Displaying items by tag: Pacific

A storm battering Australia, described as a rain bomb, began flooding the Brisbane area on 27 February and damaged 15,000 properties before moving south. New South Wales river towns were under water the next day, with Wilsons River rising 14.46 metres. A flotilla of private boats rescued residents trapped in flooded homes. Authorities were overwhelmed by the scale of the rescue operation. On 1 March military helicopters airlifted stranded people from rooftops of flooded neighbourhoods in eastern Australia and then the wild weather slowly moved south. By 3 March half a million people across NSW were under evacuation orders. Warragamba Dam west of Sydney was spilling 225 gigalitres a day, which meant that thousands of households and businesses could avoid damaging flooding from the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers north-west of Sydney. Pray for threatened communities to be safe as river levels continue rising. Pray for the 11,747 families who have requested help from military and other rescue services since the crisis began.

An undersea volcano eruption in Tonga on 15 January triggered tsunami waves flooding coastlines from Japan to America. By 20 January volcanic ash had been removed from the runway and the first humanitarian supplies arrived. The aid - water containers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies and communications equipment - was contactless to ensure Tonga remains free of coronavirus. Limited communication restoration revealed horrendous destruction. Pray for swift and safe clean-up efforts. Australia’s high commissioner said the loss of property had been catastrophic. Along beaches is a moonscape where once beautiful resorts and many, many homes stood. Pray for aid to reach the homeless and for the vulnerable to be relocated to secure places. Pray for the 105,000 people still without any communication to be reconnected and for full internet services to resume sooner than the predicted month. Pray for the missing to be found alive and for the injured to be healed.

Tennis player Novak Djokovic wears a wooden cross and is known for praying during his matches. He received a visa to visit Australia on 18 November and arrived in Melbourne on 5 January with a Covid exemption approved by Tennis Australia's chief medical officer and a Victorian government independent expert panel. Novak belongs to the Serbian Orthodox church and on 7 January (the Orthodox Christmas Day) he was held in detention for an invalid visa while lawyers fought for his freedom. Three days later a judge ruled he could remain in Australia. Djokovic wants to play in the Australian Open, which begins on 17 January: if he won he would become the most successful men's player in history. However, Australia's immigration minister insists his recent Covid infection does not exempt him from vaccine requirements and could still deport him. He admitted that there were mistakes on his immigration forms and that he had met a journalist after testing positive for Covid.

The tallest mountain on Java erupted on 4 December, shooting columns of ash into the sky, blanketing surrounding villages. Pray for the rescue workers who are still digging through thick layers of hot ash and debris even as the volcano continues to erupt ash. Dozens of bodies have been found so far and thousands of people have been evacuated across 19 makeshift centres. Pray for the families who lived in the 3,000 damaged houses. Pray for the farmers who have lost livestock and livelihoods in areas buried in ash. Pray for the hundreds of homeless villagers who lived near a dam that burst due to cold lava and heavy rain, leaving everything submerged under sludge and ashy dust. Pray for those with burns and injuries from the initial eruption. Pray for vulnerable groups coping with highly polluted air, and pray for public kitchens and health facilities serving the displaced people.

On 25 November prime minister Scott Morrison introduced a controversial Religious Discrimination Bill, which will allow faith-based organisations to prioritise hiring and enrolment of people from their faith. The bill, tabled just months before next year’s election, is seen as an attempt to woo votes from religious citizens, as Mr Morrison is a Pentecostal Christian. When introducing the bill to parliament, he said it would protect those who expressed their religious faith outside the workplace as long as it did not cause financial damage to their employer. ‘People should not be persecuted or vilified because their beliefs are different from someone else’s. Australians shouldn’t have to worry about offending an anonymous person on Twitter.’ The bill will be put to vote in the lower house next week, but is unlikely to pass into law before the elections.

Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare declared a lockdown on 24 November after a thousand anti-government protesters gathered in the capital demanding his resignation. Sogavare has been in power for twenty years, and foreigners have plundered the country’s resources. The people are not blind to this, and will not be cheated any more. A Honiara journalist said the cause of the chaos was a ‘mixture of a lot of frustration.’ The protesters breached the parliament building and set fire to buildings, including a police station. Sogavare requested Australia’s assistance under a bilateral security treaty; Australia will send a detachment of 23 federal police officers and up to 50 more to provide security at critical infrastructure sites, plus 43 defense force personnel, a patrol boat, and at least five diplomats. The deployment is expected to last for a few weeks.

Ethnic diversity across six islands creates a divided society across tribes with different languages, cultures and political groups that inhibit Christian work. Denominations divide along tribal lines. Nominalism is a problem even though the islands are ‘Christian’. The Church has stagnated; a proper enculturation of the gospel would go a long way in overcoming this. Two different Islamic groups are making inroads on the Baha'i, Jehovah's Witnesses and Unification Church. Counterfeit Christian movements and quasi-Christian cults have also grown, and the old animistic worldview persists in some areas. Many Christians, even committed believers, drift from one group to the next, since most groups compete for members. A new awakening is needed. Pray for the Spirit to reinvigorate the many churches which possess such a strong spiritual heritage. Ministry to young people is vital, due to rapid population growth and the many young nominal Christians who need discipleship.

Australia is the most carbon-polluting nation in the world per capita, yet prime minister Scott Morrison may not attend the November landmark climate conference. He said he had not made any final decisions on attending, saying, ‘I have to focus on things here and with Covid. Australia will be opening up borders around that time. There will be a lot of issues to manage and I have to deal with those competing demands.’ Australia is expected to present its updated 2030 emissions cuts at the conference. It is one of the world's top exporters of coal and gas. Mr Morrison said he wants Australia to achieve net zero emissions ‘as soon as possible’, but he has not outlined any measures to do so and has not committed to net zero by 2050. A UN report ranked Australia last out of 170 member nations for its response to climate change.

One of Australia’s biggest earthquakes on record (magnitude 6.0) struck near Melbourne, damaging buildings. It was felt 500 miles away in Adelaide and Sydney 600 miles to the north. Over half of Australia's 25 million population lives in the southeast in an area from Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney. Quakes are relatively unusual in this area. The shaking and damage did not stop hundreds of angry demonstrators from holding a protest across Melbourne against a vaccine mandate for construction workers (there are more Covid cases in the construction sector than there are Covid patients in the whole hospital system). Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrations before making arrests. Earlier in the day the protesters had marched through the city centre, chanting their opposition to the mandate. See

The USA and Britain announced they would help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines (not nuclear-armed), taking a major step in challenging China’s broad territorial claims of its exclusive zone in the South China Sea. The announcement is a major step for Australia, which until recent years has been hesitant to push back directly at core Chinese interests. The decision to share technology for naval reactors, even with a close ally, is a major move for President Biden and bound to raise protests by the Chinese and questions from American allies.