Tearfund has a vision: the local church working at its best; making connections across the world between the people with resources and the people who desperately need them. Here, they talk about their work in Zimbabwe, helping get food to those in need, rather than those with the ‘right’ political allegiance.
“I left in September and have just gone back, but it was like I had been away for a year. I think people have hit rock bottom,” says Dadirai Chikwengo, Tearfund’s policy officer for Zimbabwe, appalled at the rapid pace of decline in her homeland.
Forget 90 per cent unemployment and 26,000 per cent inflation statistics, she says the signs of economic meltdown are all around. Despite the rains, clean drinking water remains in short supply and so does food. The shops have plenty of nothing but little of anything.
Access to money is limited. Dadirai tells of her brother, a teacher, who has to get up at the unearthly time of 4am to join a queue at a bank. He eventually reached the teller three days later. Not that the Zimbabwean dollar is worth much. A month’s salary for a teacher is barely enough to buy five loaves of bread.
The madness of Zimbabwe
Life for Tearfund’s partners is no easier. Funding a workshop means sending someone along to queue for money for an entire month. Many people survive on remittances sent to them from relatives abroad. Others, particularly in rural areas, get by through by bartering.
Such is the madness of Zimbabwe. Any public meeting with five or more people requires police permission. Police have routinely used the Public Order and Security Act to ban or disrupt gatherings. And Campaign group Action for Southern Africa regularly reports beatings, torture and abductions by security forces.
But the church is currently exempt from such restrictions and enjoys relative freedom, allowing it to not only provide practical support for the vulnerable but also to bring people together.
Tearfund partner, the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance (ZCA), is building a network of churches and leaders committed to prayer but who are also willing to speak out and challenge injustice. The network has chapters in 10 areas throughout Zimbabwe including Harare, Bulawayo, Victoria Falls, Plumtree and Manicaland.
It promotes prayer and helps keep people informed, bringing together members from a wide range of churches. For example, it provides speakers to talk about constitutional issues to women’s prayer groups.
Lives transformed
Lives are being transformed. Today, through our work, this is a reality – this is the miracle we’re witnessing.
“There is a lot of help by NGOs but the poorest of the poor are not spotted,” said one Tearfund partner, Cuthbert Gondwe. “You really have to go down to the ground to find the poorest who have no voice in the village. We found that churches work with everyone – and they know who are the poorest people in the village.”
So our ten-year vision is to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a worldwide network of 100,000 local churches.
The local church is central to who we are and what we do, not just in the countries that need our help, but in the UK too. The Bible asks Christians to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). So part of being Christian is standing up against the injustice of poverty – the grinding reality for so many people around the world today.
Tearfund is also about connections: we connect people in the UK with people in need around the world. We work in 70 countries with over 500 church-based organisations.
We’ve seen many amazing and unexpected things happen (what the dictionary terms ‘miracles’) because local churches have refused to accept poverty.
Last year Margaret and her grandchildren were facing starvation. Now money raised through Tearfund’s Zimbabwe appeal has helped feed her and the family.
Food aid arrives but hunger still looms large
“Desperate” doesn’t do justice to how bad things were for 74-year-old Margaret.
Rewind three months in Zimbabwe’s food crisis and you would have found the grandmother, in her own words, facing death.
Margaret lives about 50 miles south of Bulawayo and, like many others, was left with a precarious hold on life when the rains didn’t fall, crops failed and plates became empty.
She wasn’t alone facing the danger of starvation – she cares for four grandchildren left fatherless when her two sons died from AIDS-related illnesses. Their mothers, in desperation, fled to South Africa.
When Tearfund launched its appeal for Zimbabwe last year, they highlighted Margaret’s plight. Thanks to the appeal, Tearfund partners have been able to feed thousands of Zimbabweans like Margaret thanks to the generosity of people’s response.
Thank you very much to everyone who has helped us. We thank God too,” says Margaret, who is confident that, with the food, her grandchildren will remain healthy.
Tearfund partners are feeding about 35,000 people over the next six months.
Cooking oil, maize meal, beans and vitamin-enriched cereal are being supplied to keep families going. And pastors and volunteers who know the people with the greatest need for food are carrying out the distribution.
Tearfund’s Karyn Beattie spoke of this ‘insider’ approach that local church partners are able to offer: “This means that the food is not given to people based on their political affiliation but on the level of need.”
For more information about what Tearfund is doing in Zimbabwe, go to www.tearfund.org/News/Zimbabwe/.
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