To download a copy of this years Week of prayer material please click here. If you would like to receive the original, please contact us, specifying how many you would like.

Speaking of the coming Messiah, Isaiah prophesied: He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.
Isaiah 2:4

This year started traumatically for Kenya. The images on our television screens of machete-wielding mobs and burnt-out homes and vehicles caused some to liken what was going on to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While ethnicity is an issue there are also matters of land and power — a potent mix that was ignited by the disputed December 2007 election results. 1,500 people lost their lives and many thousands have fled their homes to return to their ancestral lands. The repercussions will continue for many months to come.

Then there was Chad. Here an attempted coup d’état unsettled an already fragile nation, destabilised by the flow of refugees from the crisis in the neighbouring Sudanese region of Darfur. Assisted by the French, the Chadian government forces managed to repel the attack, but the rebel forces have only retreated and may regroup and try again.

In Sudan, some five years after the Darfur crisis first erupted, civilians are still being attacked. Many thousands have died and 2.5 million people have fled the region. It also adds strain to the fragile peace accord signed in January 2005 ending decades of civil war between the largely Islamic north Sudan and the animist and Christian south.

These are not the only areas facing tension at the moment.

“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Matthew 24:4-8What else might 2008 hold? Jesus’ words to his disciples serve as a warning and an encouragement. War is part of our fallen world, but when we learn of the effects of war we cannot help but yearn for the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy where tools of war are converted to tools for development (see below).

While we in the West enjoy stability we can pray that Africa’s political institutions and leaders will strive for peace. And pray also for her children and her voiceless dispossessed millions who suffer the most in times of conflict. How true is the African proverb, When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

The purpose of this week of prayer — the material for which has been deliberately kept general so that it can be used any time during 2008 — is to encourage people to pray for Africa in the context of the present conflicts and the consequences of past troubles. We must not forget, however, that the real struggle, as the Apostle Paul reminded the Ephesians, is being fought at a  spiritual level.

We hope you will find this guide a help as you pray for Africa.