President Hichilema Leads Christians At Prayer Day

President Hakainde Hichilema today joined multitudes of people who gathered in the Lusaka Showgrounds main arena for this year’s prayer day.

This year’s National Day of Prayer, Fasting, Repentance and Reconciliation is the tenth one, since the first commemoration in October 2015.

The President, who was accompanied by First Lady Mutinta Hichilema, said Zambians continue to pray for divine guidance and wisdom in all national affairs. “We happy to be here as a family of Christians. We humbly stand before God in gratitude and worship,” President Hichilema said.

He then asked the gathering to stand up and observe a minute of silence in memory of former president Edgar Lungu who died in June this year, and is yet to be buried. “Let us pray for the family for the loss of our sixth president. We pray for his soul to rest in peace. We also pray for closure on the burial of our sixth president, Lungu,” President Hichilema said.

On thanksgiving and reflection, President Hichilema thanked God for His abundant blessings upon Zambia. “We repent of our sins and seek reconciliation with one another, as members of one Zambia family. We pray for divine guidance and wisdom in all the national affairs that we are engaged in. “This tenth anniversary is the time to reflect on our journey and progress, as a nation, under our God,” he said.

On the prayer day’s theme – “One nation under God, consolidating and harvesting national development and spiritual resilience,” the President said it calls for genuine unity, faith and collective action among Zambians. “This theme emphasises the role of faith and unity in national development and spiritual strength. We all know that we have to be strong in spirit in order to deliver effectively in the physical. “We are called to promote peace and unity in line with our motto of One Zambia, One Nation,” he said.

He added that God, in His wisdom, put Zambians “together in this lovely country called Zambia, which He endowed with a lot of resources.”

“But we have not been exploiting these resources in an organised way in order to deliver opportunities to better the lives of our people. Going forward, we intend to do that in a systematic manner,” he said.

President Hichilema further touched on gratitude for national progress and thanked God for the role of the church in promoting unity, democracy and development in Zambia. He reiterated that the church and Government are not competitors but true partners in national transformation. “After all, every member of the government comes from a particular church. “We praise God for giving us a country that is proving to be resilient even in hostile times such as the worst drought in living memory which we experienced in the 2023/2024 season. God helped us through that period,” said President Hichilema.

Various people from the clergy offered prayers on various themes.