Hold a church collection
Please call 0870 078 7788 or email orders@christian-aid.org by 12 noon on the Thursday of the week you will hold the collection, to ensure the envelopes arrive in time.
East Africa Crisis Church appeal poster
People to hold in your prayers
Elderly couple left behind in Kenya
Tesso Yattani Abudo, 65, and her husband Abudo Hurri, 85, have no access to food. The elderly couple live in a village in northern Kenya which has been hit by the severe drought.
The rest of their family have migrated with their livestock to keep the cattle alive. Left behind, they are now caring for their grandchildren, including their grandson (pictured), but struggle to find enough to eat each day.
The couple are surviving on relief from the county government. But this help comes irregularly – and because of their age, they find it hard to chew the maize and beans they receive.
Photo credit: Dub Guyo, project manager, PACIDA.
Mary Aluat
Mary Aluat’s daughter Manut has had no food for two days and she does not stop crying. The four-year-old is highly malnourished and under developed for her age. The family have been struggling to find food for the last three months. They currently eat one meagre meal a day.
Mary’s husband is a fisherman. ‘For the last two weeks, he has been unsuccessful in his fishing,’ she said. The river is almost exhausted of fish.
Mary and her family come from northern Bar el Ghazal, north of South Sudan. The food situation in Bar el Ghazal is classified at an emergency level. This classification means that many households are going for long periods without food, resulting in acute malnutrition and deaths.
Prayers
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:22-23)
Compassionate God,
while children in East Africa
suffer with hunger and malnutrition,
in desperate need of food,
may we refuse to look away.
Unite us in our desire to help.
While families and animals
in Kenya and Ethiopia
stand thirsty, waiting for rain,
may we stand with them.
Unite us in our wait for justice.
While mothers in South Sudan
walk through swamp water
up to their necks,
may they find the refuge they seek,
and not be forsaken.
Unite us with our sisters’ struggle.
May we do our part,
giving what we can,
lifting them to you
trusting that your
compassion never fails.
Amen.
Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man
have kept Lazarus from dying? (John 11:37)
Could not he who fed the five thousand
have kept East Africa from famine?
Could not he who healed the Official’s son
have kept malnutrition and hunger away?
Could not he who turned water into wine
have kept drought and dehydration at bay?
Could not he who loudly called ‘come out’
call us all to live, give and respond
believing in life before death!
Open our eyes so we don’t look away,
multiply what we offer so all have enough,
speak words of healing through partners on the ground.
Turn compassion fatigue into compassionate generosity,
and let life in all its fullness flow to overflowing
through all of East Africa.
In your name we pray,
Amen.
