In Africa today, the burden of poverty has eased in the last 20 years. Mother and child health, take-up of primary education, and access to clean water and electricity have been transformed in most countries. Deaths from malaria have halved, and the AIDS epidemic is being tamed. But this follows decades of stagnation. Africa is still the poorest continent. Thirty-seven of the world’s 40 poorest countries are African – a lingering injustice.
Africa’s youth are a fifth of all the young people in the world and they may grow to be a third by 2050. These young people as disciples of Jesus could be a power for good; unemployed and angry they could be the fuel for civil wars. Africa’s Church is a light to the world. Already, one in four of the world’s Christians is an African. This could rise to four in 10 by 2050. In great prayer meetings, in faithfulness to the Bible, in starting new churches at home and overseas, Africans are changing the world.
- Pray for wise, honest leaders in every African sphere, in politics, church and business.
- Pray for Africa’s women. More than a third suffer domestic violence, and they are denied equality almost everywhere: in education, health-care, employment.
- Pray for a great turning to Christ in Africa’s many Muslim peoples.
Sources: Africa Development Bank; Pew Research Center; Status of Global Christianity 2018; Human Development Report 2018; Operation World.
Praying for the World is a free weekly prayer guide to inspire and inform the whole Church to pray for the whole world. Visit www.lausanne.org/pray to start any week. Created through
the partnership of Operation World and the Lausanne Movement.
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