Each year the season of Advent begins with readings centred around the theme of ‘hope’. But we need to be careful here that our understanding of hope is not too sanitised and saccharine. In our commercialised, social-media context, we might expect to hear people talking about ‘hope’ in relation to their secret Santa Christmas party, or the weather forecast for a planned beach activity. But for many of our Act for Peace partners, hope is not simply about wishful thinking or sentimentality. Hope is a powerful thing. A dangerous thing. It is the imperative for change and a catalyst for the coming Kingdom of God. Our gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent tells us that hope is also a warning. The hope for some will come at a cost to others. And for those of us who find our hope in Christ, the gospels remind us that this came at a terrible cost. This is the way of the Kingdom. This is the way of grace. I wonder what our hope for the Kingdom of God will cost us this year? I wonder what we are willing to give up, in order that others might share in the abundance and wealth we too often take for granted?

Be ready, Jesus alerts us in the Gospel text… readiness is not merely waiting, it is doing!

Harvesting hope in Zimbabwe

   Hope is scarce for mothers in Zimbabwe, who can’t feed the children they love after losing their crops to merciless drought. But your support of the Christmas Bowl helps women like Nyevero to farm through the leanest seasons, so they can provide their families with food, schooling – and hope for the future.

   When Nyevero’s crops died from lack of rainfall, she often worried where her next meal would come from. Most days, Nyevero, her husband, teenage son and two young daughters had just one thin bowl of porridge to survive on. Nyevero tried to scrape together a living working in other people’s homes, but it was never enough. She felt desperate as she watched her children get sicker and weaker: “At times I gave the little food I had to the children and would sleep on an empty stomach. I knew my children were not in good health and I feared for their lives.”

   Nyevero stopped sending her children to school. They were simply too hungry and she had no money for their school fees. It was devastating for Nyevero, whose biggest wish was to give her children a good education.

   But through the Christmas Bowl, you brought hope to Nyevero and her family at their most desolate time. Nyevero was given the chance to join a conservation farming program that Act for Peace’s local partners, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and Christian Care, brought to her community.

   Through the program, Nyevero learned innovative ways to farm during the dry season. She was trained in fish farming and supported to start a community savings and lending group with other women. With this help, Nyevero was able to raise healthy crops, gain new sources of income, and transform her family’s life.

   Today she can feed her children a variety of healthy foods and send them to school, where they are thriving. “I feel very happy because my family is always happy when we have food in the home. I used to pray that my way of life may improve, and ask from God the power to work for my family. God has actually answered me.”

   Will you please join with the Christmas Bowl to answer the prayers of more mothers like Nyevero? With your help, they can lift their families out of crushing hunger and poverty, and build new lives filled with strength and hope. 

Consider your donation.