M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Meridian Readers Help Starving Families in Kenya
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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