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June 2006 PRAYER FOCUS
 

The Crisis in Darfur

 Since February 2003 over 400,000 people have died and over 2.5 million people have been displaced from

 their homes.  Each day, over 500 innocent people die from violence, malnutrition and disease.  The

 people of Darfur experience horrendous crimes, including gang rapes of women and girls, burning of homes

 and religious buildings, killing of babies, and other atrocities.  Despite their efforts to help civilians, relief

organizations have been targeted and aid workers have been arrested by the Sudanese government.  Today, more than 2.5 million people are suffering from a preventable humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western

Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, but countless more can be saved. Not since the

Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.

Government-backed militias, known collectively as the Janjaweed, have systematically eliminated

entire communities and continue to do so. Government air strikes frequently precede these vicious militia raids. 

Villages are razed; women, men, and children are raped, tortured, and murdered.  The Janjaweed also target and destroy Darfurian food and water supplies, threatening the victim’s chance for survival.  These people are

being deprived of their humanity. Many of them have lost their homes, communities, families, and dreams

for the future. The Sudanese government has failed to protect them. The government has not only denied

involvement with the massacres, but its police have also attacked displacement camps. Recent reports show

that while violence continues, survivors in overcrowded refugee camps are threatened by disease and famine.

 If the violence continues and people do not receive adequate aid and protection, many more Darfurians will die.

 These people need our help. As humans, we owe them our support and prayers. As Americans we owe

them our courage and experience. We must do something to help those who suffer, and THIS TIME WE CAN. 

Proverbs 3:27

Do not withhold good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it. 

Proverbs 24: 11-12

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?  Does not he who guards your life know it? 

Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? 

Prayer

“I want to join my prayers to many other voices. Every few months we are driven away from one refugee camp

to the other, so far in the desert where nothing, nothing at all exists. This is no way for a human being to live.

 No way to live in such a shocking place – uncultivated, waterless, treeless and barren region...! Everything is

burning, Lord, around me, around us ... in me, in us ... Everything is barren, hell, hell...!  Yet, Lord, we believe

you are there, beside us. We pray for all the Africans living now our same condition. Bring back peace and

 tranquility to our beloved country. Peace which is desired by everybody, the old and young, rich and poor,

women and men.  Amen ... amen ... Let it be so.”