Yemen: another crisis or an opportunity?

Yemen appears to be on the brink of a new phase of unrest and strife. Camping around Sana’a, the capital, are groups of Houthi supporters who have been arriving at encampments for the past several days. Their leader, Abdelmalik Al-Houthi, is demanding recent fuel price increases be reversed and the government be dissolved. He has threatened to increase the campaign against the government. While those entering the centre of the city in demonstrations have been unarmed so far, reports suggest that there are large stores of arms at their camps, ready for conflict.

So why pray? Yet another Middle Eastern country under pressure; yet another government failing.

Yemen is among one of the poorest countries in the world, women suffer high levels of mortality in child-birth, girls are married young leading to a range of complications, the government fails to deliver justice, the church is small and emerging, fragile. Deuteronomy 10 says God shows no partiality, does not accept bribes, defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, loves and provides for the alien. In any situation of conflict the weak, poor and marginalised are the most vulnerable. This is why we pray for Yemen.

Of what influence can such a small and fragile church be? They are part of a body that is much bigger, belonging to the God of heaven and earth. Pray for the witness of the Church and for God’s intervention that shows to all of Yemen that he and he alone is God.