A PRIEST within the diocese of Norwich is undertaking a 24-hour prayer vigil this week to elicit support for a family initiative in Zimbabwe, in August.
The Revd Benjamin Bradshaw, Rector of the St Benedict Benefice, isn’t planning to take any breaks as he prays for local churches and communities in each Norfolk and Zimbabwe. He is working with Tariro, a charity in Zimbabwe that supports poverty-stricken young people through education and into maturity.
Fr Bradshaw, who hung out on placement in Zimbabwe during his ordination training, describes these individuals as “needing someone simply to provide them a probability in life”. His family is now searching for to lift funds to pay for college fees, and for the attention care that will follow the free eye tests which his wife, Danni, an optician, can be offering.
His children, Jorja, who’s 14, and Bethany, who’s seven, can be taking materials donated by their schools, and can seek to foster links between these and Zimbabwean schools. Jorja can also be hoping to learn some Shona.
Fr Bradshaw is scheduled to begin his vigil at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, at St Swithin’s, Ashmanhaugh, and is encouraging others to participate. The Bishop of Thetford, the Rt Revd Ian Bishop, is on account of join him firstly, and the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, towards the top. He plans to make use of all types of prayer, including the cycle of morning, evening, and night prayer.
“The most important part is that we simply offer some exclusive time to God. We find the time to reflect and to think; we hold others as much as the Lord, and we ask him to bless them. One of my many prayers once I sit down for twenty-four hours at Ashmanhaugh can be that I can raise enough funds to be certain that, when a desperate parent approaches me and pleads for help to pay for his or her child to go to primary school, I can thankfully say, ‘Yes.’”
Acknowledging himself blessed to have received formal training and theological education, Fr Bradshaw will even spend time working with ministers serving the Church of Zimbabwe. The family will even visit the leprosy settlement in Mutemwa, where John Bradburne, a Norfolk vicar’s son, became warden in 1960, and from where he was kidnapped and killed throughout the war of independence (Faith, 18 June 2021, Books, 29 March 2018).
“The long-term plan is that my congregations will hopefully be keen to sponsor some young people in order that we are able to get them throughout school,” he says. “The wonderful thing a couple of small charity like Tariro, and with me going on the market, is that we actually get to know the youngsters we’re supporting. It just makes all of it way more personal.”
