By Bellah Zulu, ACNS 

The Primate of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa has called on all Christians around the world to unite in prayer for South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela, 94, is spending a seventh day at a hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, after suffering a recurrence of a lung infection.

In a statement yesterday, the Primate of Southern Africa, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba said: “Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, all friends of South Africa everywhere, I invite you to join with me in praying for God's tender merciful hand to be upon our former President.”

“May the love of God enfold dear Madiba, and all who are close to him,” he prayed. “The Bible reassures us that God is our refuge and our strength - a very present help in trouble - and it is often when we feel most weak and vulnerable that God's reassurance comes to us most powerfully.”

Archbishop Makgoba reminded Christians that “in life, and in death, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love, and that his everlasting arms will never let us slip from his safe grasp.”

“As I pray for Madiba, I also join many others, around the Anglican Communion and around the Commonwealth, in praying too for Prince Philip, as he recovers from surgery in a London hospital,” said the Archbishop.

The Archbishop thanked God for the two icons who in very different ways have each given so much of their lives in the service of their nations, and of the wider good.

“May God hear our prayers, and may his perfect will be done, in their lives and in ours.  Amen.”

This is the fourth time since December that Mandela had been admitted to hospital for a pulmonary condition that has troubled him for years. In December he underwent surgery to remove gallstones as he recovered from a lung infection.

Then later in March, he was admitted for a scheduled overnight check-up and just two months ago, he was discharged after treatment for pneumonia.

ENDS