Giving Rise to Hope in Zimbabwe

Alliance Active Hope partners in Zimbabwe, the African Baptist Churches of Zimbabwe (ABCZ) and the Zimbabwe Theological Seminary (ZTS), give rise to hope in a risky, fragile context. In the past few years, Zimbabwe has suffered significant political and societal challenges. Economic conditions are weak, and the country is facing the worst hunger crisis in a decade. Due to extreme drought and climate change, Zimbabwe is confronted with a water crisis so severe that the average water flow over Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls) has decreased by almost 50%.

Yet the ABCZ and ZTS continue in their mission to give rise to hope in their context. 

Alliance Leader Urges Action on Mistreatment of Palestinian Children

As Alliance members may recall, at our last Annual Meeting we adopted a statement supporting federal legislation to stop the mistreatment of Palestinian children and youth by the Israeli military. Just briefly, each year the Israeli military arrests and detains from 500 to 700 Palestinian children and youth who live in the West Bank. This practice inflicts brutality and trauma on these young people in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In contrast, Israeli children and youth who live in the West Bank and commit violations are not detained by the military, but are subject to Israeli police.

Nancy Hastings Sehested, Marked for Life: A Prison Chaplain’s Story

Long one of our finest preachers, Nancy Hastings Sehested now takes her place as a supremely gifted writer among us. Sehested’s new book chronicles her 13 years as a chaplain in two men’s prisons in North Carolina, the last 10 in a maximum security facility where she distinguished herself as a sensitive, no-nonsense pastor to inmates, many convicted of particularly brutal crimes.