FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY

Unfortunately many areas of Kenya have been experiencing severe drought. People have been unable to grow their regular crops due to the lack of rain and therefore many are going hungry. The church we attend, Ridgeways Baptist Church, partnered with another local church, Parklands Baptist, to collect food items to carry folks living in the dry areas. Ridgeways is a church that was planted by IMB missionaries. This year as the church celebrated it’s 21st anniversary, instead of having the usual dinner on the grounds, we were encouraged to bring in bags of maize meal for the food distribution. A great mission minded idea. The church collected 2652 bags of flour! This flour will be used to make ugahli, a very common and filling staple food eaten here in Kenya. Parklands Baptist contributed beans and oil.

On Friday, two large trucks were loaded with about seven tons of food. Then early Saturday morning we headed to Makueni to distribute the items.

Our truck was driven by Christopher, one of the mechanics at the Baptist Mission compound.

Makeuni is about three hours southeast of Nairobi and there has been no significant rain there since 2006. The closer we got to the area, the dryer things got. We observed that most of the rivers and all of the creek beds were dry. The roads were very dusty and dry and where we were headed was at the top of a mountain. Our mission truck did fine but unfortunately the second truck go stuck in the thick dust several times trying to get up the mountain and the men had to push it out.

When we arrived at the first school, there were already ladies gathering there. As we waited for the second truck to make it up the mountain, we began to sing songs with the ladies and before we knew it we were surrounded by many of the school students who ended up singing songs for us.

Jeff was moved by how many of the children had worn and tattered shoes if they had shoes at all. But there were plenty of smiles none the less.

Once the rest of the group had arrived, we met with the chief and had an official greeting and time of prayer together.

The group formed an assembly line and quickly unloaded a portion of each of the trucks and soon the room was full of bags of food.
Most of the group stayed there to distribute the food, while we traveled further down the mountain to another school to finish unloading our truck.
While the guys were unloading the truck the crowd began to gather.
Then suddenly several of the local women began helping to unload the bales. The African women are very strong and this was no big feat for them.
By the time the truck was unloaded a large crowd was gathered and waiting patiently in the shade. By the end of the day, it was reported that 1000 families had received some much needed food.