Service of Prayer for the Healthcare Workforce

This service of prayer grew out of a response to a presentation by Naleen Andrade on COVID’s impact to Hawai‘i’s healthcare system, followed by an interactive Q&A session of how pastors and their churches are affected, respond, operate, and reorient themselves to the Delta Variant and Post-COVID life.

The question was: How can we support healthcare workers during this time?

The simple answer: We can pray.

Take 13 minutes and join us in prayer for the healthcare workforce.

In this service:

WELCOME

Rev. Jonathan Roach, Associate Conference Minister, Hawai‘i Conference United Church of Christ: Aloha, my friends! May the peace of God be with you today! I am Jonathan Roach, an Associate Conference Minister of the Hawai‘i Conference of the United Church of Christ. We welcome you to this time of prayer and blessing for you who are serving our beloved Islands in the vital healthcare field during this seemingly endless marathon of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout this pandemic your steadfast dedication, your awe inspiring leadership, and your loving care in spite unending stress, exhaustive workloads, and the witnessing of human tragedies all around you, have inspired us and motivated us as you have cared for us.

As the husband of a hospice chaplain and bereavement care coordinator, I have seen the sweat and tears. Mahalo nui loa. But there are really no words that can fully express our gratitude to you.

In this time of prayer today, Kahu Naleen Andrade will provide the invocation, Associate Conference Minister Valerie Ross will share the scripture reading, Conference Minister David Popham will provide the prayer, and Pastor Alan Patadlas will give a blessing. Please know, my friends, you are in my prayers and in my heart each and every day!

INVOCATION

Kahu Naleen Andrade, M.D., Licensed Minister, Kahikolu Congregational Church and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Hawai‘i, John A. Burns School of Medicine E pule kākou. Let us pray. God of healing and God of hope, be with us in these next few minutes as we pray for the Healthcare Workforce that provides medical care and comfort in response to overwhelming need during so long a period. Holy One, send your Spirit into our midst.

We gather via the internet from various islands and continents that make up our community of faith. Let your presence be felt and known within and between us, and among those whom we pray for today. Christ Jesus, you are the Great Physician—leader, listener, teacher, and healer.

In this prayer service we ask that you be with us and that you attend to the emotional needs and physical fatigue of our families, friends, colleagues and strangers who have given their professional lives to attending to us when we are ill and cannot attend to ourselves. Bless our time today together. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Rev. Valerie Ross, Associate Conference Minister, Hawai‘i Conference United Church of Christ

Psalm 103:1-5

Praise the LORD, my soul;

all my inmost being, praise God’s holy name.

Praise the LORD, my soul,

and forget not all God’s benefits—

who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the grave

and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Matthew 25:42-46 (Reimagined by the Rev. Dr. Choo Lak Yeow, pastor of First Chinese Church of Christ in Honolulu, Hawai‘i)

And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren,

you did it to Me.'

Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; [I was a senior citizen trying to stay away from COVID-19, and you did no social distancing for me.]

I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; [I was a teenager and you told me to drink chlorine dioxide, gargle iodine as a coronavirus prophylactic and ingest ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine instead.]

PRAYER

Rev. Dr. David K. Popham, Conference Minister, Hawai‘i Conference United Church of Christ

(modeled after “Praise Song for the Pandemic,” by Christine Valters Paintner)

God of life and God of healing, You encourage us to acknowledge those who bring your blessings into our lives:

Thank you nurses, doctors, CNAs, and every type of healthcare worker bent over our loved ones tending to their needs, knowing that sometimes bodies heal and sometimes they do not.

Thank you, janitors and cleaning staff, toiling through hallways and patient rooms, committed to cleansed and well-maintained facilities.

Thank you, administrative assistants and IT personnel who in the details keep information flowing.

Thank you, cooks and kitchen helpers and dieticians working out meal plans so flesh and bone might receive appropriate nutrition.

Thank you, medical technologists and technicians providing helpful diagnostic data.

Thank you, police, firefighters, paramedic and EMT personnel maneuvering through crowded streets to deliver our loved ones to havens of treatment.

Blessings upon you medical scientists for understanding this plague and continuing to refine the vaccines for those who can avail themselves of them and treatment for those who cannot.

Blessings upon you chaplains and social workers and therapists of every kind as you offer words of comfort, even when you feel uncertain within yourself.

Blessings upon you medical administrators making hard choices for our common good.

Blessings upon those families that have been visited by the novel coronavirus – those whose loved ones have recovered and those whose loved ones succumbed to COVID-19.

Blessings upon all who mourn, that you may be comforted.

Praise to you the healthcare workers who teach us of the importance of social distancing and wearing masks so that we might act with compassion and protect the vulnerable.

Praise to you who staff of assisted living facilities taking monthly or weekly COVID tests, becoming vaccinated, and bringing creative presence into facilities where loneliness is as threatening as the virus.

Praise be laughter and gentleness shared among colleagues. Also praise for knowing looks and silent communications bolstering weary souls.

Praise be the rest that comes after long shifts. May you take comfort in knowing that what is done is done. And what is left undone is now in the hands of your co-workers laboring towards the same ends.

Praise be to You God, for You are aware of all that is being undertaken to advance care upon this earth. Strengthen and support all those who make up the healthcare workforce. May they know that they are appreciated and loved whether they are paid or volunteer in what they do.

And as this pandemic continues with the next strains of the virus, O God, let us remember that this is not an ending to what has been, rather let us remember it is a beginning of a new awareness in which we give thanksgiving, blessings, and praise for those around us, and in doing so honor You, the God of providential care. Amen.

BLESSING

Rev. Alan Patadlas, Pastor, Honolulu Cosmopolitan UCC Go forth in the blessing of God for the work you do. Know that your healing touch reverberates through our islands and brings comfort and ease to us all. May the Great Physician guide your minds and your hands. Accept our thanks for all you do and continue to do during this pandemic. Go with God’s aloha in all you do. Amen.