Starvation threatens
Twice this year, we followed World Relief's Clive Calver to southern
Africa, where millions are on the verge of starvation.
"We're talking about the biggest single disaster in living memory-knocking
on our doorstep. Something that could way overshadow the famines in
Ethiopia and Sudan," said Clive Calver, President of World Relief.
In southern Africa-a food crisis is approaching famine proportions.
After two failed harvests, people were desperate and were forced to
eat much of the recent crop before it was ripe. Many have also had to
eat next year's seed, too, so they have nothing to plant.
Urgent appeals
The U.N. World Food Program has launched a massive appeal to provide
emergency relief food to the six countries affected: Zimbabwe, Malawi,
Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.
McBain Kanongodza is Secretary General of the Malawi Red Cross. He
said, "The combination of hunger and AIDS is causing a terrible
tragedy. The world needs to respond urgently! To date, response from
the international community -especially those countries that manage
the bulk of the world's food supply-has not been adequate to meet the
acute needs of the people in the region."
World Relief's Clive Calver just returned from Malawi, where he says
many families are already on the verge of starvation.
Calver said, "They took a leaf called "black jack,"
they boiled it up and ate it because it was all they had-but it's poisonous-it
gives diarrhea and vomiting."
There are children in Malawi who are not starving yet-thanks to church-run
schools. For most children, church is the only place they can get something
to eat-often corn-which their pastor says is quickly running out.
Their pastor explained, "The churches in other countries have
to help us, because there's a great hunger. These children are going
to die in 3 months time, if there is not help."
Calver added, "You don't know when there's going to be an earthquake,
but sometimes you know when there's going to be a famine. And right
now we know that unless we all do something, nearly 13 million people
will die."
Church called to action
"This is a great opportunity for the church to show the world what
Jesus is really like," said Calver-who oversaw World Relief's first
shipment of food to the area.
In addition, Calver said, "The Lord Jesus has given 80% of the
physical resources of His church in the world to His church in North
America. He didn't give them because we have all the need. We have less
than 20% of the need. He gave them to us because He thought we would
be trust-worthy-that we would know where to give these resources. Right
now, our brothers and sisters in southern Africa need our generosity
like never, ever before."
Calver says, "If the church doesn't rise to the occasion-other
faiths will." Already, there are reports of forced conversion to
Islam for food. Even mothers selling one of her babies in hopes of keeping
the rest of her children alive
"Already," Calver continued, "we are facing the fact
that other faiths are offering food, but the strings are: 'receive our
teaching', or directly 'convert'. To save one's life, it's terribly
tempting to give over one's faith when the alternative is death-and
that's beginning to happen."
Feed those Jesus loves
"There has to be another way," Calver said. "We cannot
sit back in the West and just watch this happen. If we love Jesus, we'll
feed those He loves and who love Him, and we'll enable them to feed
their people, so the love of Christ can be physically demonstrated."
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For more information on the famine in southern Africa, visit World Relief's
web site. Link: (www.worldrelief.org).
Other U.S.-based Christian charities aiding the famine relief effort
include Operation Blessing (www.ob.org)
and World Vision (www.worldvision.org)
