Congo elections today ... PLEASE PRAY
Much hinges on final run-off democratic elections that are occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo TODAY (Sunday, October 29, 2006).Incumbent President Joseph Kabila, 35, and challenger (one of many vice presidents, but also a former rebel leader) Jean-Pierre Bemba, 44, swept aside a field of 33 candidates in the first round of voting on July 30. Kabila, favored primarily in the Eastern part of the country, won 44.8% of the vote and Bemba, favored primarily in the west, 20 percent. (A candidate needed to garner 51 percent plus one vote to be declared the outright winner in the first round. But the winner of the second round will be decided by a simple majority.)
Kabila is heavily favored to win today's voting, which spans this vast country that is larger than Texas and Alaska, combined. There are more than 50,000 polling stations open, more than 17,000 UN troops in the country to keep the peace, and voting presents extraordinary challenges in a country where the military is only in control of some portions and where rebel militias control others; where there are only about 500 miles of paved roads in the entire nation; and where nearly 4 million people have died of internal violence and related problems during the past 8 years.
But whoever wins, the challenge will be to unite this diverse country and maintain the peace, moving forward with the development desperately needed to stop the continuing hemorrhage of human life, with at least 1,200 people still dying every day ... most of them innocent children, women and other noncombatants.
On behalf of World Vision, Mandy and I spent a week in the Congo in June, and can attest that this is a beautiful country, abundant with natural resources, and a people who are eager to put their violent past behind them and move forward to a new era of prosperity. Due to years of Christian missionary focus, there are an abundance of churches and the gospel has a strong foothold in this country. But superstitions also abound and the social and family infrastructure is impoverished and weak due to years of fighting and privation.
In the northern part of the country, where the Elim vision trip is planned for next July, there are 867 Evangelical Free churches. There are nearly as many EV Freers in the Congo as there are in the United States! The church is so healthy and mature, in many ways, that they are actually sending missionaries to other parts of the country, and surrounding countries.
So, what do they need us for? The reality is that, we need each other. When the church in Jerusalem was hurting, during the first century, churches in surrounding regions banded together and reached out to help. The church in the Congo is hurting, due to the years of war, due to an almost unimaginable poverty and scarcity of even the most basic resources (such as Bibles), and due to various health crises and threats, such as malaria and HIV. They are seeking to mobilize a Christian response to AIDS and have called out for our help.
And we, too, are impoverished in certain ways and hurting and need their help. Our poverty is a poverty of spirit, the threat of spiritual stagnation caused by living in a nation characterized by the numbing poison of modernism, materialism and slow moral decay. We are hungry to see God work, the way the church in the first century did. We are desperately trying to figure out how to become that church. We need each other in that process.
We also, of course, have been greatly blessed. We have our own upcoming democratic elections, and struggle with the usual frustration with political attack ads and seemingly ineffective elected bodies, with high taxes or policies with which we disagree. But the reality is that few among us go to bed at night worried that the elections might bring bombs and shooting.
Our brothers and sisters in the Congo have seen more than their share of bombs and shooting ... and machetes, and starvation, and disease, and brutality. They need our prayers right now, for a peaceful outcome to the elections, for just participation by the nations around them, and for a wise prioritization of national resources so that the country's decay can be reversed.
So please pray today that, whoever wins, they will be seen as God's rightfully appointed leadership, that peace and unity will be embraced, that justice will be done, and that this nation which has seen so much heartache will be set on the road to healing.
And please also continue to pray for spiritual and physical preparation for the team of Elimites who are getting ready to go. Pray that God will continue to tenderly develop in each person the spirit of servanthood that He desires to see in them as they go.
- Larry
P.S.: For great coverage on what is happening in the Congo today, and the conditions that have led up to it, see the excellent article and video on CNN today.
posted by Larry Short at 7:19 AM
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