Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: Life on the edge

Can you imagine getting paid in leaves? Leaves that you then have to feed to your children? That’s the shocking reality for Matunda, an Mbuti Pygmy from the Democratic Republic of Congo. After a day of toiling on someone else’s farm, all she gets in return is a handful of cassava leaves and yams.

In her village they sleep in makeshift huts, which leak when it rains. There’s just one cooking pot for the entire village. There’s no safe drinking water, no school and no money for medicine. It’s poverty on a scale that’s difficult to imagine.

The only way to get something to eat is to make the long journey to the nearest town, where they work on farms in exchange for scraps of food. Matunda and her family only eat one small meal a day. Not only that, but the harsh diet of boiled yams and cassava leaves gives her and her children terrible illnesses.

From 19 March, hundreds of people will take part in the Mean Bean Challenge and raise money for people like Matunda – five days of experiencing hunger to help those who live in this terrible reality.

Please pray for people like Matunda, and for all those taking part in this year’s Mean Bean Challenge. Pray that God’s heart will be revealed, and that we will see lives restored, potential reached and injustice brought to an end.

Andy Robertson, Tearfund

Learn more about the Mean Bean Challenge.