No longer starving, but still hungry for Jesus!

Within an hour of arriving in Zimbabwe, I am in a meeting with over 300 people who want to thank God for delivering them from famine.

The meeting takes place in one of the largest slum townships in Africa, which is rumoured to contain over 1 million people.   These people have very little: poor housing, little access to clean water or sanitation, uncertain health services, insufficient education for their children.

Many of them have seen loved ones die of AIDS or hunger or preventable disease. Many lost their homes when the government decided to destroy the township a couple of years ago. Many lost their small plots of land on which their families depended – or lost the funds to buy seed or fertiliser – or lost the will to try to help themselves.  

They have suffered a great deal.

But now their voices ring out across the township, as they give thanks to God for His goodness to them.    

We are meeting in a relatively new and attractive Baptist Church building, which is shared with the Hope for Africa Church congregation. In the congregation are around 25 ministers of various churches in the area, who have come together to praise God, to meet me, and to rejoice in what God has done in their community.

A year ago, the ministers, and their congregations, were beneficiaries of the food aid programme made possible by WorldShare supporters. The maize, beans and other supplies kept them alive.

After the service dozens of people queue up to shake my hand to say thank you. Many are still pitiably thin. But all of them want to tell me:  “We were starving and you saved us”.     WorldShare’s help has made a real difference here.

One local church leader put it very succinctly: “Even when you didn’t know us, you remembered us.”

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