West Africa Emergency Appeal A Prayer Walk around the West Africa Food Crisis

1. West Africa Emergency Appeal A Prayer Walk around the West Africa Food Crisis Clinic staff thought that 20 month old Rufaida,pictured, was only six months old, Niger. Richard Hanson/Tearfund Please join us in prayer and mobilise others to pray for the millions of people in West Africa facing hunger and for Tearfund partners dealing with the food crisis. To help you pray we have created this virtual prayer walk around four of the countries affected by the current food crisis; Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad and created a photo gallery and a detailed prayer walk guide at www.tearund.org/pray.

2. Opening prayer: Lord, you made us to know what hunger is, but also to know the goodness of your provision. We pray for those who share this earth with us, but for whom hunger is a crippling, life-threatening danger. Please help us as we pray for those who have nothing. Teach us how to pray for those who have too little to eat. Guide us as we walk alongside those affected by this current food crisis. Would you help them and allow us to be part of the solution? Amen.

3. Overview of the West Africa Food Crisis. Hunger has the people of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger firmly in its grip. These agriculturally dependent countries have seen erratic rainfall blight their crops and livestock. These drought-affected countries are among the worlds poorest and this is the third time in seven years they have faced this scenario. • Please pray this cycle of misery will be broken. • Ask God to be present with communities and across Africa facing a desperate struggle for food today. • Pray for a generous response to the Tearfund appeal for funds as we respond to this food crisis.

4. For the West Africa food crisis: • Pray that rain comes at the right time and in the right amounts for crops and livestock across the world this year so that good harvests will be produced to bring down food prices and to prevent millions more people being pushed into poverty. • Please pray for governments to take stronger action to prevent climate change, and help poor communities adapt to changing weather patterns. • Please pray for wisdom for leaders and experts around the world working to tackle hunger, pray for them to make great progress in identifying ways to combat food insecurity, especially around World Food Day on 16th October 2012. • Praise God for the work of all the Tearfund partners in West Africa and pray for wisdom and strength as they continue to work and build the resilience of communities affected by drought.

5. Burkina Faso – first country on our prayer walk. Reflect: Deteriorating food conditions in parts of Burkina Faso are leaving people eating just one small meal a day. Some villages are even being abandoned as hunger forces residents to leave in search of food. • Pray using the images from the online photo gallery: • Read and pray over Isaiah 58:6 – 12 for Burkina Faso. • Pray for God to bring comfort, hope and provision for the many families experiencing hardship. • Pray for women looking after their children and other extended family members as they wait for provision and news from husbands working in different cities. • Give thanks for the work of Tearfund’s partners as they set up measures to help communities overcome hunger

6. Creative prayer idea: From your cupboards take out flour, sugar, salt and oil, and put these out in front of you. As you pass these round pray for those who are at this moment receiving emergency food parcels in Burkina Faso because they are unable to find enough or buy food to feed themselves or their families. Please pray for multiplication of these items so that there will be more than enough to satisfy those who are receiving food parcels today. ACT: Today, choose a day later in the week when you can fast from a meal and let your body join you as you pray for the work of Tearfunds partners in countries suffering food shortages like the West Africa Food Crisis, you could consider giving what you save on your food bill to the West Africa food crisis appeal at www.tearfund.org/westafricanews

7. Mali - the second country on our prayer walk. Reflect: In Mali, the food crisis has been made far worse by conflict in the northern part of the country. The Tuareg rebellion this spring, following years of latent conflict and resentment of a southern government. In the north of the country there are serious food and water shortages and electricity supplies are cut off. Transport links are also no longer working and, with emergency food stuck in various warehouses, there is deep concern over the rising conflict and its future effect on this fragile, long-suffering country. Read and pray Psalm 46 over the churches and for Tearfunds partners in Mali as you cry out for peace for Mali.

8. Pray using the images from the online photo gallery: • Please pray for our partners in Mali to be strengthened and encouraged at this troubling time. Pray for good leadership and decision-making and for provision as partners strive to respond to the food shortages and the conflict. Pray for them to use their positioning to speak out boldly for peace, justice and compassion. • Pray for those who have fled the fighting pray God will be a comfort to them as they face the uncertainty and hardships ahead. Please pray for a humanitarian corridor to be opened quickly from the south to the north so that help can be provided. • Lord, the scale of global poverty is beyond our understanding. Give bread to those who are hungry and a hunger for justice for those of us who have bread. Grant us the faith and persistence to sow seeds of righteousness that might take years or even generations to bear fruit. Amen.

9. Creative Prayer Idea: Imagine what it must be like to leave your home; a place of safety, because of the lack of work, food, safety. Where would you go? Who can you call for help from family/ friends/ or the local council? Write these down on a piece of paper and give thanks God for all the comforts and people He has provided you to turn to for help and comfort. Act: Plan a date to have a prayer walk around your local neighbourhood. Ask God to give you the eyes and ears to see and hear what He wants to say to you. As you walk, imagine that your brothers and sisters many miles away are simply having to uproot and go, often in fear of their lives due to insecurity. As you walk pray with them in mind. Is God challenging you to join in with the Mali church in this way?

10. Niger - the third country on our prayer walk. Reflect: Azourfa, 42, from Kamrey village, Niger, already lost one child to hunger ten years ago. She has had to collect goat droppings to sell as fertiliser. It takes her four days to collect enough to sell –which doesn’t even earn her enough to pay for one meal for her family. But even that source of income, like the surrounding landscape, has now dried up as her buyer can no longer afford to pay her. Her baby Rufaida is so small it is almost impossible to believe she is almost two. Read and pray Colossians 1:9-12 for the churches in Niger. “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”

11. Please pray using the images from the online photo gallery: • Ask for God’s renewed blessing on Tearfund’s long-term work through partners to help communities become more resilient to disasters. • Join with Binta from Niger in prayer: ‘My prayer is that God will provide so many things for us – the rain and the harvest – so I can take care of my children.’ • High prices for everyday foods – increases of 40 per cent are a regrettable fact of life which has pushed people to the limits of endurance. Pray for prices to stabilise and ask the Lord to send rain at the right times and in the right quantities so the next harvest will be successful and bring prices down. • Give thanks for communities that have been helped to start market gardens, set up grain banks, install latrines and reforest land to halt soil erosion. • Creative Prayer idea: • Print this prayer out and stick it to a prominent place in your home or church. • “Dear Lord, help the food-deprived countries in West Africa break the cycle of drought and hunger. Open my eyes to what I can do to help, give me your heart to pursue justice on behalf of those who are hit hardest. Amen.” • Act: • Talk to your Church leader to ask for a Sunday service • slot to talk and pray about the food crisis in West Africa.

12. Chad – the last country on our prayer walk. Reflect: Chad suffered a food crisis in 2005 and again in 2010 when it experienced a below-average cereal harvest, but also a recent second consecutive year of poor rains in pastoral areas is putting pressure on already meagre food stocks. Read Matthew 14:13-21 as you pray for Chad and look at the online photo gallery. • Please pray for God’s protection of families across the Sahel region who are being forced into ever more extreme survival strategies. Pray for Tearfund partners: for God’s strength as they equip communities to prepare for the worst and lessen vulnerability to future droughts. • When food and other resources such as water are scarce, neighbouring communities can get desperate and turn against each other. Pray for Tearfund partners working with communities to develop long-term solutions to hunger, so that resource wars can become a thing of the past. • Please pray for Chad: that God will bring peace and stability to this increasingly troubled country.

13. Pray: Dear God, I pray for everyone who is hungry today - whether they live thousands of miles away or in my local community. Please show me and my church new ways to join with you in your mission to end injustices such as hunger. In Jesus' name, Amen. • Creative Prayer Idea: • Remind yourself of some of the other amazing miracles that Jesus did by flicking through one of the gospel accounts in the New Testament. Now use what you have read to inspire you to pray with courage and faith as you spend time in prayer interceding for Chad and the other countries affected by the West Africa Food Crisis. • Act: • Whatever your skills and talents you can support local churches worldwide as they bring God-given transformation where it is needed most. Join us and you’ll be connecting with thousands of Tearfund supporters across the country who have chosen to Make Time... to be part of a miracle. Visit www.tearfund.org/maketime to find out more.

14. Thank you for joining us in prayer. For further updates on the West Africa Food Crisis please visit www.tearfund.org/westafricanewsKeep on praying as part of One Voice Global Prayer Movement at www.tearfund.org/pray