ZIMBABWE: 24-hour Solidarity Vigil

I received the following by e-mail today. Many of you dear readers will know that I spent 12 years in Zimbabwe, living through a turbulent time in that nation's history. Arriving in 1972 when the country was named Rhodesia, living through the transitional period of it being named Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, and finally living under the name Zimbabwe until 1984. It is a land that is very dear to my heart, and I carry a great burden for its people, for the vastness of their suffering and deprivation under the brutal regime of the despotic dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

Human life beyond his immediate circle holds no value for him, and his tyranny has extended to genocide on a massive scale. When he is finally toppled, either by force or by death, then the world will gasp as the true horrors that the Zimbabwean people have had to face become known.

Evil can only flourish when good people stand by and let it! Are you prepared to do nothing? Are you prepared to shrug at the awfulness of the situation and then ask, "But what can I alone do?"

You are being asked in the following paragraphs to pray for the salvation of Zimbabwe and its people; just to commit to praying for ONE MINUTE each day at an appointed time. Together we can make a difference! One man alone may be weak, but one man standing with God is the most powerful army that can exist.

If you will commit to ONE MINUTE of prayer each day for the Nation of Zimbabwe, please add a comment to this post. Your comment need only be a word or two, but it will serve to seal your promise of commitment.

The following is a letter from the people organising the Prayer Vigil, plus a letter from a 16 year old Zimbabwean.

Dear Friend,

In World War II, while Hitler was brutally taking over the world, there was an advisor to Churchill who organised a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed time to collectively pray for the safety of England, its people and for peace. Things drastically changed, and the rest is history. God is the answer, and prayer is the only way for Zimbabwe! In view of the current state of affairs in Zimbabwe we are organising a daily one minute prayer time at 8 am; 1 pm, or 8 pm. At any one of these times please stop whatever you are doing, and spend that one minute praying that God will intervene in the affairs of Zimbabwe. Someone once said that if Christians really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer we would be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Together we can make a difference.

If you know of any Christian brother or sister who would like to participate in this powerful prayer exercise, please pass this message on to them.
ZIMBABWE 24-hour Solidarity Vigil

This message came from Margaret Kriel's Morning Mirror. Please try and pass it on to as many people as you can,
Many thanks

Dear World,
I am a 16 year old person living in Zimbabwe. I think the time has come for a more direct appeal, and so I am writing to you, the world.Maybe, just maybe, there might be someone out there who can help us...It's tough here now. The inflation rate is so high that if you don't change money within 6 hours you could get half the amount of foreign currency that you would have originally received.We're starving now; people die around us. In the last year alone at least ten people associated personally with my family have died despite the fact that they were only middle-aged. Other people don't make it to middle age. They don't even make it past childhood.Our once-proud nation is on it's knees. We flee or die. This beautiful, bountiful once-rich land has become a living hell. We have dealt with it until now; we have made a plan. That was the Zimbabwean motto: "MAKE A PLAN".
But now we can't make a plan. We're too tired, too broken, too bankrupt. We can't afford life, and life does not cost much, not really. We cannot afford to eat, we cannot afford to drink, and we cannot afford to make mistakes, because if we do we die. We don't have the capital to support ourselves, and those few who do, have to deal with the horror of watching their friends and family fall into absolute poverty as they cannot afford to help them.We're waiting desperately for a great hand to pick us up out of the dirt because at the moment we are outnumbered by Fate herself, and so we close our eyes and pray. We have fought for too long, and have been brought to breaking point. We simply stand, heads down, and bear it. Our spirit has gone; we are defeated. After a valiant struggle of over fifteen years, we have been broken.

There is no will left, no spirit. Like a horse that has been beaten until it cannot fight anymore; we are the same, and, like that horse, we stand dusty, scarred and alone, with dried blood on our sides and lash marks along our flanks. Our ribs too stand out; our hide is also dull.
Our eyes are glazed, our throats are parched, and our knees struggle to support us so that we stand with splayed legs to bear the brunt of the next beating, too dejected even to whimper...This is my plea. The thought of picking ourselves up again is sickening; one can only take so many blows before oblivion is reached, and we are teetering on the rim of the bottomless void. One more push will be the end of us all...There must be someone out there who can do something. There must be someone out there who cares! We are a destroyed nation, and the world sits back and watches, pretending they cannot hear our cries.
I appeal to you all...HELP US!
A 16 YEAR OLD ZIMBABWEAN......