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Zimbabwe is facing a ‘dire’ food situation after erratic rains and ‘unusual’ mid-season droughts triggered critical levels of crop failure, Christian Aid has warned. The World Food Programme estimates the number of people who will need food assistance in the coming months at two million. Christian Aid said the insufficient maize and cereal harvests, low grain stocks and inflated prices have forced the Zimbabwean government to make expensive food imports primarily from neighbouring Zambia and South Africa. Christian Aid's country programme manager for Zimbabwe, Miriam Machaya, said that Insiza district had been particularly hard hit, with partner organisation Zimpro reporting that only three out of the 23 wards recording surplus food. ‘The food security situation in Zimbabwe is dire, especially in the arid and marginalised Matabeleland provinces where Christian Aid and our local partner organisations work,’ she warns.
Pray: for the people of Zimbabwe and the critical drought situation. Pray that the world will have compassion on them and help to alleviate their needs. (Is.58:10-11)
More: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/millions.of.zimbabweans.at.risk.of.chronic.hunger/33900.htm
Zimbabweans went to the polls on Wednesday to elect a president and parliament, in an election that will mark the end of the troubled coalition government between veteran President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The election had been hit by allegations of fraud before the polls opened when Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF was accused of doctoring the electoral roll. The election will be the first to be held under the new constitution approved in a referendum in March this year. Mr Mugabe is accused of ruining one of Africa's most promising economies by seizing white-owned farms and giving them to landless blacks with little farming experience.Inflation reached an annual rate of 250,000,000% in late 2008. An estimated two million Zimbabweans left to seek work abroad. Since the coalition hyperinflation has ended and the economy has stabilized. Widespread corruption remains a sore point, particularly in the crucial diamond export sector. 60 – 70% of Zimbabweans actively belong to mainstream Christian denominations.
Pray: for vote rigging to be thwarted peacefully and may the next government take Zimbabwe out of corruption and into God's purposes for the nation. (Ps.33:10-12)
More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23513467
A Christian Students' Association in Zimbabwe has rebuked the country's power-sharing government for allowing the continuing collapse of the education sector in the country. ‘The cosmetic inclusive government has failed the young people of Zimbabwe as evidenced by the state of the education system,’ a Student Christian Movement said on 16th June, the Day of the African Child, when the killing in 1976 of black South African pupils protesting inferior education, and the compulsory teaching of Afrikaans is remembered. The collapse of the social services delivery system in Zimbabwe is directly linked to the human-created governance crisis and unless this is resolved the children of Zimbabwe will continue going to lecture rooms without lecturers, and getting into libraries without books. Pray: for the power sharing government to release appropriate funds and structures into needy administration bodies. (Dt.25:4)
Tensions are rising as Zimbabwe nears its election (due on 31 July). Previous elections led to the economy collapsing, critical food shortages and violence. As July 31st approaches many fear the same may happen . There is conflict between the two leading parties the election date and political change might shake the country. Churches have been asked to pray for Zimbabwe, that peace and stability will be found in Zimbabwe and there would be no violence. The coalition government has brought some hope and the economy has slightly recovered, but there’s a widening gap between the rich and poor. The country is unstable. Churches have been asked to pray that Zimbabwe will reach a point where people are safe and not living in poverty. Evangelical Alliance Viva's patron Rev Stephen Gaukroger said, ‘We are calling on UK churches to make Zimbabwe a focus for prayer at this crucial time.’
Pray: against violence and fear and for peace and stability. Pray that the children can grow up knowing they have a future and a hope. (Ps.9:3-4)
More: http://www.eauk.org/church/stories/churches-asked-to-pray-for-zimbabwe.cfm
Last month scores of supporters of Tsvangirai's party sheltered in churches after being attacked and forced out of their homes by militant supporters of Mugabe's party. The work of the compromise government has been characterised by fighting over allocation of key government posts. The drive to collect people's viewsof the new constitution has been disrupted several time by violent clashes between the two main political parties. Catholic Bishops have warned ‘Conditions in the country are not conducive to elections in 2011. We believe holding elections at this stage would be dangerously premature.’ The bishops are from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The statement was released on 22 February. Pray: for incidents of violence to decrease, an end to fear, for elections to safely go ahead in Gods timing. (Is.9:6)
The Archbishop of Canterbury is hoping to have face to face discussions with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe next month amid the violent persecution of Anglicans in the country. Rowan Williams has requested a meeting with the Zimbabwean president when he travels to Harare as part of a tour of the south of the continent, according to his spokeswoman. Williams, who will become the first prominent British representative to visit Zimbabwe's capital in a decade, is making the journey in an attempt to ‘show solidarity’ with Anglicans in the region, she said. In recent months priests are said to have been beaten and arrested by police, staff evicted from church buildings and property seized, while some Anglicans have allegedly been arrested and murdered. Some have questioned whether Williams would make the trip due to the violent regime, but Lambeth Palace said there had never been any debate over the matter.
Pray: that the Archbishop will be given the insight and wisdom in approaching Mugabe that would lead to positive resolutions. (Pr.21:30)
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/08/archbishop-canterbury-robert-mugabe
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams met President Robert Mugabe on Oct.10th to deliver a dossier of attacks on Anglicans by excommunicated Bishop Nolbert Kunonga. Kunonga formed a breakaway clique in 2007, seized church property, violently prevented Anglicans from worshipping in their buildings and intimidated clergy. Some priests received death threats at gunpoint. The dossier was made public on Oct.11th stating, ‘We respectfully ask that you as head of state put an end to this illegal harassment and allow us once again to use the properties which are rightly ours so that we may worship God in peace and serve our communities and our country.’ The document was signed by Archbishop Albert Chama, head of the Anglican Church's Province of Central Africa, five bishops from Zimbabwe and Bishop Trevor Mwamba from neighbouring Botswana.
Pray: that the meeting and show of solidarity with local Anglicans against violence would bring about change for Zimbabwe’s Christians. (Ps.133)
Amnesty International and coalition of partners said the government of Zimbabwe must take action to protect hundreds of thousands of people living in substandard settlements five years after a programme of mass forced evictions and demolition of settlements across the country affecting more than 700,000 people - leaving them without a home or livelihood or both. Most were driven deeper into poverty by Zimbabwe’s economic crisis. An operation aimed to provide shelter for the victims and improve their living conditions was a failure and abandoned. The NGO has called on the Zimbabwean government to provide adequate alternative accommodation or compensation to those left homeless and jobless. Victims are surviving in plastic shacks without basic essential services and their needs are at risk of being forgotten because their voices are consistently ignored.
Pray: and cry out to God for His provision to be released for Zimbabwe’s forgotten victims of injustice. (Pr.2:21)
MDC-T legislator Jessie Majome has called on the government to take concrete and urgent steps to avert a "brewing humanitarian crisis" in the country's prisons. Majome made the call on Tuesday after justice ministry and prison officials revealed that at least 100 inmates have died this year at the country's 55 facilities.The deaths were poor nutrition-related, according to Virginia Mabhiza and Agrey Machingauta, from the justice ministry and prisons services. The two officials told the parliamentary portfolio committee that the country's prisons were experiencing serious food shortages because they were not receiving enough money to source food for the 18,460 prisoners. They told parliamentarians that although $1.2 million was required monthly for food for the prisoners, only $300,000 was being allocated. As a result, prisoners were no longer receiving the required three meals a day, a situation which had led to nutrition-related illnesses and deaths.
Pray: that the authorities will have compassion on the prisoners and provide necessary food. (Ps.116:5)
On the outside, they are dressed in the uniform of the church that they attend. They are known by their colours and the ‘chitenges’ (fabric skirts) that personify their church. Purple means Baptist, red means Reformed Church, and Blue means Jehovah’s Witnesses. On the outside they seem to adhere to the teachings of their church, but on the inside they cling to African traditional religion which holds closely to ancestor worship and spirit worship. On the outside they look clean and religious, but on the inside they are in bondage and seeking freedom.
Pray: that the Nsenga people will heed the words of Christ and have a relationship with Him and no other. (Mat.23:26)