Weather
War
We no longer weep at gravesides.
We have cried for the dead too often during recent years.
You want to know what makes us weep?
We cry when we think that the Gospel of Christ
came into our land and our lives.
We weep when we think our land is being taken by force
and our faith being replaced by Islam.
This makes tears rise from the dry places within us.
The Word of God
The letters were written by mission partners and personnel working with:-
- Peter and Hilary Bewes coming to the end of four years setting up a Continuing Medical Education Programme in Uganda ends their list of problems with "the weather is something that needs praying for. Floods have destroyed crops and made roads more dangerous or impassable" - they have 87 rural hospitals to visit.
- the rains have come too late to save some crops...many people have died at home ...Kiwoko never turns anyone away...but numbers have dropped ...fewer patients mean less income...Friends of Kiwoko continue wonderful subsidy...now that coffee sales have started wards are filling up again.
- Heavy rains came to Mvumi Hospital in Tanzania after a year of famine. Hungry and weakened staff, still short of food had to find seed to plant and energy to cultivate the crops. "So we are very thankful ...over the last few months we have received donations from friends abroad totalling £26,000 ...to subsidise treatment costs ...and provide free maize flour and beans for patients ...a donation of £10,000 from an Aid Agency in the UK ... to further subsidise the treatment costs of children and pregnant women." Floods affects transport, malaria, nutrition.
- From Papua New Guinea "El Nino has caused devastating and unusual weather effects throughout the region...especially in the Highlands , where exceptional snow and frost has destroyed gardens. Bush fires ,triggered by seven months of drought are out of control and billowing fog has added to misery. More people are dying of starvation, and food poisoning, pneumonia and dysentery; villagers desperate for rice have attacked Australian helicopters making food drops." Later "Even though by late January rain was falling heavily in the Highlands it has been washing away food gardens...because of ongoing food shortages the crisis is not expected to ease until April or May".
War
- Wars come and go but the refugees linger on sometimes it seems for life.
- From Pakistan one writes "I don't think I have ever enjoyed Christmas more...I was greatly privileged to be able to spend the Day with a delightful refugee family who urgently need asylum...They have had to move house innumerable times, and this family of five's entire possessions will fit into two modest suitcases which now act as chairs. ...I saw no cards nor presents apart from those I took with me, and the new-born baby was lying on a pile of clothes on the floor. These people have lost everything for their faith"
- From the Democratic republic of Congo (DRC) "Please pray that the refugees in Boga will not have to flee again ...also for the greater stability in Congo, and that in this new year the government will be resolved to establish the country on a Christian foundation of justice and peace and that there will be a greater commitment to ensuring access to health care and education for everyone."
- Also from DRC ...while I was on my way back ...there was a long period of shooting...today I learned a driver had been shot and three of our doctors threatened ... there have been other incidents which remind us that we are still going trough a very difficult and insecure period....however in some areas there have been changes...we have to remember that the new Government is coping with a huge country...
- From East Africa "Built to house 49 the prison now holds 343 male and female inmates with their children....people sleep in shifts...the 6 WC's are all overflowing...everyone was scratching ...scabies was quickly identified, 75% of the prisoners are refugees."
- The aftermath of war in the great Lakes region of Africa combined with older vehicles, bad roads and bandits can make road transport dangerous. Yet one family found after 3 punctures, a blow out and a broken wheel bearing that "it was rarely longer than 5 minutes before a man would appear from nowhere who knew someone who knew someone who could help".
- From the Sudan Kenya border In Kakuma Refugee Camp in semi-desert north- west Kenya where in 1992 30,000 Sudanese refugees fled the diet provided by the UNHCR is resulting in slow starvation. Yet Rev Mark Atem a Jieng (Dinka) pastor at Kakuma wrote in Yes (Church Mission Society April-June 1997 ).
We have cried for the dead too often during recent years.
You want to know what makes us weep?
We cry when we think that the Gospel of Christ
came into our land and our lives.
We weep when we think our land is being taken by force
and our faith being replaced by Islam.
This makes tears rise from the dry places within us.
The Word of God
- "There are small numbers of Christian doctors posted to government hospitals, facing the problems of years of neglect and corruption. They get a lot of opposition when they try to institute control measures and prevent embezzlement. But some of them are making a real impact and lifting their hospitals out of the morass of neglect they were in before."
- "The matter of AIDS is still very important. Uganda is a bit different from some other African countries, in that more importance is being given to things like marital faithfulness than to condoms and so called 'safe-sex' and the result seems to be that the incidence of new cases of AIDS is going down in Uganda while it is still going up in countries making the opposite emphasis. A team of young Christians from Uganda went to Botswana and were well received there, with lots of people getting converted as a result of their uncompromising message."
- A retired GP working in a hospital started for leprosy patients writes " a missionary who was in Nepal for over 40 years set up a school for them and got them an education. We reap the rewards of her efforts at this hospital which she struggled for 12 years to get permission to build. We hear something marvellous every day of what God has been doing ...
- One writer quotes from Luke 1:53 and 74 "lifting up the humble...filling the hungry with good things...enabling us to serve him without fear.
The letters were written by mission partners and personnel working with:-
- Church Mission Society (CMS), Partnership House, 157 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UU
- Tear Fund, 100 Church Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8QE
- Peter Bewes, CMS Salt Fellowship, address as for CMS above.
- Papua New Guinea, Church Partnership, Partnership House, 157 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8XA
- Friends of Kiwoko, 3 Maxwell Park, Bangor, BT20 3SH
- Nepal Leprosy Trust, 15 Duncan Road, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 2JD
