The inflation rate in Kenya rose from 3.3 percent in August 2010 to 16.67 percent in August 2011, an unprecedented five-fold increase in the cost of living.

The World Food Program estimates that more than 2.4 million people have received food aid in the Horn of Africa. Northern and eastern areas in the Horn of Africa are feared to “deteriorate to crisis and emergency levels” if nothing is done to curb the trend.

For a country that is heavily dependent on agriculture, this prolonged drought has dealt a significant blow to our way of life in Kenya, especially to those who live in informal urban settlements in arid and semi-arid regions.

One such area is at the Kamwaa Child Development Center, located in the Mbeere District in eastern Kenya. This semi-arid region is typified by scattered hills and acres of dry shrubs, with an average annual rainfall of 750 mm (29 inches). Economic activities revolving around marginal farming and raising livestock have been affected by a lengthy dry spell.

Kathiga, the Kamwaa Child Development Center director, tells us,

“The last three years have been the worst.”

The Mbeere District survives on seasonal rivers that bring water from distant highlands and occasional flash floods. Most of the year, the riverbeds remain dry and dangerous, which could spell doom to naïve travelers, especially during a heavy downpour.

Well-known traditional and drought resistant crops — such as cowpeas — have not withstood the drought and therefore have brought a severely reduced harvest. Hunger has stared people living in this region in the face as they sought for other means of survival.

Several years ago, our child development center embarked on alternative agriculture through subsistence farming that the parents relied on.

Kathiga explains,

“We started a demonstration farm for fathers and mothers to learn from and help them utilize this available resource.”

The staff at the Kamwaa Child Development Center then decided to convert this demonstration farm into a scaled income-generating venture. This new idea allowed them to receive external funds through Complementary Interventions. Our staff saw an opportunity where many did not, and went all out to prove that something good could come from thirsty soil.

Proud fathers and mothers tilled the virgin land and the proximity of a nearby river offered hope of sustainability for this program. These leased 20 acres would soon become a haven within otherwise parched lands.

A green canopy emerged in the middle of grey, thorny bushes. The young pawpaw (fruit) stems sprouted along the furrows watered from the nearby river. Below these slender stems lay green, leafy vegetables that mature much quicker than pawpaw.

This growth was the first great sign of hope. The farm rapidly became a huge source of attraction to any passerby. It was time to have a permanent caretaker for the farm.

The child development center enjoyed relative success over the last year, and has yielded fresh fruit such as pawpaw, watermelons, tomatoes (from two greenhouses), and honey from hives suspended among withering branches.

While in season, children have enjoyed fresh produce while locals purchase directly from the farm. Currently, two children facing malnutrition have benefited from weekly food rations.

“These two children were malnourished. We decided to include them among those children who required nutritional supplements. The farm has helped to provide for them.”

These surroundings also favor beekeeping, which led the center to produce and package its own honey.

“People from all over the district and beyond come to buy our honey. Its quality is unmatched! We want to register with the Kenya Bureau of Standards to have it vetted and made available in shopping malls.”

Sadly, the rain shortage has slowed down the gains from last year.

“The river we depended on for irrigation has been dried up for over two months. This is the first time this has happened in our generation.”

Most of our crops dried up under the relentless sun. The bees too could not withstand the heat and migrated to other hives, which in turn reduced our honey yield.

As a result, the center staff decided to introduce drip irrigation and water storage tanks on the site. This has helped to cut their water generator fuel expenses in half.

There is renewed hope now that the river is breathing new life along its path. The farm is not back to its glorious days yet, but the lush green is evident from a distance. The center expects a huge harvest from the farm.

Also, the center decided to introduce fish farming. The fisheries department assisted us in setting up one pond and supplied us with 1,000 fingerlings and a year’s supply of fish food.

Weather patterns remain unpredictable, and the weatherman has not offered hope to those that await the short rains to quench the hot and dusty surface.

Dire days are expected, but with initiatives like these, local families will eat good food from a land seemingly surrounded by scorched hopes. And we hope these families will learn from the income-generating ideas introduced by the Kamwaa Child Development Center.

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Nooltetan is a Maasai peasant farmer who has been unable to farm because of the severe East African drought.

Mostly, she has depended on raising cattle for her family’s survival. In the past 10 to 20 years the Tanzanian government has encouraged Maasai pastoral communities to engage in alternative work such as farming instead of just relying on cattle.

Nooltetan heeded this call. Along with raising cattle, she began farming her small plot of land when she got married. But the drought has been severe, forcing Nooltetan to cease her attempts at farming. Then she lost all of her cattle and was reduced to poverty.

Nooltetan and her husband had two children before they separated after family quarrels. Now she looks after her children on her own.

With children to feed and responsibilities to fulfill. Nooltetan resorted to collecting firewood for a living. Each day she goes to the nearby bush to collect firewood, which she carries to the nearby town to sell.

One day Nooltetan injured herself with her machete, which has forced her to rely on her 15-year-old son, Alais, to collect firewood and sell it to feed the family. Nooltetan tells us,

“We get about Tshs 2,000 per day (approx. $1.15 USD) for the bundle of firewood we sell and then we use the money to buy food and other home essentials.”

Nooltetan feels it is better to do that than go hungry with no food at all. When the family is not able to earn a living through selling firewood, or when Alais has not been able to secure a day’s pay, the family resorts to asking a neighbor for food.

But if the neighbor family has nothing to spare, Nooltetan’s family goes hungry that day.

After her separation from her husband, Nooltetan decided to go back to her parents where she was born. While there she met a man who fathered four more children with her. This man has not married her and doesn’t take any responsibility for the children.

So Nooltetan now has six children to raise. Before the drought, she had six cows and 10 goats, but now she doesn’t have so much as a chicken to supply eggs and income.

“This year the drought has persisted and because of the loss of our cows and goats, the situation has become even more difficult.

“We depended much on the cattle as our security and means of survival, because we could sell some and buy food. But since cattle are no longer available, we depend on the small business of collecting firewood in exchange for food.”

On a good day, Nooltetan’s family has two simple meals of maize flour and beans, vegetables or porridge. Today they had porridge in the morning and they were going to have another porridge meal in the evening.

The porridge is made of water with maize flour and smallest measure of cooking oil they can buy (at Tshs 200, approximately 15 cents USD) to add flavor.

Food scarcity is not the only the problem in this community; there is also an acute shortage of water. Even though a water pipe is located a few hundred meters from Nooltetan’s home, the pipe is dry most of the time.

The only reliable source of water is a puddle of water-pipe leakage. Here, many people from the community collect their water each day. When the puddle is dry, they have to walk several kilometers to look for water.

One day a relative heard that the local church, in partnership with Compassion International, was going to register children and help support them. Knowing Nooltetan’s struggles to raise six children as a single mother, the uncle asked the child development center workers if he could register her son Emmanuel.

The development center workers came to Nooltetan’s home and confirmed Emmanuel for registration. Nooltetan says she has seen God in these workers, and in Emmanuel.

“Emmanuel being registered has benefited us as [a] family in many ways. Emmanuel would not have gone to school if it was not for Compassion’s intervention. His behavior is very different compared to his other siblings, and more importantly, he has great hope for the future.

“The impact [of] him going to school has even touched his younger siblings, who all go to school as opposed to his elder brothers who did not go to school.”

The family has also received several gifts from Emmanuel’s sponsors, who have even been in their home to visit them.

“These gifts have helped our family to buy food and clothes for other children as well. The benefits have spanned to all other family members.”

Nooltetan cannot hide her joy and her appreciation of Emmanuel’s sponsors.

“I would like to sincerely thank Emmanuel’s sponsors for their support and I thank God who touched them to choose sponsoring my child. I would also tell them if it were not for them, our story, and particularly that of Emmanuel, would be very different.”

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Frustration mounts as I open my car door and step into a large puddle that covers my shoes. The wind blows my umbrella inside out and I grit my teeth to keep my tongue from sin.

I can’t believe how much rain has fallen! The freezing wind bites, the cold rain soaks my clothes, and I am so over it! Weathermen may rejoice in breaking precipitation records, but I do not!

I turn the key in the security door, hit one button for light and another for warmth, change into slippers, and sort through the mail. I’m excited to see I have a letter from one of my sponsored kids.

I open it and see the familiar white and green paper that indicates it’s from Ethiopia, and I can almost quote what is written without reading a word. There’s the standard greeting, he’s fine, am I well, he’s being going to church, please pray for his studies, and please pray for rain for the crops.

I toss the letter on the couch and move on with my day. I’ve read it all before, and as a city girl the request for rain means little to me. I figure that maybe it’s just a sentence the teacher wrote on the blackboard and once again it’s been copied. A generic, meaningless, space filler.

I pray for this boy but forget about the rain for the crops, because surely the requests I can think of are more important than rain.

Sunday comes and the rain still falls. At church a sponsor targets me to ask what the ministry is doing about the drought and famine in Ethiopia and Kenya. I shrug and say I’m not in Marketing, but I’m sure we are there helping already.

Try as I might the Holy Spirit doesn’t allow me to shrug this off. So I Google Ethiopia and famine and read news article after news article about the years of drought and current famine invading Africa with its friends starvation and death.

I go to work to hear from the CEO that we are there helping, and I’m proud that we are in the middle of this crisis — but I’m ashamed of myself.

I may be a city girl and I may never grow a vegetable in my life, but this does not excuse me of pride that ignores my sponsored son’s request for prayer support for something so important in his life, in his country, in his family’s survival. May God forgive me of my arrogance.

Learn from my lesson. Always pray for the requests your sponsored children and students send you. Especially when they don’t make sense. Especially when you think you know better. Especially because they ask.

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It’s all over the news, the Web and social media. The images are showing up everywhere. The statistics are unbelievable, but they’re real and that’s why we keep hearing about it.

I’m talking about the drought in East Africa.

East Africa is currently facing its worst drought in 60 years; high food prices and failed crops have left millions of people at risk.

Dozens of relief organizations have rushed to the scene. They’re hard at work calculating the need, raising funds and bringing in lifesaving aid.

You’ve watched as this crisis has unfolded, you’ve been praying and now you’re ready to respond.

But wait — we have some questions from the audience:

“Where is Compassion?”

“What is Compassion doing amid this crisis?”

“How can I give to Compassion concerning the drought in East Africa?”

Inserting a donation link to our disaster relief fund and asking you to give, right now, is a timely thing to do. But before you click on the link, let me explain how this crisis is affecting our programs.

Our child development centers operate in five countries near the areas affected by the drought:

• Kenya
• Ethiopia
• Rwanda
• Tanzania
• Uganda

We do not work in Somalia, the hardest-hit country. But where we do work, our local church partners are seeing higher food prices due to poor crop yields caused by the drought. And our church partners are experiencing an influx of refugees into the areas they serve.

Because we are a holistic child development organization working through the local church our program model often protects our beneficiaries against the potentially crippling impact of famine and drought.

Our Child Survival, Child Sponsorship, and Leadership Development Programs are each designed to help meet the ongoing needs of the families, children and students we serve. The programs help our beneficiaries become self-sufficient and better able to weather disasters, such as droughts.

However, when a crisis does arise, the local churches where our child development centers are located identify the immediate and specific needs of the children, families and students we serve.

The churches have access, through our programs, to critical assistance, such as disaster relief, clean water, medical assistance, etc.

Our ministry focus is on long-term development of children from their time in the womb until an age where they’re self-sufficient. While we focus on prevention and responding to the needs of our program beneficiaries, we applaud other organizations that do widespread disaster relief.

One of these organizations is the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), one of our partners in 58:.
In addition to its major drought-response projects already underway in Kenya and Ethiopia, CRWRC is expanding its aid to Somalia.

You can learn more about CRWRC, how they are responding to the drought, and ways you can help at crcna.org.

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When I purposely expose myself to the ugly things in life, I open myself up to possibility that my heart will be hurt. It’s a scary, vulnerable place, but it’s exactly where God has called me to be.

My heart hurt badly last week when I read this in a crisis report from our staff in Bangladesh …

Approximately 95 percent of Compassion-assisted children are feeling the effects of the [global food] crisis. Many are living on one meal a day — receiving it at their child development centers — and struggling with feelings of guilt and sadness because their family members don’t receive the same benefit.

Did you get that? Our children are feeling guilty for eating one meal a day.

We just had our once-a-quarter meeting where all the different department leaders report their numbers for the previous quarter. Usually, this meeting is filled with exciting reports of how God has blessed Compassion beyond our expectations. We set high goals and God consistently exceeds them. And while last week’s meeting had its share of positive reports, the one issue that overshadowed everything else we talked about was what is being called the Silent Tsunami, or the Global Food Crisis.

Have you heard of it? If you haven’t, you’re likely not alone. But perhaps you’ve seen a glimpse of it here at home: “the rising cost of gas” or “economic recession” or “the creation of biofuels.” But whereas we here in the United States are facing inconvenience and sacrifice, our brothers and sisters around the world are facing death by starvation.

Does this upset you? It should. It obviously upsets me. We’ve got to start doing something about it now because this crisis is going to get worse before it gets better.

This Global Food Crisis is complex — it is not caused by one single thing but is the combination of many factors including:

• Diverting food towards the creation of biofuels
• Recent droughts and floods
• Higher gas prices
• Higher tariffs in export markets, especially rice

When several of these factors occur together, it creates a kind of “perfect storm” situation, with global consequences. Compassion Vice President of International Program, Mark Yeadon, says that while every person is affected at some level by this crisis, there are varying degrees depending on where in the world you live. Some are refraining from purchasing that new car or vacation home. Some are carpooling to work or riding their bike more. Some are adjusting their grocery list to accommodate the higher food prices. Some are wondering where there next meal will come from. Some don’t worry about where their food will come from because they don’t need to wonder — they know there’s no food.

I don’t mean to depress you. I want to motivate you. Compassion is in a position to make a difference. We have already sent supplementary funds to our two hardest hit countries, Haiti and Bangladesh. We are in communication with our staff in other countries at risk and will address the issues based on the level of severity.

If you are interested in giving money to our Global Food Crisis fund, you can do that. But this is NOT an appeal for money … this is an appeal for your broken heart.

Our family is hurting, and I hope you are not okay with that.

Here are some small things you can do:

• Pray for God to show you what you should do.
• Learn about the crisis and then tell others what is going on.
• Write to your sponsored children in Bangladesh and Haiti to encourage them and love on them.
• Pray hard about which candidate to support in the upcoming presidential elections.
• Talk to your own children about what is happening around the world.

While it’s hard not to get overwhelmed at the situation, God is so much bigger than this, and none of this is out of His control. So what is it that He’s asking you to do?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates