Via a contact with Langham Partnership International comes this request for urgent prayer for Zimbarbwe:

Urgent prayer request for Zimbabwe

News coming out of Zimbabwe this past week is truly shocking. Colleagues in the churches with whom we have worked in the Langham Preaching and Keswick programmes are sending messages urging us to pray this week, indicating that Presidential run-off elections on Friday June 27th will mark a watershed in the nation’s history.

After years of economic collapse, political repression and intimidation, and greatly reduced life-expectancy, Zimbabwe is confronting yet more horrific suffering. The new wave of terror, in advance of the Presidential elections this week, is unprecedented. Christians in Harare say that there is one word on the manifesto of this election campaign: it is the word ‘fear’.

In the rural areas whole villages are being intimidated, people are fleeing their homes and living in the bush for fear of beatings, rape, pillaging and the burning of their homes by gangs armed and mandated by the government. Violence has now reached the cities, with commuter minicabs used for public transport being stopped and drivers beaten. Passengers have to get out and chant ZANU-PF slogans (ruling party) or they are beaten. One pastor in Harare has written to us:

‘A church member has just come in and shared how she travelled to a near-by town, and on the way was stopped at two police road blocks and made to chant slogans. A young man in the church witnessed youths stopping a minibus, pulling out the driver and beating him on the street, without police interference. We have more and more people coming to the church in need of help as a result of political violence and intimidation. Reports come to our ears daily of acts of torture and oppression and violence. Abductions happen regularly, murders occur and are unreported. The list could go on and on. Churches have been stopped from distributing food; even an organisation that feeds street children was told to stop operations. Food is short, unavailable in the stores. The wickedness is unbelievable, the lack of concern for struggling people is demonic, the deafness of those in power to the cries of the suffering and the commitment to self-advancement at the expense of others are hard to believe.’

Understandably, the Christian community identifies with the opening questions of Habakkuk’s oracle: ‘Lord, how long will I call and You will not hear? How long will I cry out and You will not save?’. Our friends and colleagues in Zimbabwe ask us to join them in prayer:

• Pray for the many people struggling to survive, fearful of what the future holds;
• Pray for young people caught up in the violence, or those despairing of any hopeful future;
• Pray for the elderly who are beaten by youths, contrary to the deepest mores of culture and African community;
• Pray for grandmothers, and widows, and the vulnerable in society;
• Pray for school children with studies disrupted and classes cancelled;
• Pray for people in prison for their political views;
• Pray for pastors to be wise and full of integrity;
• Pray for police and army members to refuse to act out the part they are called to play;
• Pray for God’s righteous judgement to come, that He will defend the defenceless and father the fatherless;

• Pray for the gospel to advance through Christian communities empowered by God’s grace.

The prophet Habakkuk asked his honest questions of the Lord, but also heard the Lord announce his ‘woes’ of judgement on all wicked rulers. By God’s mercy, Habakkuk was able to close his prophecy with a remarkable doxology, singing to the Sovereign Lord who was his strength. Please join us in praying that this will be the experience of God’s people in Zimbabwe, even in the midst of uncertainty and terror.

Jonathan Lamb
June 21, 2008