KENYAN DROUGHT / FAMINE

In October we were in Kenya and visited Edward and Fridah Buria. Just before Christmas they sent us and other friends a report of what had happened in the area of famine relief:

The last one year or so has been a year in which we were so overstretched by a prolonged and a wide spread drought that brought about serious famine that affected well over 4 million Kenyans, our own people were not spared. All this forced us to step out in faith and stand with our people fully - this forced me to put together an initiative coded Together Against Famine (TAF)

Together against famine has therefore been an amazing vehicle that has helped us sustain well over 11,000 souls amongst the worst hit areas and where we have churches for the last 11 months or so. We have supplied close to 2 million kgs of cereals, and almost 100 tons of children food supplies throughout the year, that atleast provided a meal each day to the targeted families for a whole year. Our greatest joy has been getting to know that not one in the areas of our concentration died as a result of famine. Where death occurred, it was due to other causes.

As we celebrated the arrival of the much awaited rains after much prayer before rains, we distributed tens of thousands kgs of planting seeds to our people. Little did we know that it was a matter of time for the same rains to become another major national crisis. As I write this letter, hundreds of thousands of people have been misplaced by floods that have affected over 3/4 of the country killing so many lives, causing major destruction to our infrastructure hampering rescue emergency operations.

Looking back to the said period, I also noticed that God's kingdom advanced to amazing proportions in so many ways. Just to mention but a few:-

(1) Reports received from the various relief centres show that close to 2,000 have responded to the gospel and added to the local churches
(2) Over 20,000 have been touched by His love and compassion, opening their minds to the existence of God who loves and cares
(3) An amazing fund was created attracting millions and millions of shillings from God's family worldwide. Still the most exciting part has been seeing corporate companies and the government recognizing our God-given mandate and entrusting us with huge resources for distribution to the affected.
(4) The general high recognition of the church by the authorities

All these considerations and happenings have greatly encouraged us despite the magnititude of our challenges. It is amazing to see how God has used our challenges and difficulties to advance His kingdom. I am also so encouraged and impressed by the effectiveness of all our teams that are involved in the responses. To all these, a very special thank you! Without you, thousands of people would not have been sustained so far.

At the moment the following measures are under way that are aimed at bringing hope and a more lasting solutions - We already have purchased around 162 cows, several hundreds of goats that will be distributed from the 18th December. We will also at some point distribute thousands of chickens. Also planned is kick off of several small businesses through revolving small loans