan the rites that once bound the living to their dead are thinning, as costly funerals and fewer children change how families care for their ancestors; only 28 percent of one-child parents want a second. Meanwhile new neighbours are arriving: foreign residents now number 4.2 million, and the government plans to expand Japanese-language teaching for them. A nation is rearranging who belongs to whom, in life and in death. We pray that Japanese and newcomers alike would find a place in the household of God, and a hope stronger than the grave.

You count the peoples when You write them up: "This one was born there." Japanese parents with one child wonder who will tend the family grave once they are gone. Bring them to you, so that their names may be written in Your book, and their children may learn that honouring them and following Christ are one road, not two. (Psalm 87:4-6)

Your Son shared our flesh and blood so that He might free those who through fear of death were subject to bondage all their lives. The old rites for the dead are fading, but Japanese families still carry that fear. Show them the One who broke death's power, and set them free. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Jesus said, "I was a stranger, and you took me in." Vietnamese, Nepali and Filipino workers and students now live in Japan far from their families. Let Japanese churches take them in as He asked, by teaching the language, sharing a meal, and making room in the pew. (Matthew 25:35)

You promised that whoever leaves father or mother for Your sake will receive a hundred times more brothers, sisters, mothers and children. In a country of small families and fading rites, make the church that household, where the old are visited, newcomers are welcomed, and no one is buried alone. (Mark 10:29-30)

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