News for prayer for Week of May 16, 2022
Headline News:
Addictions are seeing a rise here in Gipuzkoa. One organization that helps people with addictions saw a ~18% increase in people seeking them for assistance. While alcohol is the largest substance abuse, they say it has stabilized. Cocaine saw the greatest increase for substances people needed help with.
The celebration of first communion is quite large here. For the first time in 2 years they are being celebrated without restrictions. Some 2000 young boys and girls will take part in the ceremonies. Restaurants, dress and suit stores, photographers and hairstylists are reporting a significant increase in use of services for this celebration. The paper reported that families usually spend ~2600€ for the event.
COVID cases were not mentioned in the papers I bought. It seems to be focused currently on the impacts and not so much on the number of cases. I’ll include updates as appropriate moving forward.
Economy:
Amazon has decided not to open a second facility here in Basque Country. This had been in the planning stages for over a year and several businesses were not excited about the facility opening due to the impacts to businesses that could happen. The owner of the facility believes others will be interested in using the space for transportation.
Inflation in the Basque country was reported at 8.4% in April, slightly down from the 9.5% in March. During this time salaries have only increased 1.5%. Questions are being asked on what to do in order to help with the situation.
The IBEX35 ended last week on a small upward trend closing at 8,338.10, a 0.19% increase last week.
Political:
The number of ETA prisoners in jails that are in Basque Country or Navarra is currently at 104. While the remaining prisoners are in other parts of Spain (65) and France (29). Most of the moves to bring the ETA prisoners closer to Basque Country have occurred while Sánchez has been the leader of the Government.
The national security agency in Spain continues to make headlines for the installation of spy software on cell phones. New leadership has been installed and they realize the difficult road ahead of them as they try to re-establish confidence in the job needed to be done to protect Spain after the incident. This is also affecting Pedro Sánchez as he looks for how to manage the crisis that happened during his leadership. The judicial system is also reviewing what role it played in the approval given to the agency and sees some faults.
International:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to carry a significant portion of international coverage. A few other headlines were: COVID cases starting in North Korea, elections in the United Kingdom and Finland and Sweden requesting to join NATO.
Sports:
Real has won the last two games they played and secured a spot in the Europa League for next year. The team has one game left in the season on Sunday against Atletico Madrid.
GBC is currently in 11th place and in order to qualify for the end of the season playoffs they will need to move up 2 places. They play the 9th place team this weekend, so a chance does exist that they qualify though it requires help to do so.
The women’s handball team Bera Bera won another league title over the weekend. This team has had quite the history over the past 15 years. They have won the league title 8 times and 13 other titles from tournaments. Quite the accomplishment for this club!
Prayer Points and verse for the week:
Prayers points:
- Addiction Recovery
- Inflation Impacts
- Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the wide reaching impacts
The verse for this week was focused on lament, this one seemed to fit well.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!
Psalm 130:1