Zimbabwe and Family On A Mission

Zimbabwe's journey over the past few weeks has been fascinating to watch, albeit at a distance. Whilst we still await the final result of the recent presidential and parliamentary elections, today The Times had a fascinating article about their Africa Correspondent's incarceration by the Zimbabwean authorities.

In October Terry Virgo reported back from a trip he made involving a visit to a conference in Zimbabwe. He said:

"Over 1,000 believers gathered and against the backdrop of severe economic crisis, hardship and political chaos, they shone like stars!"

The church of Jesus Christ was in stark contrast to everything going on around in the country - making a real difference to that nation. And today in The Times there was an echo of that in Jonathan Clayton's report. He said this:

"[The other inmates] were mostly policemen and soldiers who had deserted and, despite my initial fears, were wonderfully friendly and warm. They gave me what little food they had left from the day - half an orange, a banana and some dry bread. "This is the only country in the world where the inmates are policemen," Ryan, a 30-year-old traffic cop, laughed. During my eight days in custody most of the only food and drink I had came from donations from local churches. Without them Zimbabwean prisoners would have nothing to eat or drink."

At a time when the secular press is increasingly intent on reasserting the myth that the church is dying, it is so exciting to see the good work done by local churches around the world being presented in a national newspaper. Yes, it was only a snippet of a much longer article, but when the local churches are the difference between prisoners eating and starving, doesn't their presence and work seem all the more important?

The article ended: "Before I left a sympathetic policeman took me to one side. "Zimbabwe is a good country," he said. "One day things will change and you will be back.""

I do hope things change in Zimbabwe - when they do the nation's local churches will surely have a huge part to play - a part they appear to already be playing.