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FRANCISCAN MISSIONARY SISTERS FOR AFRICA
P. O. Box 100 Nakuru 20100,  KENYA  

Dear Friends in Christ,

Greetings from Nakuru where the weather is cold and wet – by our standards!  El Nino is threatened

Distributing food in Pokot
Sr. Ann (left) distributing food
during these next few weeks and so in some parts of the country there is severe flooding and in other areas there is drought!  Since my return I have been exploring the possibilities of making the best possible use of your extremely generous donations to feed famine victims. One of the difficulties we faced was whether we should try to spread the food we could buy with the money we had over a wide area and perhaps feed more people but for a shorter time.  Or to concentrate our effort in one particular area and try to make more of a difference to a number of families. In the end we decided it was better to give some tangible help to some people that would feed them for longer. East Pokot, near Lake Baringo is an area that I mentioned to you while I was at home and so we selected that area as it is a semi-arid desert area and the people are very poor. 

Our point of contact in the area is the local parish priest who as well as serving  the main parish has three out stations to which he travels regularly, on the way passing people who are starving. In other words he has the infrastructure in place for us to reach needy people some of whom where Christian and some who were not – the criteria for selection was that they were the worst affected people in that area irrespective of any other considerations. I was told that the missionaries only went to that area thirty years ago so you can imagine that evangelisation is slow and not yet deep rooted.

ImageI worked through Mary and Samuel who are with the Justice and Peace Department in Nakuru Diocese, again simply because they have in place the infrastructure necessary for us to reach remote rural areas.  After discussing the issue we made a selection of 100 households where the people were in a desperate condition.  It does not sound much but in fact it meant that we were able to feed over 500 people for a month through your generosity.  Below is a list of the food items that we took to each household. The reason we chose these items is because they are fairly nutritious and would give the families all the things needed for a meal. 

Items given to each household:
Maize flour        10 Kgs.
Green Grams       6 Kgs.
Rice                    4 Kgs.
Beans                 8 Kgs.
Dry Maize            8 Kgs.
Salt                    0.25
Cooking Oil           .5

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