Concrete Dam in Mbeere, Kenia

Bob and Hope Organization of Germany a huge thank you for partnering with us in giving the Mbeere People a Concrete Dam that was able to trap water that will provide water to the community until next rainy season..The leaders of our Ithera Christian Centre who are the managers of the massive Dam told me that they were able to put fish into the Dam as a business venture and the results are awesome, the community is now buying fish alongside fetching water..This is the gospel that is tangible! Edward Buria

A School in Lodja (DRC)

Lodja is just about the geographic centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was once quite a well-to-do city, bustling with life. However during the last 15 year three different armies marched through the city, leaving devastation behaind them. Rape, pillage and destruction was their legacy. A great number of the population to refuge in the jungle. Only during the last three years have they finally started to return.
Society has been devastated. All the factories have closed down. Communication with the outside world is difficult. Once you leave the city limits the road ar impassable. Hordes of children wander from one extended family to the other. Parents often have alcohol problems and cannot give their children any kind of example.
Pierre-Albert and Beatrice Ngueliele oved from Bussels  to Lodja a number of years ago. They went to do a classical missions ministry. However the problems they met changed their outlook. The market was empty of any vegatables und basic commodoties were head to get. People -Christians- sat around hoping that God was going to change things and through a miracle everything would change.
Pierre-Albert began to teach the people that if they didn't put seeds in the ground, there would be no harvest. God's provision was all around. People didn't respond too quickly to the message.
Although Nguelieles went to the Congo with lots of promises of support from people, this support never actually materialized. However they have built a primary school and been able to give around 200 children hope for the future.
HOPE has joined them and helped to provide new desks and benches and at Christmas we provide the pupils with new uniforms.
The first batch of pupils will leave the primary school soon and we want to build a secondary school. This will have three grades and two classes in each grade - the capacity for 180 - 240 children. We hope that we can help to really make a difference in Lodja and invite you to stand with us and support this worthy project.

Women carrying water cans to provide for their families

News from Kenya

It is with great joy that we received the news from Kenya that they have been able to distribute 150 pairs of shoe took place yesterday. Besides the shoes they are presented the pupils with socks and a number of lockers were brought to the school for the children to use. A number of these pupils must walk long distances to school and sometimes they do that barefoot.
It is moving to know that the children are given breakfast at 6,30 am and during the day they also get lunch. Most of them wont have anything to eat later in the day.
Education is a key factor to bringing the children out of poverty.

We are so glad that we are able to partner with EDFRI International, who's headquarters are in Meru, Kenya.

Children get their new shoes

East Africa

We continued our help to Kenya during the first part of the year. We helped provide food for around 15,000 people together with EDFRI our partners in Kenya. A harvest was expected in March and in fact the first fruits of beans had been already harvested around Christmas. Things were looking good, but then just before the maize harvest torrential rain destroyed a great deal of the yield.

Once more the situation was desperate. We were able to help build a dam in the Mbeeri area – about 200km north of Nairobi – which is a great blessing. Women from this area had to walk 15km one way, to collect water from a lake near a power station. That is thankfully history. The other sand dams that were built were a great help but unfortunately there are not enough. People heard that “our” communities had water and walked, sometimes a long way, to take water. The sand dam reservoirs had to provide for many more people than planned. We hope to continue build more  dams.

A fishing cooperative has been launched in Turkana. They have three boats at the moment and 50 people are dependent upon each boat. This project is sustainable and helps the people to generate their own income and feed their families. The members of the cooperative have come out of a refugee camp that has been supported by EDFRI for a couple of years. Turkana is the most impoverished area of Kenya.

No respite for Kenya

Famine in Kenya from Newfrontiers on Vimeo.

CLIP ABOUT THE DROUGHT/FAMINE IN EAST AFRIKA VIA SKY NEWS

Bad News from Kenya

Meru, Kenya: Bad news has reached us from our friends Edward and Fridah Buria in Meru, Kenya. They report widespread starvation in the Samburu area of Northern Kenya. The famine has been caused by the ongoing drought. This drought is party man-made as Kenyans have been cutting down large areas of forest for revenue for the timber. The climate in a place like Samburu is very harsh and without man's interference in the environment, life is still hard.
Buria claims though that this famine is more severe than the one they had in 2006. People look to him and his co-workers for help. The weak, aged and the very young are the most vulnerable and they suffer more than the others.
Groups of people have been coming to the church meeting places waiting for help of some kind. For a number any help is already too late. They have buried their dead on ground besides the churches.
Buria had appealed to friends all over the world to come forward and help. Since the famine of 2006 the price for food had increase enormously. Edward Buria is normally positive even in the most difficult situations, but this time, he confessed: "I have never seen such hopelessness."

Genocide in Rwanda

15 years ago today, the genocide began in Rwanda. It lasted until mid-July and cost around 800,000 lives. The world stood by and watched.
Romeo Dallaire's book "Shake hands with the devil" has the sub-title "The failure of humanity in Rwanda." He was the UN General in Rwanda at this time and tried his best to save as many as he could. In the end he "only" managed to save around 30,000 people, which caused him a decade of depression.
The Canadian is to be commended for his moral and physical courage.
Rwanda is still in turmoil but of a different kind. It is a country that is trying to enter the 21st century, the president wanting to make Rwanda the Hi-Tec centre of Africa. However they are struggling to get young people through elementary school.
We are engaged in building clinic in Rwanda, in a suburb of Kigali. Our expectation is that we will be up and running by May.

The Miwani Center

I just found this video in MySpace. I don't know the author but the center is from Nehemiah International!

Out of Africa

I'm sitting in a hotel room waiting to either be picked up or my credit for the internet runs out.
Probably nothing happened as I expected and I hope still that I was of use and was able to help some people.
The last day always seems to take a long time. I am looking forward to getting home but am a bit sad to be leaving Kenya. It is really a spectacular country and the people are wonderful. Many are suffering.
A lady asked me yesterday, if we have famine in our country. When I said no, she said that we are truely blessed.
Yes, we are truely blessed and what a blessing it is to beable to help that a few of the people have a better futute.

Africa Impressions

Africa

I arrived in Africa about ten days ago. After spending about a week in Uganda, I came by bus from Kampala to Kisumu, Kenya. The journey took me about 6 1/2 hours. It quite good because the roads have been repaired.
It took us some time to clear the border, but that's life and after travelling into Kenya the police stopped the bus and we all had to show our passports.
So now I am about 12km outside of Kisumu, Kenya in a place called Miwani.
One of the oganizations I work with, Nehemia-Team, has a farm here.
We are about 10km south of the equator. It is very hot and dry and the ground is very hard.
To the northern side of the farm are some mountains about 2-3km from here. They suddenly shoot up to a height of around 700-800m (I guess). We are already more than 1000m above sea level.
Kisumu touches the banks of Lake Victoria, the source of the river Nile. That finds its way down hill through the Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterrainan Sea.
They tell me that on the other side of the mountains is a high plain which is part of the Rift Valley.
The strip of land between the mountains to the north of here and I suppose about 5km to the south, was given to the Indians after Independance. It was supposed to separate the Luo tribe from another tribe as they were always fighting with one another.
Most of the Indian families are still bere. They grow and process sugar cane.