For the past few weeks, Saudi Arabia has made it almost impossible to get food to Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. Yemen became an independent state in 1990, after gaining its sovereignty from The United Kingdom. The population of Yemen is 24,771,809 (2012). Yemen shares land borders with 2 countries: Saudi Arabia and Oman.  

Yemen has been tiptoeing toward famine for the better part of three years. It's a man-made crisis born of immense political instability. (The country has been divided into pieces by warring factions backed by Saudi Arabia and Iran. Terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda control portions of land, too.) And it has been made worse by climate change, rendering a dry and arid country nearly devoid of usable land and clean water.

Eighty percent of the country's population lacks reliable access to food. (That includes around 11 million children; kids under 18 make up around half of the population.) Seven million people, one out of every four Yemenis, are entirely dependent on food assistance. The United Nations has called it the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”

Save the Children predicts that 50,000 Yemeni children under 5 will die by year end. That's a toddler dead every 10 minutes.

Yemen is on the brink of a horrible famine. Here’s how things got so bad.

For years, Saudi Arabia has played a dark role in Yemen's suffering. It backs the country's exiled government and has dropped thousands of bombs on military and civilian targets (including schools and hospitals) controlled by the Houthi rebels. (The United States has provided funding, logistical support and arms for this effort.) Nearly 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in the bombings.

In early November, things got worse. After the Houthis launched a missile into Saudi Arabia, the country retaliated with a near-total blockade of Yemen's seaports, airports and highways. This meant that aid groups could not ship in clean water, vital medication and food. Yemen imports at least 80 percent of its food, and the blockade pushed those 7 million people dependent on food assistance to the brink of famine.

Humanitarian groups condemned Saudi Arabia's action as inhumane. “I don't think there's any question the Saudi-led coalition, along with the Houthis and all of those involved, are using food as a weapon of war,” David Beasley, head of the United Nations' World Food Program, told CBS. “It's disgraceful.”

Finally, it seemed, there was a drop of good news. Last week, Saudi Arabia announced that it would partially lift its blockade, reopening airports and seaports controlled by its allies. Today, the Saudi-led coalition said it would allow aid deliveries to the rebel-held port of Hodeidah and Sanaa airport. That decision was set to kick in at noon Thursday. Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, wrote on Twitter that it was a “glimmer of hope.”

But aid groups say this new move, on its own, will do little to stem the impending crisis.

That's because aid groups alone simply can't get enough food, water and medicine into Yemen fast enough to feed and help the millions of people who need it. To stem a famine, USAID says, Yemen needs “large-scale imports of essential goods.” That means commercial shipments, not just supplies from the United Nations, which must go through rigorous inspections that slow delivery.

Yemenis need fuel, too, to power the water pumps that clean the country's water. Without it, diseases are spreading rapidly. Right now, the country is experiencing the worst cholera outbreak in history. Nearly 1 million people have been infected.

In a statement, International Rescue Committee Yemen country director Paolo Cernuschi explained that Saudi Arabia's latest effort isn't nearly enough.

“Even though tomorrow's reopening of ports to humanitarian traffic will ease the flow of aid, it will still leave the population of Yemen in a worse situation than they were two weeks ago before the blockade started,” he said. “Humanitarian aid alone cannot meet the needs of Yemenis who are unjustly bearing the brunt of this war. Access by commercial shipments of food and fuel must be resumed immediately, otherwise this action will do little to turn Yemen back from the brink of famine and crisis.”

The international community has also called on the United States to do more to end the Saudi blockade. But so far, the Trump administration has declined to publicly condemn the country's actions.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/22/saudi-arabia-just-reopened-two-key-ports-in-yemen-that-wont-prevent-a-famine/?utm_term=.1d2abae0ccee

For a video overview of Yemen and its needs visit: http://prayercast.com/yemen.html

We are focusing a special spotlight this month on the very needy Middle East country of Yemen. We would encourage our prayer partners to join with us as we intercede for the complex situation there.

Yemen, the birthplace of algebra, has a long history of trade in frankincense and myrrh and now makes most of its revenue exporting oil products. Yet it is sadly the poorest Arab nation and is currently facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Decades of war and unrest have torn this nation apart, leaving it crippled by long-standing social, political, and economic instability.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence and suffering caused by the unravelling turmoil of civil war since 2012. This has left 80% of the population in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. Yemen’s hunger crisis is one of the worst in the world. Yemeni’s have also endured the devastation of widespread diseases such as cholera. With only 45% of hospitals functional, medications in short supply, and little to no clean drinking water, diseases that should be preventable and treatable have claimed the lives of thousands. The nation’s immense water shortage has only been made worse by the widespread use of the country’s most popular narcotic, qat, which demands approximately 40% of the nation’s supply. Terrorist and militant groups like Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and the Houthis have taken advantage of the chaos and human suffering to gain territory and momentum.

• Pray for peace and for terrorist and militant groups to be disarmed.
• Pray for sufficient famine relief and medical aid to access all areas of the population in need.
• Pray for the Gospel to go forth in power despite current legal restrictions.
• Pray for freedom from the narcotic 'qat' that holds 80% of Yemeni adult’s captive.
• Pray for the desperate economic situation to ignite a longing for lasting hope and security.

For a video overview of Yemen and its needs visit: http://prayercast.com/yemen.html

In May, the IPC convened an international consultation for prayer and mission leaders to focus on how we can link the two movements more closely and thereby more effectively reach the unreached peoples of our world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Mission is a supernatural business; therefore, we need supernatural equipment to do it effectively.

The early church understood this and at the clear command of Jesus, they tarried at Jerusalem in constant, united prayer (Acts 1:14). They did this not only until the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, but all through the book of Acts and into the first centuries of the Church, so that they “turned the world upside down”.

This first tarrying experience in Jerusalem developed into a culture of prayer through which the Spirit facilitated and enabled every mission breakthrough. The glorious outpouring at Pentecost was followed rapidly by 3000 Jewish priests turning to the Lord and the Gentile mission of Peter, Paul and other apostles that took the Gospel to the limits of the then known world.

About 30 times in Acts alone, we observe breakthroughs of one kind or another happening after united prayer. The same pattern has occurred in church and mission history since then though not as often as we would have liked.

Revival and breakthroughs emerge from small groups praying and believing God together in the spirit of Matthew 18:18-20. There Jesus tells us that “whatever”, “anything” will be given when we come into agreement with Him and one another in united intercession.

The Moravians shared the same experience of the outpouring of Holy Spirit in 1727, and out of that erupted a more than 100-year prayer chain that sent out the first Protestant missionaries from their tiny village in SE Germany. Eventually they touched about 5000 locations on earth. Like the early church, they correctly perceived that mission is a supernatural endeavor and can only done effectively with dependence on God the Spirit through a culture of ongoing prayer.

Michael Lienau, an award-winning film maker was with us for the Herrnhut consultation and has now completed the superb video attached below for your use. You may play and download “The Spirit of the Moravians” from the attached link with the password ‘spirit’.

We hope you enjoy it and can share it widely with those in your prayer and/or church and mission networks so that it gets out around the world and can be used of the Lord to impact many.

Especially, we pray that the Lord will raise up churches, prayer groups and individuals who will feel called to adopt and pray for the remaining unreached peoples of our world and the fulfillment of His Great Commission among them.

Spirit of the Moravians 9-min

Spirit of the Moravians 3-min

As you see the video, please pray with us for the following:
1 That we ourselves will be instruments of mission and deliverance for one or more unreached people groups.
2 That God will use us to mobilize churches, prayer groups and individuals to adopt UPGs.
3 That all the 1347 unengaged UPGs on the current list (seewww.finishingthetask.com) will be adopted for prayer and mission efforts by 2025. Pray for adults, youth and children to hear His call and get involved in reaching a UPG.

“Ask of me and I will make the peoples your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth your possession.” (Psalm 2:8) Would you prayerfully help make sure that each of the remaining UPGs have someone- preferably a corporate body- church, prayer group or organization- that can adopt and pray for them until they are reached?

John D Robb – Chairman
IPC Connect

Click here to access the video (password 'spirit'): https://vimeo.com/244739881

Earlier this year we prayed for Felix Ngole, but the courts did not give him justice. Felix, a Christian reading for a degree in social work at Sheffield University, leading to Health and Care Professions Council certification, joined in a serious discussion on a US website about same-sex marriage.  Sheffield university was informed, summoned him, heard his defence and threw him off the course, saying ‘his writings might damage confidence in the social-work profession’. The university’s decision has now raised online comments by a  professor of commercial law, ‘that somewhere, at some time, a hypothetical service user might have seen Mr Ngole’s comments, discovered in some unspecified way that he was a social-work student, and as a result, again in some unspecified way,  lost confidence in social workers as a whole’.

Today's culture is seeing the denial of God-given sex and gender. The NHS options for children and young people with suspected gender dysphoria include family therapy, child psychotherapy, parental support/counselling, group work for young people and their parents and regular reviews to monitor gender identity development. Treatment with a multi-disciplinary team includes mental health professionals as most treatments offered are psychological, rather than medical or surgical. This is because say the NHS, ‘the majority of children with suspected gender dysphoria don't have the condition once they reach puberty’.

The embattled chancellor was subject to conflicting pressures when he presented his Budget. The media wanted him to respond to the public's desire to end austerity. Amid media doom and gloom predictions, some encouraging Budget decisions are: Scrapping a fuel duty rise for petrol and diesel cars scheduled for April 2018. A new homelessness task force. Preventing developers purchasing land for financial reasons and then not building on it. £400m to regenerate housing estates.  80% of first-time buyers will be exempt from  stamp duty. National Living Wage rise of 4.4%. VAT threshold for small business to remain at £85,000 for two years while large technology groups like Google and Apple will pay more. £40m teacher training fund for underperforming schools.  Recruitment of 8,000 new computer science teachers for new National Centre for Computing. £2.8bn for the NHS in England. Pay rise for nurses, but not the police.

Children who have been abused by Jehovah's Witnesses were told not to report it by Elders. Men and women from across the UK said they were routinely abused but the religion's rules protected perpetrators. A child abuse lawyer believes there could be thousands of victims who have not come forward because of the ‘two witness’ rule. But there is rarely a witness to the crime of rape. The organisation said it did not shield abusers. Louise Palmer, waived her right to anonymity. Louise was born into the organisation along with her brother Richard, who started raping her when she was four. She told her parents and elders in the congregation. ‘I asked, 'what should I do? Will you report it to the police, or do I tell them?’ They strongly advised me not to go to the police because it would bring reproach on Jehovah.’

On UN's’ Universal Children’s Day, (20 November) ‘Anyone’s Child – Families for Safer Drug Control’ handed in a letter to 10 Downing Street calling for legal regulation of drugs. More people are dying in the UK from illegal drugs than ever before. Families who have lost loved ones to such drugs took a powerful message to Parliament, ‘Failed UK and UN drug policy killed our children, and the government should take control of the drugs market to protect others. We are a group of ordinary families who have joined together because we share the grief and sorrow from having loved ones who have been hurt by our failing drug laws. Our group has now expanded internationally - Kenya, Afghanistan, Mexico, Canada, Belgium. We are uniting to demonstrate that the drug war causes untold misery in every corner of the world.’ 

Ireland has said it will block progress of Brexit negotiations in December, unless the UK gives a formal written guarantee there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland. Michel Barnier told the Centre for European Reform, ‘We need to preserve stability and dialogue on the island of Ireland. We need to avoid a hard border. I know that this point is politically sensitive in the UK, it is not less sensitive in Ireland.’ Ireland will be staying in the EU, The UK will be leaving, but neither side wants to tear up the Good Friday agreement and put a hard border.  We can pray for all who are involved in border issues and discussions to have God inspired solutions to every challenge facing them now and in the future. Pray for inventive, original technological solutions that will maintain peaceful co-operation between North and South and provide even more new opportunities for cross border trade. (Linda Digby, Prayer Alert)

In recent years, Sports Chaplaincy UK has been encouraging its Chaplains to host stadium carol services at Christmas. Sports stadiums have been described as secular cathedrals as many people go there at weekends. At Christmas we remember God moving into our neighbourhood. How might you, or your church, pray for and support one of these carol services to celebrate this amazing fact? Warren Evans, Chief Executive of Sports Chaplaincy UK