Mercy Ministries - AFM Africa - Proclaiming Christ in Kenya
Help Us Feed Our Village
This is a little long and I did post it on Facebook, but I have updated things throughout, so please take time to read and as always keep is and those around us in your prayers!
There's nothing like returning back home and realizing so much has changed in just 4 short weeks. We had heard prices were rising, but I was completely shocked to see just how much.
Cooking oil has more than doubled in cost from February, almost tripled at this point. The soap most in our village use to wash laundry, clean their dishes, and wash their babies, we have an ALL in 1 bar, with has more than doubled in price locally. Corn, which is a staple food here, usually would be around 70 cents per tin is already $1...we knew the price of corn would rise, but we thought we had a few months before it was that much. Bags of cement have gone from $6.40 to $8.00...everything is rising and rising. We have already gotten notices from the companies that we order our bread and meat from that prices will be rising.
We already have people coming to the gate telling us how hard life is due to these rising prices. In the village hard life means little food. Our employees are reporting that many, many are struggling. We are hearing stories of kids flocking to fruit tress and sugarcane farms because they are so hungry and there is no food at home. Our village is small and other than helping someone dig in their farm there is no real work outside of Mercy Ministries.
To make things more difficult suddenly there is a fuel shortage in our area which is causing long lines and higher prices. Yesterday they were only allowing each vehicle to get $10 of gas which is less than 2 gallons and the motorbikes were only allowed $1 which is less than a liter. Of course this will continue to drive costs up even more. When we first moved here you could take a motorbike to town for $1, it is now $2.
Why? Everyone is saying something different, but 2 major things driving all this chaos in Kenya are the issues between Russia and Ukraine and we will get a new president here in Kenya this year. I've been told to expect these prices at least through August and possibly beyond.
I'll be honest, that scares me for our village. We can and have made some cuts to our menu, we are very blessed to be able to eat as good as we do, it will not hurt us to cut out some of our meat and drastically reduce the amount of cooking oil we use. We are also going to hold off on some construction to the high school, but will open with 4 classrooms. But our village...most of them are already living day to day, meal to meal, and as minimally as possible. How will they make this work? My heart is SO heavy with this burden and I know we will need to step in and help the children that live all around us. A couple years ago we had a feeding program for the children of our village and it looks like we need to bring it back. I'm hoping to hold off a couple of weeks so we can get a stock pile of food allowing us to prepare meals for the kids.
Of course we need all the help we can get with this. We will likely start serving breakfast and supper to any kid that comes to the gate. We need to stock up on beans, corn, and rice before those prices rise anymore. If you want to help with this need please pray. Please pray for direction for us, for funds to meet the needs of the children in our village, for discernment, for us to roll our a feeding program based on actual need and not feeling. Y'all, I wanna fix it all and so I'm constantly trying to not "jump in" too soon and/or do too much. But I do know that right now we have hungry children all around us. If you are able to give, please do. Any amount helps, I truly mean that, while prices are rising food is still relatively inexpensive here. For example on Sunday we feed 300 to 400 people and spend about $55 on rice. I can serve porridge to 15 kids for about $2. Any amount makes a difference and of course it all adds up. If you are able to give you can click here, and it will take you to our direct giving page, please mark it for feeding program.
I will start purchasing food as soon as I have enough money to do a large purchase so we can save on transport. Please keep our village and Kenya in your prayers. There are not any safety nets here or programs to help when food is short, kids just go hungry. I KNOW God put us here and He has a plan, I'm trusting that he will continue to provide as we make next steps to help those around us. I did post this need on Facebook the other day and we have had $600 come in and I will continue to update totals, progress, and the status of things here on FB and through the blog as we go along. Thank you for continually praying for us and supporting us.
(All feeding program pictures are from November 2019 when we were doing this regularly.)
