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Africa
 Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” What is justice in the African context? Start out thinking about this subject by crying. Crying for the hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, who over the years have not known justice. Cry for the people in Sudan whose homes were bombed simply because they lived somewhere near an oil pipeline. Cry for the Sudanese children who were taken as slaves, and for decades of international complacency over the situation in Sudan. Cry for the 4 million who have died in Congo over the past decade in a war that hardly makes the international news, and cry for a people whose plight a Presbyterian Church leader there has summarized as “Our riches have made us poor.” Shed tears for the children left to fend for themselves as their parents die of AIDS and for HIV-positive people who have no access to even the simplest care. Lament the injustice of politicians who steal elections and make political decisions that are solely for their own personal gain. Cry for the ones who kill and are killed because of their ethnicity. Cry for young girls who resort to selling their bodies in order to survive. Cry about the social leaders — teachers, soldiers, and even pastors — who use their power for sexual gain. Cry for the teenaged girl who takes her siblings to the market to collect the grain that has fallen on the ground so that they can eat that night. And cry out against the daily injustice committed by international organizations and companies that seek to increase their bottom line without regard to the people who suffer as a result.
Partners/Ministries
Project for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa: Rev. Dr. Johnson Mbillah, general adviser, Rev. Angele Dogbe Wilson, women’s coordinator
All Africa Conference of Churches: Rev. MvumeDandala, general secretary, Rt. Rev. Dr. Nyansako-ni-Nku, president
Christian Council of Liberia
Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Togo: Rev. Kodjo Gerson Bessa, moderator, Rev. Luther K. E. Degbovi, synod secretary, Emmanuel Koffi Dobou, presbytery executive
Botswana Christian Council: David Modiega, general secretary
PC(USA) General Assembly Staff
Elder Beneva Bibbs, GAC
Teresa Bidart, GAC
Melanie Biller, GAC
Gail Bingham, GAC
Michelle Bingham, GAC
Lord, we ask your presence this day with our church partners in Africa. We lift before you the leaders who are called to show your love and hope, and we give thanks that we too learn of this hope through them. God of peace, we lift before you the places of conflict in Africa and ask for your perfect peace to reign. We pray for the infected and affected, and for ourselves, as we face the AIDS pandemic. Amen.
Ps. 36, 147:12–20 Ps. 80, 27
Isa. 45:5–17
Eph. 5:15–33; Mark 4:21–34
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