Vol. 5, No. 2
“…ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40
February 2006
FAMINE!! 2006
by Vicki Kritzell
On December 28, we received the
following letter from Pastor Maurice:
“Dear Vicki and other board mem-
bers, please remove the names of the
following children from the waiting list
because they are all dead. They have
died of starvation.
“1) Loyce Auma – No.
202 in the waiting list 2)
Onesmus Okoth – No. 199 in
the waiting list. 3) Wycliffe
Otieno – No. 190 in the wait-
ing list. 4) Austine Oduor –
No. 203 in the waiting list.
[The next day we received
word from Edith that two
more had also died. Editor]
“Right now I am in Kisii
waiting for Pastor Nyamora
to help me conduct burial ser-
vices. He will bury one child
and I will bury two tomorrow.
I hope you are still reading the
newspapers. Already the
death toll is twenty-seven in
northeastern Kenya.
“The food distribution by the govern-
ment is too political. Some areas are ig-
nored and people are dying. It is so painful.
Some of our children have decided to for-
feit their lunch meal and for the last two
days we have been inviting about eighty-
seven children to come for lunch. It is terri-
ble this time. Only God knows how many
more will die from starvation.
“I do not know if at all there is any-
body who can help save some. I just
don’t know.
“God bless you abundantly.
“Maurice”
What a horrible thing for Pastor to
again be in a position of watching chil-
dren die right before him, especially af-
ter visiting America and seeing the
amounts of food just going to waste
here. We studied the photos of the chil-
dren, feeling in our hearts they could
have been saved…
As an immediate measure, our trea-
surers scraped together $1,000 and
wired it on Thursday morning, Decem-
ber 30. We did not want the children to
have to wait for food until after the holi-
day weekend. The money was received
and both Pastors Moses and Maurice
immediately began feeding orphans at
their locations. A letter from Julia re-
vealed that they had fed 358 orphans
and 74 adults the previous day, and the
effort will continue daily as
long as we have the funds.
Likewise, Pastor Moses is
both praying with and feed-
ing the little ones who are
making their way to his gate.
A further problem at
Glory Center is the dried-up
water sources in the area.
Pastor Moses is leaving at
4:00 a.m. daily to find water
for the children. We are look-
ing into getting a holding
tank for Glory Center and
buying water by the lorry
rather than having him queue
for a supply each day.
It was immediately obvi-
ous to us that our sponsors and donors
would want to help in saving these chil-
dren, so we sent an email out to several
dozen in an order to start sending relief
as soon as possible, rather than waiting
until this issue hit the mailboxes. Our
letter read in part:
“Last year we were faced with sky-
rocketing food prices in the spring, the
result of a failure of crops to survive
Hearth to Hearth Ministries’
These four, Austine, Onesmus, Wycliffe and Loyce, will never
again need to worry where they will find their next meal.
