American Baptist International Ministries has released an emergency relief grant of $20,000 in One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) funds to Church World Service (CWS) to provide aid in several drought-ravaged countries in East Africa.  More than 10 million people in East Africa are struggling to survive the driest period in the Eastern Horn of Africa region since 1995. The drought is causing widespread crop failure, devastating livestock and causing substantial increases in food prices, according to a CWS spokesperson. In hard-hit Somalia alone, some 3.7 million people are now facing a crisis.

 In total, Church World Service (CWS) is calling for $1.2 million to provide immediate relief and longer-term food security/nutrition and water initiatives.  CWS work will be focused in Kenya, and support ACT Alliance partners providing relief in Somalia and Ethiopia.  “Our churches have responded generously to disasters in Haiti, Chile and Japan in recent years and months,” commented Charles Jones, IM area director for Africa, Europe and the Middle East. “The tragedy emerging right now on the Horn of Africa is different.  It has been unfolding quietly over a longer period of time, yet it is no less destructive and painful. It is claiming its victims slowly and painfully, as they struggle to find sources of food and shelter.”

 According to CWS, food security — the access and availability to food — has deteriorated for most households in all arid and semi-arid regions in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia as well as other countries in the region.  In a word, the situation has become a crisis. Crops have failed, large numbers of livestock have perished, and local food prices have increased substantially.  Among the characteristics of this crisis: Deepening food insecurity in pastoral areas and in urban poor settings; the rate of acute malnutrition among children in these areas is steadily increasing; and Kenya is experiencing an unprecedented influx of refugees fleeing drought conditions from Somalia.

Earlier this week, the United Nations declared that famine exists in two areas of southern Somalia, southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle. (Famine is declared when acute rates of malnutrition exist among children, exceeding 30 percent; when more than two persons per 10,000 die daily; and when people are not able to access and sufficiently utilize food and other basics.)

Church World Service is a member of the ACT Alliance, a global coalition of churches and agencies engaged in development, humanitarian assistance and advocacy. American Baptist Churches USA (ABC) is a member of Church World Service.

Emergency donations are needed. They can be made on the International Ministries website or by a check payable to “One Great Hour of Sharing – East Africa Drought” and either given to your church, or mailed to:

International Ministries
P.O. Box 851
Valley Forge, PA 19482

One Great Hour of Sharing is administered by the World Relief Committee of the General Board.  The Committee facilitates American Baptist emergency relief, disaster rehabilitation, refugee work, and development assistance by establishing policy guidelines and overseeing distribution of the annual One Great Hour of Sharing offering.

 We have all watched the devastation and continuing danger with the earthquake (the strongest in over a 100 years) and tsunami in Japan.  American Baptist News Service continues to report the latest news and information: http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/6200/53/

Our American Baptist missionaries are safe: www.internationalministries.org/read/33551.

American Baptists have already sent relief funds to our Baptist partners in Japan.  This was possible because of undesignated gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing that you made last year.

Obviously, rebuilding will be a major effort.  Make your gifts marked “Japan Relief” to One Great Hour of Sharing through your church and your regular mission gifts through the Region, and we will promptly and accurately distribute those funds as we always do.  The Great Rivers Region has always been generous in its response to such disasters, and I have no doubt that we will be a leader in this circumstance.

Please be sure to include this disaster in your midweek prayer service.

Dwight Stinnett
Executive Minister
American Baptist Churches of the Great Rivers Region
Centered in Christ — Committed to the Whole Gospel — Covenanted Together