I grew up hearing my parents intercede for Africa. It was not that they did not pray for other lands, but there seemed to be an added dimension to their cry for Africa.
My father was born in Blantyre, Scotland, hometown of the intrepid David Livingstone. Like Livingstone, I think his heart is buried in Africa. We had almost gone to what was then the Belgian Congo before being stopped by the War of Independence in 1960.
I had listened, spellbound, to missionaries in our home as they told of riverside confrontations with crocodiles and jungle shootouts with lions. Names like Wilson, Logan, Harlow, Hess, and Deans were as familiar to me as the baseball greats were to my friends.
But more, we heard prayer offered for Yosia Butso and Ezekieli Ngwera, elders of the assembly at Nyankunde, Zaire. I had listened to hundreds of melodious voices on tape, singing the Swahili version of “Far, far away, in heathen darkness dwelling…” To those that sat in darkness the Light had shone.
Africa, the once and again Dark Continent, covers 11,678,000 square miles (2 million more than North America). Although numbers vary dramatically, according to the World Book, the estimated 1992 population exceeds 692 million. I need not tell you that the 52 countries that make up this continent are, by and large, troubled lands. What are some of the problems?
1. Spiritual: Islam continues its slow march southward. Nearly 150 million Africans are Muslims, most in North Africa, but with strong representation in such countries as Nigeria and Tanzania.
In the push to eradicate foreign influences, many have encouraged “Africanization” by calling for the overthrow of Christianity and a return to tribal religions. This is taken very seriously, including a resurgence even of cannibalism. And this in spite of the fact that Christianity does not have its roots in Europe, and that the first African convert (the Ethiopian eunuch) brought the gospel there almost two millennia ago.
2. Material: Famine is a household word in most African countries. In many states, the infrastructure is rapidly disintegrating. Zaire’s 40 million people are descending from “big man rule” to “no man rule.” Like the anarchism in Liberia, this country as large as the U.S. east of the Mississippi is living in what the New York Times calls “a new specter in Africa–a stateless country.” The Evangelical Missions Information Service notes: “Since Zaire’s independence in 1960, the wilderness has reclaimed some 85,000 miles of roads.”
3. Ethnic: There are more than 800 distinct ethnic groups overlapping the territorial boundaries that were largely drawn during colonial days. With many of those European buffers (often violently maintained) now removed, tribal animosities such as has been seen in Uganda and Yemen, and more recently in Somalia and Ruanda & Burundi, are commonplace.
4. Physical: Disease is running rampant. AIDS now causes almost half of all deaths in Uganda. It is estimated that the country now has 1.5 million orphans. Of the approximately 12 million people worldwide with HIV, 8 million are in Africa.
5. Social: Due to the aforementioned factors, one wonders if the African family can survive. Add to this the rampant crime and random violence in both city and countryside. War, famine, and unemployment have uprooted whole regions. For example, in Sierra Leone, 400,000 are internally displaced, 280,000 more have fled to Guinea, and another 100,000 to Liberia.
Any hope? Yes, but such help as will do any good now will not come from the World Bank or the UN.
Ezekieli Ngwera, one of the elders for which I prayed as a child, had heart trouble. His bathhouse was outside the main structure of his home and in his latter years his wife would help him. One day, as she served her husband, she heard outside the sound of wings flapping. Many wings. Large wings. She wondered at the sound–so much so that she opened the door of the bathhouse and stepped outside.
There were no birds. Nothing but blue sky.
Stepping back in to finish her task, she found her husband no longer needed her loving attention. He had gone to the land where every kind of heart trouble has found its Cure. Only Heaven can help Ezekieli’s Africa now. Heaven’s help will come on angels’ wings, saints’ prayers, and lives offered in sacrifice–as it always has come. God help Africa now.