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By Patty Liston
Editor’s
note: Recently Meridian Magazine published an article that told
the story of Latter-day Saints in Kenya, and asked for readers to
help. Click
here to read that article. Here is an update on the situation.
You may never personally know, in this
life, those Kenyans who received rice, beans, sugar, maize and other
essentials because of your offering. You will not feel their tears
on your neck as they hug you, rock their sleeping babies, clasp
the rough, worn hands of a mother, or hear the testimony of those
whose prayer you answered. For now, these experiences belong to
the in-country staff of Reach the Children.
But the day will come when we will
meet those whom we have helped, along with those who have anonymously
helped us, and we will all weep tears of joy.
In the meantime, I would like to share
with you some of the stories sent to us by Justus Suchi Obadiah,
Reach the Children’s in-country director, and the bishop who
taught his people to follow the prophet.
Bishop Suchi of Kenya, with his family.
Because the needs of our many of our
brothers and sisters in Kenya are still going unmet, we encourage
you to share this message with others. Reach the Children will continue
to use 100% of all donations for the emergency needs of orphans
and newly displaced families.
You can donate at www.reachthechildren.org/donate,
click on “where needed most” and put “Kenya Relief
Fund” in the comment box, or mail your offering to Reach the
Children, 14 Chesham Way, Fairport, New York, 14450.
“When Saw We Thee an Hungered and Fed Thee?”
Before donations started to arrive
at the Reach the Children New York office, Mary Harris, Executive
Director, communicated with the RTC office in Nairobi, Kenya to
determine how emergency funds were to be used and distributed. Suchi
met with the accountant, Aggrey Mushira, and members of the RTC
board and operational personnel, to determine the greatest the needs
among those within the RTC projects and their circle(s) of acquaintance
and information.
Once names of families and individuals
were decided upon, food was purchased from a local market and repackaged
into smaller bundles. With January 21st being a day of relative
peace, it was decided that the packages of food would be given out
at the market, which was located only a few meters from the slum.
At 6:30 PM, families began picking
up their food packages. Forty families, including 30 from the Kibera
slum, received the much-needed supplies. Each bundle contained six
kilograms of flour, two kilograms of sugar, two kilograms of rice,
two kilograms of beans, one kilogram of shortening, 500 grams salt,
and matches.
“It was amazing to watch the
happy faces of these families as they received food,” said
Justus Suchi. Even as hearts rejoiced as this modern day equivalent
of “manna from heaven” was received, the terrible burden
of hunger and fear lay just beneath the smiles.
One recipient was the Reverend Joseph
Shisia. Several years ago he began the Injili Gospel Singers Choir,
with a small group of slum dwellers living in Kibera. This talented
group has entertained RTC volunteers and visitors world-wide with
their lively, heartfelt music.
The Injili Gospel Choir.
When the riots began, these musicians
who work and are paid on a daily basis were not allowed to leave
the slum. Earning less than $100 a month, each member of the group
had long learned the art of surviving in such circumstances. However,
when they were unable to leave their area to work, their situation
became critical.
When Suchi was able to distribute the
food packages, Joseph told Suchi to “thank all American friends
that contributed these foods. These are our true friends. God bless
their stores.”
The Reverend Joseph Shisia, founder of the Injili
Gospel Choir.
Jennifer Mimo was another grateful
recipient. She lives in Kabete, where the situation for women and
children is especially raw. For safety reasons, many have moved
to the Kabete Technical School rather than risk sleeping in their
own homes, where roving bands of thieves attack at night. “We
sleep in shifts,” she said. “The women go out from 8
pm until 12:30 a.m., and then the men take over from 12:30 a.m.
until 6:30 in the morning”.
Some of the others whose feelings of
hopelessness have been mitigated by your donations are:
- Fred Onienda, guardian of 6
- Michael Wasonga, father and guardian
of 7
- Pheobe Ofaya, mother of 3
- Mary Oguda, widow and mother of
1
- Mildred Ohonda, single
- Luci Apondi, mother of 5
- Sylvia Luyeku, a sibling in a family
of 7
- Agnes Achieng, widow and mother
of 6
- Belinda Saya, Gladys Awinja, Nancy
Odhiambo, Julius Ingutia and Patrick Ashiali were among those
who narrowly escaped death in the slums of Korogocho.
Pick one name and slip into that life
just for a moment. What does it feel like to see with those eyes
the collapse of a meager livelihood? Examine your hands, cracked
nails and brown fingers tough as leather rope from breaking rocks
in a quarry 12 hours a day. Carry the hungry children with eyes
the color of black olives on your back as you walk to your corrugated
metal home with the dirt floor, holding the heavy bundle of food
made possible by the generosity of someone from America.
Would you not raise your voice in thanksgiving
at such mercy shown?
A collage showing some
of the people who were helped with donations of food. In the center
of the collage is a photograph of some of the supplies that were
distributed.
At the Reach the Children office in
Buru Buru, some distance away from downtown Nairobi, a second distribution
took place the following week. Justus Suchi, Aggrey Mushira and
members of the Board of Directors were there to help distribute
food bags like the ones from the prior week, to more hungry and
displaced individuals.
The Blessing of Soap
Lillian Odiero, the Stay Alive evaluation
supervisor, was asked to talk with a large number of people who
had gathered in the office for help. Here she heard testimonies
from people “whose houses had been torched and who had witnessed
the killing of their loved ones among other evils”. She continued,
“I felt humble that I had been favored of the Lord.”
Lillian herself became a beneficiary
of your generosity. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, she had stored some food as Bishop Suchi had told his ward
to do. She had been sharing with neighbors from her small food storage
supply. She even shared her own sugar and soap with a student who
was going to school without either.
Later, when Lillian received the requisite
ration of food, she found that a single bar of soap had been tucked
into the bag. She shed tears as she remembered promising her large
family that God would provide to them again, that which they had
given away to another.
Aggrey’s Story
“I must confess I personally
have been a very grateful beneficiary of the emergency food fund:
explained Aggrey Mushira, a good Christian man of another faith.
“My wife’s Mutumba [secondhand clothes] kiosk,
which supplements my income, has not opened since December. The
premise has been under parole by the vicious Munkigi who have threatened
to burn it down.
Aggrey Mushira
“The outlets that usually supply
the mutumbas have been rendered inoperable by the skirmishes. With
the business at a standstill and dwindling food in our home, we
had reached a point of surviving on a shoestring. My daughter had
gone to college in town, only to be forced to return due to the
skirmishes. There were no public means, so she had to walk a circular
route covering some eight miles to avoid the skirmish area. She
arrived home safely but barely drugging herself and went straight
to bed because of the pain in her feet.
“We did not have enough food
so we shared the little ration we had between us and prayed that
God would somehow bring some change. Then at the time when we were
wondering where our next meal will come from, I read your (Reach
the Children International) email where you had sent the much needed
emergency food fund and you had indicated that the RTC staff would
to benefit from the fund. I felt like an angel had spoken to someone
regarding my family situation. The donation has brought life back
to my house. May God bless you all.”
Two More Incidents
Awuor, a middle-aged single mother
of three children, had stood for hours in front of the RTC office
waiting for it to open. Once inside she related “in a voice
almost to a whisper,” how she had gone to a market to get
a little food. A mob came toward her, pulled her into an alley and
beat her. She had begged and begged for them not to harm her.
“All the time I worried about
my three kids whom I left at my house,” she said. She was
forced to hide through the night, unable to go home to her children
until morning. Hobbling back to her home, she found her children
safe, but too frightened to open the door. Once the owner of a small
kiosk in the slum, she now has “been reduced to being a beggar
to get food for my children.” Leaving with food rations, she
gives thanks to the donors who have helped her.
Mama Lucy, the school owner whose story
appeared in the previous
Meridian article, was forced to go back to her home in the slum
of Huruma. Men came during the night and beat and cut her and her
two of daughters aged 22 and 18 years old. They were taken to Kenyatta
Hospital, where they are sleeping on the floor with hundreds of
other bruised, broken and sick refugees. Bishop Suchi is arranging
to take them blankets and make sure they have food.
It has been said that gratitude is
the memory of the heart. Let these words linger and find their place
in yours:
On behalf of Kenya and for all those
whose lives have been touched by your generosity, we would like
to sincerely thank all those that have given of their resources
to help alleviate the pain and hunger that many are going through
at the moment. We do appreciate profoundly the sacrifices made
on all our behalf. We can only wish God’s providence on
you and your entire families and pray that you will be blessed
in your times of need now and ever after. Thank you very much!
Bishop Justus
Suchi
“And the King shall answer
and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me.”
You can donate
at www.reachthechildren.org/donate,
click on “where needed most” and put “Kenya Relief
Fund” in the comment box, or mail your offering to Reach the
Children, 14 Chesham Way, Fairport, New York, 14450.
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here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2008 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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