Tearfund’s Global Poverty Prayer Week, which runs this year from March 1-7, is an opportunity for churches and individual Christians to join as one global church to cry out about issues of poverty and justice.
This year’s theme is One Voice and, according to Tearfund Ireland chief executive, Reuben Coulter, it’s about Christians and churches across Ireland – and the world – coming together in unity and making a real difference, as prayer calls us into action.
“As we have seen recently in Haiti ‘Mother Nature’ is not always kind,” says Reuben. “The quieter, but equally deadly, impact of climate change is causing farming communities around the world to suffer.
“Tearfund, with your help, is committed to answering that need by helping farmers plant drought-resistant crops, build flood-proof houses and by lobbying governments.
“Today more than ever, food of the physical kind, and nourishment of the spiritual sort are in great demand. In Africa, the nine countries of the Sahel region – including Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Chad – are no strangers to periods of drought. Yet what’s been happening of late is unlike the patterns of the past. A combination of climate change, unrelenting poverty and increasing economic pressure is making drought harder to prepare for and survive.
“In the indigenous Fulani language Sahel means ‘edge’. That is precisely the position many local farmers are in, trapped between opposing forces with too few opportunities for escape.”
One of these farmers is Philippe…
Stubborn earth
Burkina Faso, a little-known country in West Africa is home to Pastor Philippe. After a hard day’s work he comes home, muddy from weeding his allotment and hacking the stubborn earth to irrigate his cereal crops. His wife, Wendenda, a picture of elegance in a bright-green, maxi-styled-dress, spent her day at market – selling their crop. She rides home to meet Philippe, with baby in back-pouch. For 90 per cent of people living off the land in Burkina Faso, traditional ways of life are hemmed in by climate change, local and global economic pressure, and poor governance.
‘Before CREDO intervened life was very difficult,’ says Philippe. ‘Now people benefit more from their activities. Sometimes it requires somebody to help you. There are some things you cannot find a solution to yourself, no matter how hard you work.’ ‘People no longer starve the way they starved or suffer the way they suffered before because of the support of CREDO,’ says Pastor Philippe.
CREDO teaches alternative farming and irrigation methods to improve yields and reap a second harvest of vegetables if traditional cereal crops like sorghum fail.
Grow your own
‘The soils are no longer rich for cereal production and it doesn’t rain enough. We get more benefit from the allotment than the land harvest of cereal crops now,’ says Wendenda. ‘We cook food and take produce from our allotment to the market to sell. It’s our main source of income. We use this money to school our children and buy things we need.’
Like many Tearfund partners across the Sahel, CREDO works in the world’s poorest region to reduce the vulnerability to disasters of farmers and pastoralists.
Please pray for:
– Tearfund asks us to pray for its local partners world-wide as they tackle the food crisis and climate change.
– Tearfund partners, like CREDO, as they train local farmers in new farming techniques and that farmers would be willing to embrace these new ideas
– For developed countries to commit to deeper emissions cuts and providing enough climate finance and that a global agreement can be formulated to tackle this issue.
– Let’s pray for the government and for the local services in Chile who will be responding to the recent earthquake. And take time to pray too for our brothers and sisters in Haiti and Tearfund church partners as they continue to recover from January’s earthquake.
– For more resources please visit http://www.tearfund.ie/get_involved/pray/.