George Labossiere, a Staff Sargent and chaplain for the Winnipeg Police Service tells us how to pray and encourage our police force.

"It has been very hard for our members seeing the increased rate of crime in general not to mention the violent crime. When we are talking homicides, this has a tremendous impact on the community and on the police as well," says Labossiere.

Due to this rise in crime, some officers are working six to nine-hour overtime shifts. Labossiere says this overtime is, "very, very mentally draining on them and it eventually impacts their ability to do their job and it also impacts their family life.

"From my perspective, I am very concerned about the members, and their families and their well being," says Labossiere. Crime at this scale not only affects the people directly involved and the officers responding, but the whole community.

In the midst of this Labossiere asks that the community pray for, "strength, patience, and wisdom." He says that resilience is required to deal with the stress of the calls.

His personal prayer for his officers is that they would have "the ability to somehow turn it off, enabling them to go home and to have proper family time with their loved ones," says Labossiere.

Prayer is important for many reasons including a way to, "lead people to see what they can do," says Labossiere.

Something everyone can do to encourage police members is, to stop and say 'thank you', 'good luck' or even 'we are praying for you' to officers you might see in the street. Labossiere says this kind of encouragement "goes such a long way in increasing morale and motivating us."