Archive for the ‘Zimbabwe food crisis’ Category
A new food shipment for Zimbabwe’s hungry families
Southern Baptists continue to provide urgently needed assistance to families suffering in Zimbabwe’s unprecedented economic catastrophe. As of December 2008, the inflation rate was estimated at an unfathomable 516 quintillion percent — the highest ever recorded. The only goods available in stores are priced in foreign currency that ordinary citizens do not have. Those who do have some money in the bank are limited to withdrawals too small to purchase food.
A new phase of food distribution was launched in mid-March, sending 45-pound boxes of staple items to 5,000 of Zimbabwe’s neediest families. Each box includes food staples like rice, oil, salt, powdered milk, corned beef, beans, etc., to help families stave off starvation.
This next week, enough food to make 1,800 food parcels should arrive in the country. Please pray for the border crossing and distribution. This will be the last of the approved food parcels that we have set up from the current project. Pray that BGR and partners will have wisdom concerning the next step.
Also, please consider making a contribution toward this project. $90 provides food for a family for one week. For more information visit http://www.gobgr.org and click on the “Giving” tab.
Food relief entering Zimbabwe
Lori Funderburk, BGR prayer strategist, writes:
Five hundred food parcels are making their way into Zimbabwe with BGR partners. They will be distributing food parcels to one of the poorer parts most affected by the situation there. Please pray that the food will get to those most in need. Pray that people will see the love of God through the distribution of these parcels. Ask Him to multiply the use of these foods as those who receive them try to stretch them out to cover their needs for longer periods of time. Ask God to intervene on their behalf as the country of Zimbabwe continues to collapse.
For information about the food parcel project, click here.
Depending on God for every need
Mark Hatfield, who directs Baptist Global Response work in Sub-Saharan Africa, sends this note from a Southern Baptist field partner involved in the food boxes Southern Baptists have been delivering to needy people in Zimbabwe. Many of those food parcels are going to retired people who have no pension.
An Irish lady who has been in Zimbabwe since the 1960s took me to the Harare airport on Friday. She recently retired and received her pension from her 40 years of teaching in Zimbabwe. My mom taught more than 40 years in Georgia and now has a comfortable monthly retirement. This godly Irish lady received her pension in a lump sum, drove to the grocery store, spent her whole pension and walked out the door with a small bag of groceries.
As we drove to the airport, I noticed the gas gauge on her little car was well below “E.” The first place we stopped to get fuel did have fuel, but no power to pump it. Many other places we passed had no fuel. We drove back into town and found a filling station with fuel. She pulled out a 25-liter coupon someone had given her and pumped that amount into her car. I don’t think she knew where her next tank of fuel would come from.
She never complained but, in the course of our conversation, I learned just how much this lady and her husband depend on God for their every need. And God has proven faithful.
Two thank you notes
We have received, in the past few days, two notes of gratitude for the help Southern Baptists recently have sent to people in need. In one case, the note was in response to medicines sent to Sanyati Baptist Hospital. The other note expressed thankfulness for the food parcels being delivered to families in Zimbabwe.
Mark Byler, the medical director at Sanyati Baptist Hospital, wrote: “This shipment was God sent. On Tuesday we were down to the last two liters of IV bags. We only had two types of antibiotics left.”
And “Lindie” wrote: “It’s been a while since we have had bread at our house. … I would never have been able to buy 95% of the groceries in the box with my own money, so we are feeling very ‘spoiled.’ May God richly bless [Southern Baptists] for thinking of others in such a special way.”
