Kindgo
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FAMINE
Africa’s Coming Catastrophic Famine
web page By Wendy Griffith
CBN News Reporter
July 26, 2002
Calver, who oversaw World Relief's first shipment of food to the area, says this is a great opportunity for the church to show the world what Jesus is like.
CBN.com – Southern Africa is bracing for one of the worst famines in recent history. The UN World Food Programme estimates that almost 13 million people in six countries will be at risk of starvation by spring of next year.
Many believe the expected famine will be too great for governments alone to handle. Some say it is up to the church to help avert what could be a disaster of catastrophic proportions.
Clive Calver, president of World Relief, said, "What we're talking about is the biggest single disaster in living memory knocking on our doorstep, something that could way overshadow the famines in Ethiopia and Sudan."
After two failed harvests in southern Africa, people were desperate and were forced to eat much of the recent crop before it was ripe.
The UN World Food Programme has launched a massive appeal to provide emergency relief food to the six countries affected: Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Clive Calver just returned from Malawi where he says many families are already on the verge of starvation. "They took this, it’s called ‘black jack,’ they boiled it up and they ate it. It was all they had — it's poisonous, it gives you diarrhea and vomiting."
There are children in Malawi who are not starving yet, thanks to church-run schools. For most it is the only place they can get something to eat, usually corn, which their pastor says is quickly running out.
"The churches in other countries have to help us because there's a great hunger, so these children are going to die in three months time if there is not any help," the pastor said.
Calver said this is a disaster that can be averted. "You don't know when there's going to be an earthquake, but sometimes you know when there's going to be a famine, and right now we know that unless we all do something, nearly 13 million people will die," he said.
Calver, who oversaw World Relief's first shipment of food to the area, says this is a great opportunity for the church to show the world what Jesus is like.
"The Lord Jesus, for reasons known best to himself, has given 80 percent of the physical resources of His church in the world to His church in North America. And he didn't give them to us because we have all the need, we have less than 20 percent of the need. He gave them to us because He thought that we would be trustworthy bankers, that we would know where to give it. Right now, our brothers and sisters in southern Africa need our generosity like never, ever before," he said.
Calver says if the church does not rise to the occasion, other faiths will. Already there are reports of forced conversions for food, and even mothers selling one of their babies in hopes of keeping the rest of their children alive.
"Already we are facing the fact that other faiths are offering food, but the attachment is, ‘Receive our teaching’ if not, ‘Directly convert to save your life.’ Terribly tempting when the alternative is death. That's beginning to happen," Calver said.
He continued, "There has to be another way. We cannot sit back in the West and just watch this happen. If we love Jesus we'll feed those He loves and who love him, and we'll enable them to feed their people so the love of Christ can be physically demonstrated."
Calver says the best way believers can help is to send money to aid organizations like World Relief who are able to buy the food in Africa and distribute it, they believe, faster and more efficiently than some of the governments can
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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