Keep praying for Tim & Jim even though we may not get info everyday

The situation in Bangui is dire. Please keep Tim & Jim in your prayers as they seek to encourage the Central African workers with @WaterforGood and other friends in Bangui.

Another viewpoint of the dire challenges comes from Melissa Chemam, a consultant for the World Food Programme. Melissa is in Bangui. She reports about the tragedy of mounting malnutrition cases.  Yet, she notes faint signs of normalcy. Melissa notes how the market is seeing more fish for sale but still few buyers. You can follow Melissa on Twitter https://twitter.com/melissachemam.

Photo from Melissa Chemam

Moreover, the logistical challenges that Tim & Jim face are impossible to imagine. As Peter Boukaert from Human Rights Watch testifies in an interview with OpenCanada.org, just getting a tweet out through social media is an ordeal. Peter answered the follow question in his interview, 

What are the main challenges that you face on the ground?

Using social media to report on the crisis in CAR is quite different from using it to talk about your personal life. It takes a tremendous amount of equipment and effort to assemble the information that we put out on Twitter. We often traveled more than 12 hours a day over very rough roads in a country without infrastructure, and then had to set up camp, start up a generator, hook up a satellite dish, upload the pictures we took that day, and started sending out the information. That’s the main challenge, just getting out to these very remote areas and getting accurate information, dealing with all kind of problems along the way, from broken-down cars to hostile men with guns. It takes a lot of effort to pull that information together. But it makes a difference. I recently met with a top UN humanitarian official in Bangui, I noticed that the majority of the information she had marked on her country map had come from our tweets, being used to plan the humanitarian response for the country. It’s at moments like that that you realize you can make a difference in 140 characters.

So please keep praying for Tim & Jim even though we may not get information everyday. Pray for their safety, success in encouraging the workers, rest and focus as they assess what they can do in Bangui.