December Food Outreach

By: Dollie Sauls & Penny Martin

Narok, Kenya

Greetings,

Recently a group of college students started hanging out at the house asking questions about God, the United States, and comparing cultures.  Out of this gathering KMO started a group for this age bracket to come over during scheduled events and fellowship. Many of these young adults really don’t have a place to fit into at church, so it seemed right to embrace what the Father was doing.

At one meeting we discussed the necessity of doing another food outreach to a remote village and most of them replied that they couldn’t give money toward food, but they wanted to provide manpower to help us. So we all agreed that that was exactly what we needed to make the outreach a success.

 In this village, Simon, an evangelist had been praying for help for his people and asking God how he could preach the word and not offer help. So in a meeting the previous week, KMO met with Simon and heard his desperate situation. We all joined hands for the common goal of Christ to demonstrate that faith without works it dead!!! Simon's heart was greatly encouraged as he heard that KMO would be going to two villages in his area. The villages are located about 1 1/2 hours southwest of Narok.

 So Oct 20^th, we loaded up two vehicles to go to the destination of our outreach. On the way to the village, you could see the dry riverbeds, lack of grass, and livestock, but what was funny was that we came up on a herd of giraffes, twiga in Swahili, sitting and baking in the hot Kenyan sun.

As we reached the first village, the crowd had already arrived and was very glad to welcome us. They were excited to receive the much-needed relief. The College and Career group handed out the food bags, which contained cooking oil, sugar, tea, ungali or grits, beans and corn. This bag contained enough provision to feed a family of 7 through 2-3 weeks.  The people in the village blessed us with singing and dancing as a way of saying thank you to us and an offering to God. Most of these people were believers from Simon’s church and were genuinely appreciative and had great countenances considering the severe drought conditions they had endured.

 The next village was about 5 miles a away and again the news had gotten out that we would be coming with assistance, but the people in this area had not been discipled very much and their manners were different than that of the last group, so we had to stop handing out food and discuss some issues. At first I thought how shall I tell this group to settle down and then I had an idea about THE CHIEF.  You see, in Kenya, an area tribal chief still exists and makes decisions on behalf of the people, so I told them I heard from The Ultimate Tribal Chief God and HE said to calm down and share the food that it was His way of doing business. KMO and a representative from the College and Career group discuss the importance of being patient and sharing what was given, so everyone would at least have something to eat for the next two weeks. So after dealing with the crowd, we continued handing out the food and everyone got a bag and we had two bags left over of which we gave to Simon the evangelist.

 At the end of the food relief outreach, the team pulled over and enjoyed a little bite to eat and a drink we talked about the outreach and it was beautiful to hear the group discuss how good it made them feel to help others in greater need.  Then we all prayed over Simon the evangelist and enjoyed the SWEET presence of the Holy Spirit!!!

Dollie & Penny