Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 627 | Wed 08 Dec 2021
RLPB is published weekly to facilitate strategic intercessory prayer.
The Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) is sponsored by Christian Faith and Freedom Inc.
The last RLPB for 2021 will be published on Wednesday 22 December, comprising a short reflection and a prayer. In the lead up to the Christmas break, this and next week's RLPB will include other issues requiring prayer over the holiday season.
This week's RLPB on Ethiopia includes items on China, India, Nigeria, and Ukraine.
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ETHIOPIA: BATTLE TURNED BACK; TERROR UNLEASHED
- forced into retreat, the TPLF retaliates by massacring civilians.
by Elizabeth Kendal
Prime Minister Abiy has certainly made some errors of judgement during this war with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The first was to buckle under US pressure in June 2021 and declare a unilateral ceasefire in, and withdrawal from, Tigray. After this, the TPLF re-occupied Mekelle, rejected the ceasefire, and went on the offensive. PM Abiy's second error was that he 'succumbed to the advice of his ethnic Oromo political power base to refuse military assistance to the Amhara and Afar regions' (Copley, 24 Nov). However, on 23 November, PM Abiy (a former soldier, having served as a colonel in intelligence and communications) left his office and joined his troops - the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) - on the battlefield ahead of a 'massive offensive across all the war fronts'. But would it be too late? On 24 November, as rebels advanced on Addis Ababa, RLPB issued an urgent prayer request, 'that Baal-perazim - the Lord of the breakthrough (2 Samuel 5:17-20) - might intervene to "turn back the battle at the gate" (from Isaiah 28:5-6)'.
By the end of November, reports were leaking out that there indeed had been a breakthrough: the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) was paralysed, having lost numerous high-level commanders, while the Tigray Defence Force (TDF/TPLF) was in retreat, having suffered massive losses on the battlefield. By 28 November ENDF and Afar Special Forces had liberated Chifra, in Afar Region, a regional border town on a main road to the Port of Djibouti. On 1 December the government announced that ENDF and Amhara forces had recaptured Shewa Robit, 220km north-east of Addis Ababa on the A2 highway. On 2 December ENDF and Amhara forces liberated the historic and culturally significant town of Lalibela. On 2 December, 150 WFP trucks arrived in Mekelle with enough supplies to feed 3.7 million people for several months. On 6 December the government announced that ENDF and Amhara forces had recaptured the strategic towns of Dessie and Kombolcha (captured by TPLF a month earlier [RLPB 622 (3 Nov)].
PM Abiy has appealed for the TPLF to surrender. Meanwhile, the TPLF is denying it is retreating, claiming rather it is merely making 'territorial adjustments … according to our plan'. However, just as it did in Mycadre in November 2020 [RLPB 576 (18 Nov 2020)], the TPLF is responding to military defeats by unleashing terror: destroying and looting infrastructure and massacring civilians. In mid-November Djibouti announced that it will not allow the US to launch an attack on Ethiopia from its territory. However, the Sudanese military is engaged in clashes on Ethiopia's north-western border, presenting Ethiopia's enemies with an opportunity to open a second front in the north-west. Please pray it will not be so! PM Abiy has declared that the war will continue until the TPLF no longer poses 'a threat to the peace and security of the country'. Please pray that for the sake of Ethiopia and her precious Church, the Lord will bring peace and bring it soon.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL:
* intervene in Ethiopia, and for Ethiopians; that the nation might be blessed to be a blessing to others. May God protect our brother Prime Minister Abiy and grant him wisdom and strength as he seeks to lead the people into a new era of unity, peace and prosperity.
* thwart all evil plots designed to divide the peoples and fragment the state to the detriment of everyone in Ethiopia and throughout the wider region; may God's good plans for Ethiopia prevail.
* redeem this crisis to draw Ethiopians to their knees in prayer, for there they will find the one in whom all hope and healing resides: the Lord Jesus Christ.
For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made us both one [i.e. both Jew and Gentile; this tribe and the other] and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man [the Church] in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Ephesians 2:14-16 ESV)
SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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ETHIOPIA: BATTLE TURNED BACK; TERROR UNLEASHED
On 23 November, with rebels a mere 120km from the capital Addis Ababa, Prime Minister Abiy left his office and joined the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) on the battlefield. Aware that the collapse of Ethiopia would trigger a Christian crisis of monumental proportions, urgent prayer was requested. By 28 November, ENDF and Afar Special Forces had liberated Chifra in Afar Region. The ENDF and Amhara forces then proceeded to recapture town after town along the A2 Highway, starting with Shewa Robit. The historic and culturally significant town of Lalibela has been liberated, as have the strategic towns of Dessie and Kombolcha. God has indeed turned back the battle! However, the TPLF is responding to military defeats by unleashing terror: destroying and looting infrastructure and massacring civilians. Please pray for Ethiopia.
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OTHER MATTERS FOR PRAYER:
* CHINA: PASTOR AN YANKUI ARRESTED YET AGAIN.
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| Pastor An Yankui with family. |
* INDIA: KARNATAKA ANTI-CONVERSION BILL LOOMS
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| Christians protest in Bangalore, 4 December 2021. more images |
* NIGERIA: CHRISTIAN CRISIS IN KADUNA (updates)
On 5 July 'bandits' abducted 121 children from Bethel Baptist High School. In RLPB 625 (24 Nov) prayer was requested for the four students still in captivity. On 26 November Nigerian media announced that one of those last four students had been released. The released student - who happens to be the head boy at the school - was let go on health grounds upon payment of ransom. A born leader, this boy kept his senior position secret from the captors and vowed to remain with the students until the end. Despite his intention to be the last student released, the boy's health deteriorated such that he had to be let go. The Reverend John Hayab said the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) will honour the student for the leadership he displayed in the face of danger. Please pray for the remaining three captives. Meanwhile, the 'bandits' holding the remaining 61 members of Emmanuel Baptist Church (abducted on 31 October) have demanded 99 million Nigerian Naira as ransom for their release. Please pray.
* NIGERIA: CHURCHES THREATENED IN ZAMFARA
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| Zamfara State, north-west Nigeria. |
* UKRAINE: ZELEKSKY POKES THE BEAR
- triggering crisis, presenting opportunity, and further aggravating religious and ethnic tensions
As tensions soar yet again on the Ukraine-Russia border it is worth noting that this potential crisis did not start in late March / early April 2021 when Russia deployed tens of thousands of additional troops to the border, allegedly for military exercises. Rather, it began a week earlier when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenksy issued a presidential decree establishing that retaking Crimea from Russia is now Kiev's official policy. Dated 24 March 2021, the 'Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 117/2021' outlines the Ukrainian government's 'strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol'.
Faced with what was essentially a declaration of war, Russia responded with a show of military strength designed to deter Ukrainian adventurism. Zelenksy responded by donning military fatigues for photos in the trenches, a performance he repeated in early December. This is nothing but theatre from a president facing domestic pressure. Zelensky (an anti-establishment candidate, and former TV comedic actor) was and is performing for the votes of disgruntled Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who have accused him of being 'soft on Russia'.
If theatre was all it was, then we could expect it to blow over. However, while for Zelensky this is theatre, there are others for whom this is opportunity - a crisis not to be wasted! Since April, weapons have flooded into Ukraine making arms suppliers (especially Turkey and the US) a lot of money. Although Russia is unlikely to invade Ukraine - for it would have nothing to gain and a lot to lose - the West is exploiting the 'crisis' as an opportunity to menace and sanction Russia.
Please pray for discernment, courage, peace and healing, because East vs West geo-political tensions are already having a profound and detrimental impact on religious liberty and Christian security in the region.
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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Research at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom Inc (CFF) and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).
