Pray for the High-Level Meeting
Jubilee Centre September 16th, 2008
The gathering in New York for the High-Level meeting on 25th September for the Heads of States to discuss the Millennium Development Goals will be the eighth year since the 189 Heads of State signed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Declaration. At the first MDG summit in 2000 the Heads of States from the Global South and Global North promised to “free men, women and children from dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.” Micah Challenge Zambia is calling the 800 church coalition members in Zambia to intercede for the Heads of States that they come up with resolutions that will transform Africa and uplift its people out of extreme poverty that they be able meet basic things they need to live a decent life: nutritious food, clothes, clean water, education, a home and health care.
Prayer avails much. Therefore, Micah Challenge Zambia is inviting you to pray for African representatives at the High-Level meeting to urge the leaders from the developed world for free market and democracy that ensures equitable benefits to the impoverished hard working Africans. We are pleading to you to pray because it is most unlikely that you or the people you serve in your church or community have been consulted on their concerns that ought to be addressed at this High-Level meeting.
You must be concerned because the issues that will be addressed at the meeting are matters that directly affect your people. They include water and sanitation, health, education and food security. In 3 John, John was concerned for Gaius’s physical and spiritual well-being. As a responsible Christian community God is calling us to care for the physical and spiritual needs of our people. When we pray that our people access to safe toilet and clean water we demonstrate our care for their health. When we pray opposing slave wages and misery for our people we demonstrate our care for rebuilding our nations.
The free market African nations have embraced has largely concentrated severely lopsided wealth in the hands of foreign minority. At this High-Level Meeting let us pray that the leaders will express dissatisfaction at this imposed free market and democracy that does not extend its benefits to the impoverished ethnic majority. Let us pray that the leaders from Africa will engage the leaders from the developed nations on the fact that the political and economic models they are promoting don’t guarantee political stability or economic prosperity for Africans living in poverty. Let us pray that Africa will present the case study of Niger Delta in Nigeria as one example where free market has fuelled violence because the ethnic majority has not experienced the spread of benefits from the oil reserves of the region.
Lawrence Temfwe
