I just got off the phone from speaking with the Bishop. He was trying to make the decision where the Peace Bus should go while I am with the team the next two weeks. Please pray with the Bishop as he makes this very difficult decision.

The reason it is difficult is because of the great human need for food right now. Every district of GOA has asked the Bishop for money for food to feed displaced people. While I am in Kenya this time I will return to the Kenyan Red Cross to determine when they will be able to have everyone under shelter and with food. GOA pastors know there are still thousands of people living without adequate shelter and food. I met with Kenyan Red cross before and know they are trying but they told me they never anticipated Kenya would face such a great humanitarian crisis. Remember Kenya has been host country to refugees from other countries. Now they are the country experiencing the crisis.

The second place the Bishop feels we need to go is Marsabit. Some of you know Partners for Care funded Mare, a social worker who is of the tribe Boran, to work with Pastor Hirbo in Marsabit. She was to assess the needs in this area as that is what social workers are trained to do is assess. We just received her report - you will be moved by her words. She found 120 orphans. Her assessment is 20 of them will die from starvation without intervention.

Her words:
House to house visitations of the orphan children was successfully made by Pastor Hirbo and social worker in Marsabit. The main objective of the visitation was simply to collect inventory data of the orphans.

CHILD CASE HISTORIES
Despite the long-distance to the children residents we assured the collection of child’s report. (Note from Connie neither Pastor Hirbo nor Mare have transportation not even a bike so they walk to do these assessments - waling miles) It was investigated that one hundred and twenty children lived as orphans. The interviewed children are from central, Milima Tatu, Shauri Yako, Dirib Gombo, Kubibagasa and manyatta Duba. The research reveals that Kubibagasa and Gombo totaled to 17km and manyatta Duba 7km from town. The targeted community includes Burji, Gabra, Borans and Turkana.

On the other hand the targeted children mostly age ranged from 3 years to 7 years. According to the decision made, 20 children needed to be transferred to a children orphanage and 100 supported at their household. In addition to that 20 (twenty) cases of histories have been sent to the head office. The twenty selected were based on their situation which is so pathetic aiming to do better ending physical and spiritual hunger.

Beside that, manyatta Duba has also difficulties on its own. Something so touching is to find an old man living with six double orphans and himself doesn’t have a good conditioned house and it is about to fall if it rains. Recently a group of Muslims established a tent in order for him to live in and the children themselves stay starving whole day since grandfather himself is too old to serve them. During the interview, grandfather made exclamation to the children; “please eat lemon if you are hungry”. This is horrible but on the ground this is how they live.

In another household, a mother of five children is shivering because of malaria. Since the mother was shivering of malaria I continued to ask why she haven’t visited hospital where she knows there is a dispensary in the village but she didn’t have money. When she was asked how much it cost, she answered only thirty shillings (50 cents). This made researcher so disappointed and regretted why go empty handed but all in all prayed for her with tears and left the place.

The Bishop is trying decide if we should go with the Partners for Care nurses and social workers and HIV/ Aids testers to Marsabit. We would take food for Pastor Hirbo to give to the most needy, conduct medical camps, deliver nets and test for HIV/AIDs. Mare's assessment found most have never been tested for for HIV/AIDS.

The Bishop would also like five of the most at risk children brought to Tumaini. For those who know Rebecca she came from this area. She has AIDS but today is thriving and healthy and in school. She lives at Beat the Drum children's home. You can see in her before and after pictures (below) what miracles can happen for even children who have AIDS.




Obviously the woman Mare met needs to be treated for malaria. She is a widow and if she dies there will be five more orphans. We have already sent money for Pastor Hirbo to meet this immediate need. It is probably deaths from malaria and HIV/AIDs that are creating so many orphans in this area. These are public health issues that can be addressed with nets, testing and education. "My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6

The problem the Bishop is having is how best to use the remaining funds which right now are $7,500.00 for the relief effort. We could go without the lowry just taking nets and medication on the Peace Bus. Bishop also wants to help give funds to the GOA pastors for food for displaced people. If anyone has any ideas of how to help please let me know. I leave Sunday.

Praying for God's wisdom for the Bishop, Connie