New Year, New Challenges for East Africa

As 2011 begins, this part of Africa is facing some major challenges with some important elections coming up.

Firstly, on Jan 9th, Sudan has a referendum on whether the mostly Christian South should split from the mostly Muslim North and become a new country of its own. The referendum is part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of violence between the north and oil-rich south. The conflict led to the deaths of 2 million people, many from starvation. Please pray for the country as it goes through this difficult process - that the referendum would be carried out peacefully and that the will of the people would be respected. Difficult issues here, with most of the oil reserves being in the South and the North threatening to impose strict Sharia law if the South succeeds. Please also pray that any instability does not spread in the region - Uganda has already sent some troops to its northern border with Sudan and is still on high alert after the bombings here by Somali terrorists.

Then in mid Feb, we have the general election here in Uganda. So far, the campaigns have been relatively peaceful, but many people fear intimidation during the election itself. Please pray for the country, that the campaigns would remain peaceful and that the people would be allowed to vote freely and fairly for their choice of leaders. Corruption is rampant here and it looms large over all voting that takes place. There is also some fear that the army might be used during the voting and that there could be widespread rigging. Please pray again for the people's will to be respected in all the constituencies.

We thank God that Emmy is unopposed for his position (the only district counsellor in Kabale to be so), so we look forward to him taking up his post after the election.

Finally, tomorrow we have another function to open a new large water tank. Because of the elections, all MP candidates in the area are keen to attend, so we hope to encourage them to support the work of the project! Please pray for no rain!!