Venezuela: food riots – people dying
A man was shot dead on Tuesday during looting and food riots proliferating round crisis-hit Venezuela, bringing to at least four the number of fatalities from this month's wave of unrest. As well as the fatality, another 27 people had been injured during a day of chaos and violence in the eastern Caribbean coastal town of Cumana. There was simultaneous looting in more than 100 establishments. Videos and photos on social media from the town showed National Guard troops confronting crowds swarming round damaged shops, with crowds baying ‘We want food!’ Security forces struggled to keep order. Protests and melees at shops have been spreading around the recession-hit South American oil-producing nation in recent weeks, fuelled by shortages of basic foods. Over ten incidents of looting are occurring every day across the nation of 30 million people.
Egypt: Christian girls kidnapped
A wave of kidnappings, forced conversions and forced marriages of young Christian girls in Egypt has Christian families living in fear. The missing girls were ‘probably taken to be forcefully married and converted to Islam.’ Among those missing is Amal Shaky, 19, kidnapped on her way to Cairo University. When she did not come home or answer her phone they searched the campus. No one had seen her. Shaky's family went to the police, who suggested her father had killed his daughter and thrown away the body. After harassing the father, the officer refused to file a report and asked for a few hours to investigate the matter. More than forty days have passed since she was kidnapped, and ‘the matter is ‘under investigation’. The most recent figures available reveal that from 2011 to 2014 there were 72 cases of kidnappings, extortion and related violence against Coptic Christians.
America: Zika talks and action
Republicans in negotiations on delayed funding to combat the Zika virus are promising an agreement, as they focus on a $1.1 billion deal. Negotiators met on Wednesday, but only made opening speeches to satisfy the requirements for at least one public negotiating session. President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion four months ago, but Congress did nothing for weeks, so he borrowed from unspent funds from the Ebola crisis to provide mosquito control, research into a vaccine, better tests to detect the virus, and help for foreign countries in their battles against Zika. The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that the Rio Olympics may help spread the Zika virus around the world, but no faster than it's already spreading. Brazil already has many international travellers, and Zika is now active in 40 countries, including much of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Nigeria: doing the painful thing
Nigeria is going to do the painful thing everyone said it has to do: the currency will be allowed to float freely. The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, said that the bank will intervene ‘as the need arises’. A weaker currency will help Nigeria's economy by encouraging import substitution and attracting foreign investors, who have shunned the country for fear of a devaluation. The move will be painful over the short term: inflation was 15.6% in April. The authorities will probably be forced to tighten monetary policy. Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy but it has soaring inflation. This latest action will not magically fix all of Nigeria’s problems - for example, lower oil prices and ongoing oil-production disruptions by the Niger Delta Avengers.
Pakistani policeman beats up church leader
A church leader in Lahore was beaten up during his Sunday service by a policeman, during a dispute over the music being played over his church loudspeaker. Lahore has the largest concentration of the Christian community in Pakistan. The situation in Fazlia Colony, where about 400 households are Christian, deteriorated when a Muslim neighbour of the Pentecostal United Church called the police, saying that the loudspeaker ‘violated a Punjab Sound System Act’. When other churches nearby heard about the beating, hundreds poured in, blocking the road and demanding action against the policeman who had beaten the leader. In a separate incident a Christian was beaten by a mob for selling ice cream to Muslim customers who said it was ‘ritually unclean’ because it had been touched by a Christian. Most Pakistani Christians trace their origins via Hinduism to the Dalit caste - ‘untouchable’ and ritually impure.
Streams of Blessing - Shropshire
WPC Teams were invited, by the Diocesan Prayer Advocate, Pauline Mack, to support a county-wide week of prayer. Originally planned for the week beginning 21 May it was rescheduled to take in the Archbishops call to prayer, Thy Kingdom Come, in the week before Pentecost Sunday. We prayer walked the parts of the Severn where it flows into the county, and where it flows out, and strategic stretches of the Shropshire Union and Llangollen canals.
The first three days were a prayer walk from Bridgnorth to Ironbridge, which we felt was significant for many reasons. The theme of Jesus as a bridge recurred, and that God's people should be bridge-builders in their communities. In Ironbridge we saw, during evening worship, that we have a bridge of flesh and blood, and that He breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron, with His blood.
We prayed the 'Friday blessing' prayer from Ffald y Brenin, and/or a more comprehensive prayer crafted by Sarah Cawdell from Bridgnorth, on any significant bridge we came across (or under) on our walks, directing our words downstream so that the river carried the blessing (as in Ezekiel 47 – wherever the river flowed, there was life).
Another task was to go and pray at some of the ancient wells, such as ancient or not so ancient churches en-route, Buildwas and Haughmond Abbeys and the Roman city at Wroxeter. At Buildwas Abbey Chrissie reminded us of Psalm 74, "Lord turn your footsteps towards these ruins..." and on reading the psalm out loud there, were able to imagine the scenes during the dissolution of the monasteries and how the saints of old must have echoed the words in the psalm: "we are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be." Were able to declare hope, referring to the Malcolm Duncan talks, about the new day coming.
The two scriptures that formed the basis for our prayer for the week were Psalm 63 v 1-5, and Isa.41 v 17-20, both of which talk about dry land – the opposite of what Shropshire is naturally, but which proved to be the case spiritually. But in praying blessing over the land and the people, the end in view was v.20: "that men may see and know, may consider and understand that the hand of God has done this, the Holy One of Israel." However, another scripture proved very directional during the week, and this came to light because John Gilman had done his homework! He pointed out that in the area we began, Highley, there had been mines, and felt that Paul Miller's word about the hatches was going to become relevant, which proved to be the case.
From the first evening in the 24-hour prayer room at Highley, the 'treasures in darkness' scripture came up (Isa.45 v 3) and this theme kept cropping up, even when we visited old friends in Newport to drop off a sewing-machine! Izzy said: "I have been praying this scripture for you all week: Daniel 2 v 20-23" Verse 22 says: He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him.
The Task
Each 24-hour period from Tue 10th to Thu 19th was to be prayed through in 10 different locations. Churches had set up prayer spaces or rooms for this to take place.
As mentioned our work began with prayer walking, but we also did some prayer "motoring", joined in at the prayer rooms, sometimes filled empty slots in the rota and in one location, we set up and with Pauline Mack helped to make sure the 24-hours were covered in prayer.
The LORD gave us many opportunities to pray and bring prophetic encouragement to people or into localities which we trust will bear their fruit in due season. We met ministers who were feeling they wanted to give up and others who were pressing in to seek God for the transformation of their locality, church members whose hope was rekindled just because we turned up to pray, and were blessed in return as we prayed and worshipped with those who were alive and alert and praising God anyway in challenging situations.
The time in Shropshire was an exercise in flexibility. We never knew what to expect in any given situation, and very often we were praying with the ones and twos in little village churches, bringing much-needed encouragement. This we were glad to do. We feel we have been stretched and encouraged ourselves by the way God has resourced us and never let us down, renewing the streams of living water which as He promised have flowed out of us.
Chrissie & Colin
May 2016
Ibiza: answer to persevering prayer
Two years ago a family moved to Ibiza to pray for an ostracised group of Roma gypsies. The Ibiza Roma are considered substandard and not deserving respect. A big part of the family’s journey was challenging those stereotypes, daily prayer walking, researching Romani culture, history and values and learning how God really feels about the Roma and themselves. Then, suddenly God opened everything up. Where doors had been slowly opening, He blew them off their hinges - and He did it in one night! ‘One night, my husband bumped into a Roma friend who introduced him to an important man in the Roma community. God opened up deep conversation and immediate friendship. From two years of being on the outside, that night God drew us into the heart of the Roma.’ Click the ‘More’ button to read how this family shared the gospel, spoke truth into situations, and aligned themselves with the outcast as Jesus did.
Proof that God exists
One of the world’s most respected scientists said that there is scientific proof that points to the existence of God. Michio Kaku (one of the developers of the revolutionary String Theory) said, ‘I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence.’ In a video Kaku uses physics and mathematics, and references String Theory, to explain how science points to the existence of God. He said the very purpose of physics is to find an equation which will allow us to unify all the forces of nature and allow us to read the mind of God. Kaku has proposed a theory to that end, stating, ‘To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.’