Africa Day, commemorated on May 25, celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of Africa’s societies and cultures, marks the progress achieved toward liberation of the continent’s peoples, lifts up a vision of pan-African unity and cooperation, and invites reflection on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
On Thursday, Nov. 23, as most Americans were sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, the people of Sudan were experiencing an intensification of the long-running conflict between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary insurgency known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Members of the Congo Mission Network (CMN), through relationships with Congolese partners, have witnessed the harm caused by corruption in the mining industry and were among those outraged by the reversal of U.S. sanctions on Dan Gertler, an international businessman with ties to former senior Congolese officials. Gertler has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars through opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Church leaders, mission co-workers, global partners and supporters around the world will connect online during the 2020 Madagascar Mission Network virtual gathering Nov. 12–14. The gathering will cover highlights of mission and ministry alongside the nearly 6- million-member Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM).
The cautious optimism that characterized the popular mood in Zimbabwe at the beginning of 2018 had largely dissipated by the beginning of this year. In January 2019, a huge fuel price increase triggered widespread protests that were brutally suppressed by security forces, prompting concerns that Zimbabwe is returning to the repression that marked the Mugabe era. In the midst of this turmoil, the Church is working to foster national dialogue that emphasizes the sanctity of the 2013 Constitution and unity in diversity.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a bloc of eight nations in the horn of Africa, has invited the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) to convene a South-South dialogue to strengthen the commitment to peace-building in South Sudan.
The Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar — known by its Malagasy acronym, FJKM — has issued a statement calling for peace, prayer, repentance and dialog following violent clashes between police and protesters in the center of the capital, Antananarivo, which left at least two dead and more than a dozen wounded.
The heads of Christian Churches in Zimbabwe issued a pastoral message to the nation on Wednesday, November 15, urging calm, prayer and national dialogue. The ecumenical statement was released just hours after four armored personnel carriers rolled into Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, and military officers reportedly seized control of the state broadcaster and placed 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe under effective house arrest.
Since 2005, the Presbytery of Denver has been in partnership with the Presbytery of Zimbabwe, part of the United Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA). A cluster of the presbytery’s churches have also formed a mission partnership, “Zimbabwe KidZ,” to advance the educational opportunities for children in Zimbabwe, particularly through the 10 schools operated by the UPCSA.
At last week’s World Mission Café, a GA 222 event, mission co-workers and staff, ecumenical partners, mid-council leaders and congregational representatives gathered to share stories of the joys and struggles of day-to-day mission partnership around the world.
