... to prisoners on Death Row in Zambia. Many are political prisoners and have come to know Christ as their personal Saviour.
Life in prison is cruel and the environment is tough; prisoners are frail and sick because they are held under circumstances which are appalling.
They are surviving in adverse conditions where they are hungry and tortured by coldness, in a dark and uncompromising place. The prison has reached an alarming level of deprivation ... prisoners are requested to buy their own food, a major problem because they can only survive by the giving of others ... they survive by the mercy of God through your support.
The prison department is in crisis, underfunded by the Government ... as one inmate on Death Row quotes ... " the conditions are comparable to a fleet of ships used to carry the battered slaves from Africa to America during the slave trade. We are dying from a variety of very painful diseases, for any death would be better than this form of lingering torture"
Another says... "The Zambian prison is like hell on earth, an alien place where chaos is the order of the day. Vitamin deficiency is one of the gravest hazards, just a little food and just a little water and in the winter it is so cold."
And yet another says "the place we live in was meant for 48 prisoners and has 48 cells, each cell measuring 2 metres by 3 metres ... now 6 prisoners live in each tiny cell."
It is a place where prisoners are deformed by malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. Here in the UK inmates do not die of malnutrition, Tuberculosis, high blood pressure or anaemia. We cannot imagine how they are surviving ... they are the opposite end of the spectrum to British inmates who are at least left with their dignity.
Many of the prisoners are political or victims of circumstance and have no means of fighting for their release without funds or outside help.
We have been sending many spiritual resources into the prison at Kabwe, as there is a tremendous hunger for the Word of God. This is radically changing the lives and characters of our brothers-in-Christ; please keep them in your prayers that their faith fail not, as they are living witnesses of transformed lives and the power of God to other prisoners on Death Row.
Excerpt from a letter from our brother, Victor, on death row:
... My Pastor, because of the love of God, I have given myself to the Lord Jesus Christ so that He uses me as He wishes. I have recently found myself rendering my service to other most unfortunate brothers who fall sick. I wash them, clean their clothes and clean those who are soiled up which some of my brothers do not do. I pray you to be praying to God for me to continue with this hard task and find no difficulties is only you pray hard for me ...
How encouraging to know that through the help which he himself is receiving, that he is led to help others in their distressing circumstances.
' Then the King shall say unto them on His right hand, come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. That I was hungry and you gave me meat and I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me, I was in prison and you came unto me. And then shall the righteous answer Him, saying Lord, when did we see you hungry and fed you, thirsty and gave you a drink, when a stranger and and take you in or naked and clothed you, or sick and in prison and came to you. And the King will answer 'As much as you have done it to the least one of these brethren you have done it to me .... to verse 46.
Matthew 25 v 34-46
