The Edge of Disaster

The threat of famine provides Christian relief agencies with a major challenge.

Africa needs help. It needs about $128 billion worth of help between now and 1990, according to the five-year plan presented at a recent United Nations special session by the Organization of African Unity (OAU). African and Western delegates agreed at the session that struggling African countries must look toward developing the agricultural sector.

India’s population density is more than ten times that of Africa’s; China’s is more than five times. But unlike in those two countries, Africa’s food production has declined (by 20 percent) over the last two decades, and this has spelled disaster.

African states have asked for $46 billion in direct aid and debt relief from the international community; they hope to provide the other $82 billion themselves. They propose targeting up to 25 percent of public investment for agriculture.

A major contributor to the continent’s agricultural problems is desertification. In recent years, Africa has lost 27,000 square miles annually to deserts. That is the equivalent of New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Jersey.

War, economic mismanagement, and political instability make it difficult to prepare for drought-triggered famines, such as the one that struck from 1983 to 1985, afflicting 150 million people and stealing nearly a million lives in Ethiopia and Sudan alone.

International generosity has helped reduce the number of people threatened by famine to about 18 million, 80 percent of whom live in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, or Sudan. Favorable weather has also helped alleviate starvation. Four of the 12 dry-ration stations set up by relief organizations in southwest Ethiopia have been closed because they are no longer necessary.

But the future may not be so bright. Said Bill Kliewer, executive vice-president of World Vision, “Unless the mood of the world’s nations changes toward Africa, we will not come anywhere near the requests made by the African nations.” Kliewer fears this could lead to “a holocaust by neglect.”

Giving trends support his concerns. The United Nations reports a deficit of nearly $500 million in food and nonfood emergency requirements for Africa in 1986. Also, many Christian relief and development agencies serving Africa are experiencing financial shortfalls, attributable, they say, to “compassion fatigue.”

In addition to those still needing relief assistance, countless others are fighting to recover from the effects of hunger, destitution, and dislocation. The weather has been good, but as Charles Morton, executive director of World Concern, observed, “You can’t eat rain.”

Averting further disaster will require long-term efforts to revitalize Africa’s agricultural sector. Christian relief and development organizations plan for large investments in agriculture in the next few years. World Vision reports that a new kit distribution program has already helped 125,000 families, mostly in Ethiopia, regain agricultural self-sufficiency. The kits include seeds, tools, fertilizers, and pesticides.

Also, World Relief has established a credit bank allowing women in the country of Burkina Faso to borrow money for grain mills. Women workers account for about 70 percent of Africa’s food production. The mills serve entire villages, freeing women to invest time in other aspects of production. Otherwise, they would have to spend hours each day pounding grain into flour.

Don Stilwell, physical ministries coordinator for SIM, believes the focus on agricultural policies could make a difference. But he said the crucial question is whether African nations will be willing and able to follow through with the new ideas. “Without policy changes,” said Stilwell, “I would see the future as bleak.”

Whether Christian relief and development agencies can rise to the African challenge depends largely on the attitude individual Christians take toward development. The continent’s problems call for long-term assistance, as opposed to dramatic, highly publicized relief efforts. As World Vision’s Kliewer said, “Development requires everything America has a hard time giving.”

By Gail C. Bennett.

WORLD SCENE

INDIA

Hidden Missionaries

More than half of the 2,200 participants in a recent meeting of Indian church workers committed themselves to starting new congregations during the next year. The All-India Christian Ministers Conference attracted pastors, evangelists, and church workers from more than 200 denominations and Christian organizations.

The conference was organized by the Evangelical Church of India and sponsored by the U.S.-based mission organization Samaritan’s Purse. “The believers who attended this conference are India’s hidden missionaries,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse. “God has raised up a mighty force of nationals to do the work of evangelizing India.” Graham noted that career missionaries from outside India are denied visas to enter the predominantly Hindu nation.

IRELAND

Voting Against Divorce

Voters in the Irish Republic have rejected by more than a three-to-two margin a proposed amendment to the nation’s constitution that would have legalized divorce in limited cases.

Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald supported the amendment, which would have allowed divorce in cases where a marriage had failed for at least five years. The Roman Catholic church, which claims 90 percent of the Irish population, opposed the measure.

“It is a God-given eternal law that marriage is indissoluble,” said Alice Glenn, a member of Ireland’s Parliament who led the opposition. “Why should a minority expect society to stand on its head for them?” The referendum upheld a constitutional provision that declares, “No law shall be enacted providing for the grant of a dissolution of marriage.” In calling for a constitutional amendment legalizing divorce, FitzGerald asked voters to “show compassion” for some 70,000 estranged couples in Ireland.

NICARAGUA

Expelling a Bishop

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government last month expelled a Roman Catholic bishop, accusing him of supporting anti-government rebels.

“Given the reiterated anti-patriotic and criminal attitude of Bishop [Pablo Antonio] Vega, it has been decided to indefinitely suspend the right to remain in the country to those who, like Bishop Vega, do not deserve to be Nicaraguans …,” announced presidential spokesman Manuel Espinoza. Vega, vice-president of the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference, earlier had charged the Sandinistas with “constant pressure for systematically silencing the church.” He also had criticized the government for refusing to allow Bismarck Carballo, an aide to Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, to return to Nicaragua.

The government said that Vega, during two visits to the United States, helped President Reagan persuade the U.S. House of Representatives to approve $100 million in aid to the anti-Sandinista rebels. Espinoza said the bishop would be banished from his country “until North American aggression ceases against Nicaragua.”

Pope John Paul II said he “strongly deplored” the Sandinista action. Vega’s expulsion “disturbed all children of the church and, even futher, it also disturbs all people sensitive to the needs of freedom and the respect owed to the fundamental rights of man …,” the Pope said.

ISRAEL

Reluctant Approval

An eight-member government committee has decided to abide by the legal opinion of Israel’s attorney general that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) has the right to build a study center on the Mount of Olives.

The committee has opposed the construction, saying the branch campus of Brigham Young University would be used as a center for Mormon missionary efforts. Thousands of Orthodox Jews also oppose the campus. However, Israel’s attorney general said construction of the multi-million-dollar facility does not violate any law.

Brigham Young University officials have issued a written guarantee to Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek that any student caught proselytizing in Israel will be expelled from the school. Members of the government committee studying the school’s construction said they might seek ways to enforce guarantees against Mormon proselytism.

SINGAPORE

Palau Attracts 337,500

Argentine-born evangelist Luis Palau preached to 337,500 people during a seven-day crusade in Singapore. Some 11,826 people made public Christian commitments during the meetings.

“The Asian and especially the Chinese mindset is ready for the message of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible …,” Palau said. “There is a tremendous interest among Chinese people in knowing the Jesus of the Bible, not Western Christianity.”

The crusade, held in a 60,000-seat sports stadium, represented the first evangelistic meetings Palau has conducted in Asia. During each of the meetings, his sermons were translated into Mandarin Chinese and 14 other Asian dialects. More than 350 churches and 13,000 volunteers cooperated in the Singapore crusade. Some 8,500 counselors and follow-up workers were trained. “Singapore never has experienced stronger Christian unity than it is [experiencing] now as a result of the Singapore Palau mission,” said Benjamin Chew, chairman of Singapore’s Evangelical Fellowship.

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