EVANGELICAL FELLOWSHIP OF BOTSWANA
STATEMENT OF THE YEAR
The Evangelical Fellowship of Botswana (EFB) would like to take this time to wish all Batswana and the nation at large, a happy and prosperous new year.
The Lord has shown mercy to this nation from its inception as a Republic and has continued to this far.
We pray that He continue to sustain us even as we continue to depend on Him for guidance through prayers in our various congregations, business meetings and private lives.
May God keep us united as a people regardless of our political divide, tribe, or race.
May He give our country more rains, more minerals, the wisdom to diversify the economy and the "power to prosper".
EFB wishes to take this time to urge its members to intensify prayer and evangelism efforts seeing that the enemy is doing all to cause harm and keep people in spiritual bondages.
In recent years, we have seen an escalation of Satanism in our public schools, drug and substance abuse among the youth, juvenile delinquencies, breaking down of families, increasing HIV infections, passion killings, mischievous and rascal behaviors.
A case in point is the recent events in Thamaga culminating in an innocent elderly parent being killed.
We have evidenced an increase in corrupted sexual morals, infiltration of anti-societal norms, road carnages etc.
All these behaviors, call for intensified prayer and evangelism effort and we thus call all EFB churches and those subscribing to the evangelical doctrine of regeneration to intensify evangelism effort.
We remind our beloved citizens that we are now less than a year towards the end of 2016, our 50th Independence annivesary where we have set a clear vision of what nation we wish to be.
We therefore urge every Motswana to redouble his or her effort to realize the vision.
We pray that God continues to assist us all to realise this noble vision.
At the EFB we will actively and passionately continue our role as a prophetic voice and a moral compass to the nation.
We do this without fear or favour and know that the nation continues to heed our voice of caution and reason.
We therefore wish to reiterate some of our concerns as follows
EFB's continues to caution the nation particularly those in leadership to uphold the righteous standards set by our forefathers.
The standards they set includes but not limited to criminalising homosexuality, prostitution and abortion.
Those calling for the legalisation of these should be warned that
prostitution dehumanizes.
It takes away dignity and replaces it with shame.
That is why even those calling for its legalization cannot dare their daughters to go into it let alone themselves.
It sentences a woman to the life of shame in the present, and secures her for eternal hell fire after final judgment.
We believe in the inherent value of a woman.
She is a living being not a commodity for commerce, a nation builder, a life carrier and life's shelter, a protector, a nurturer, a home maker, a wife, a mother and a sister, above all she has the imago dei-the image of God.
Her price is the blood of the Son of God.
We call those calling for legalization for prostitution to desist and to respect the value and dignity of women.
We call for the protection of human life, born and unborn.
Human life takes precedence to personal privacy.
We do not have the right to privately kill another human being.
In a pregnancy situation, we have two lives-the life of the woman and the life of the unborn child for both are human with potentialities.
Under normal circumstances, a woman would have right to do as she wants with her body, but when she carries another life, we have two lives both of which have right to live.
None of these two lives have the right to take the life of the other.
Only when one is under threat can there be tampering to save the other.
Homosexuality is foreign to our nation and above all is regarded as an abomination in the Bible.
We are encouraged by the government's appeal of the LEGABIBO registration case.
Homosexuality criminalized in our penal code must remain as such and we should not encourage the practice.
The EFB is disheartened by voices of intolerance in the national space.
In a democracy such as ours everyone has the right to express his or her views.
It is also enshrined in our culture and norm as Batswana as expressed in the Tswana idiom; "mafoko a kgotla a mantle otlhe, mmualebe o a bo a bua la gagwe gore mona lentle a le tswe".
In the national space, there are topical issues that are debated varying from economy, arts, traditional renaissances and EFB encourages such healthy debates which are important for our development.
We have however noted that at times when we at the EFB within its space as a faith based institution speak on issues of morality that we have been faulted as being intolerant.
We have found those accusing the EFB of intolerance to be having "three fingers" pointing back at them.
They are intolerant of EFB's view and do not have room for opinions different from theirs.
The EFB does not habour hatred for homosexuals nor those who hold a different view.
On other issues
In October 2014 The EFB together with the Botswana Council of Churches (BCC) and the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC) set up an Observer Mission and fully participated in observing the General Elections.
In preparing for the General Elections the EFB had encouraged registration for Elections and eventually motivated for its members and Batswana at large to go and vote.
We thank God that the elections went conducted peacefully.
We believe those elected are both within the perfect will and the permissive will of God.
We urge all the legislators to ensure that the will of God is sacrosanct in their mandate and ensure that morality guides legislation.
As EFB, we pledge our prayers for our legislators.
Whilst the legislators are totally free to express their views and vote according to their good consciences, we hold them accountable to remember what they promised the electorate, what the electorate holds in high regard and what the electorate abhors.
We will continue to bring these issues up so our legislators do not become a law unto themselves.
The EFB encourages all in leadership as well as all citizens and residents to do all it takes to ensure Zero tolerance for corruption.
We encourage His Excellency our President to continually take all actions required to set the right tone from the top.
We wish our His Excellency our President, Cabinet, our political and traditional leadership sound health and the wisdom of King Solomon. "
I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul" 3 John verse 2.
MAY GOD BLESS OUR NATION-BOTSWANA