PRAYER LETTER NO.43
Dear Tigers, 30th May 2006
“To pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ and then refuse to share it when
the prayer is amply answered is blasphemy!”
Do you agree? I don’t – not the blasphemy bit at least – but it makes a point.
Whilst having a wonderful time preaching in South Africa a few weeks ago, I was handed an article written about the Eastern Congo.* I knew that this kind of evil stuff was going on close by, indeed I know plenty of people who have suffered similarly horrific ordeals, but the author highlighted afresh our complicity in ‘developed’ nations in the worst conflict since the Second World War. I have the article in front of me, and I quote:
“It starts with a ward full of women who have been gang-raped and then shot in the vagina... Most have wrapped themselves deep in their blankets so I can only see their eyes staring blankly at me. Dr Mukwege is speaking, ‘Around 10% of them have had this happen to them. We are trying to reconstruct their vaginas, their anuses, their intestines. It is a long process.’ … Even in this small province, South Kivu, the UN estimates that 45,000 women were raped last year alone. ‘Crippling their women cripples their society’… The rape of the thousands of women who stagger into the Panzi hospital are, I soon discover, part of a larger rape – the rape of Congo.”
And that’s where you and I come in. Do you have a cell phone, a laptop, or a play station? Well, to satisfy our needs for such things, Congo is being perpetually gang-raped to access its coltan, cassiterite, diamonds etc. I don’t want to oversimplify such complex issues, but I do want us to engage and wrestle with them. Ignorance is bliss, but we are not called to choose ignorance, even if it’s a more comfortable option which will allow us to continue our current lifestyles with untroubled consciences. As Oona King, a British politician who was recently out here, observed, “Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.” It’s a sick world. I sometimes feel totally helpless in the face of such brutal evil, but the least we can do is pray, starting with Frank Laubach’s words: “Lord, forgive us for looking at the world with dry eyes.” Following Jesus is at times a painfully raw and messy business...
…and yet, it is on this, the ‘Dark Continent’, that often the light shines brightest. I am continually humbled at the costly experiential reality of Jesus in my brothers and sisters’ lives out here. Many of them really do need to pray ‘give us this day our daily bread’, and share sacrificially out of their little when that prayer is answered. I preached in an internally displaced camp a while back – there were 40,000 people in it, ten dying day after day. After church I was led into a tin shack and these people, who were starving to death, gave me a plate of rice and beans. What generosity, giving their everything out of their nothing, as so often I give just a little out of my plenty.
One of my closest brothers out here is Onesphore. He’s a lawyer who gave up law to preach and live by faith. He is preparing a huge outreach, similar to last year when he wrote: “We have just sent out forty eight young people into the bush to different unreached areas for a whole week, without money or supplies. They simply had to trust God and go. We met up again upon their return and the feedback was amazing: they shared Christ with 1800 people, of whom 1,200 responded positively and wanted to receive Christ as Lord and Saviour. Many idols were burnt. Witchdoctors were challenged. There were ten miraculous healings. Those listening didn’t want to let our guys leave – church members and pastors cried upon our departure, and have already written pleading that we go back soon.”
Well, word has got around, and this year he is going to send three hundred young people for two whole weeks into unreached areas, with pastors trained in follow-up ready to carry on the work. He guestimates that they will talk to 14,000 people in that time, with many thousands coming to Christ. Pray that it will result in lasting fruit, and that Onesphore’s ministry, Harvest for Christ, will have the financial provision it needs to accomplish his bold objectives.
Other news in brief: our outreach to Muslims has suffered greatly because of Josée’s fraud. Please pray into that. These guys coming to Christ suffer so much for their new-found faith. Building work has started on SU’s conference centre. We have $250,000 of the $600,000 required. Once built, it will generate funds to make SU self-sustaining and me redundant, which is the aim! Youth for Christ are on fire, student outreach is going well, the AIDS and streetkids projects are ticking along, the orphanage is really struggling. A team from South Carolina will arrive in three weeks, may it will be a powerful time. Lizzie, Zac and I are all healthy and well. At the end of June, we head back to the UK for some holiday and then a hectic preaching schedule, and my book will be out by then.
So, lots to pray for. Thanks to all of you, we really appreciate it and see the direct impact in terms of answered prayers, it’s amazing. I’ll close with an observation that constantly challenges me afresh about the precious Burundian believers I work with who shine as lights in the darkness. They know there is a war going on – not just a literal one – but a spiritual one, raging for their hearts, minds and souls. They recognize the need for vigilance, for urgency, for prioritizing and strategizing of their time and resources. We in the Western world have so much to learn from them. Where is our vigilance, our urgency, our costly re-prioritising around what truly counts and lasts? Hmm…
Together in the battle,
Simon Guillebaud
*Please click on www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=863, and I would encourage you to print it out, read it, and weep with me and the many faceless unpeople it talks about just across the lake from me in Eastern Congo.
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