The current global food crisis has significantly impacted Kenya, having experienced a failure of four consecutive rainy seasons in the past two years. The onset of the fifth rainy season was late and has also not yielded much, with erratic and less than sufficient rains, threatening to exacerbate an already bad situation. The areas affected are mainly the northeastern parts of the country and some parts towards the coastal region in the south. The situation has seen the number of people requiring humanitarian assistance stand at 4.35 million. Cases of acute malnutrition continue to be reported in these regions affecting particularly children aged 5 years and below, pregnant or lactating moms.

School programs were also disrupted as families prioritized the search for food. The sustained drought also almost completely wiped out key family assets including livestock and crops, which means that their productive capacity and livelihoods are severely affected. By God's grace, through support from Compassion, we have been able to respond effectively to the families of the sponsored participants through disaster relief funds. For instance, cases of malnutrition have been supported to access medical treatment and nutritional support. Our response also included working with our partners churches to provide food packs, access to water and cash transfers to enable the families to respond to their immediate situation in the most appropriate manner depending on the context. We are also implementing other short and long-term measures to build resilience among the impacted families through our food security and livelihood strategy. Thankfully, most of our program participants and their families were not as severely disrupted and remained fairly stable during the period due to the timely emergency response.

Over the years, we have continued to gather tons of information and gain useful experience that helps inform how we respond to such challenges. Our strategic priorities, therefore, include the implementation of our holistic development program for all our program participants, household economic empowerment through our food security and livelihood strategy, child safeguarding through our child protection strategy, and providing access to safe/portable water for drinking, cooking, livestock and other farming activities.

I have been blessed to experience God's hand in the lives of the participants and their families in multiple ways. The are many stories of participants who have received treatment and rehabilitation of life-threatening medical conditions. The sheer joy on their faces and their caregivers, and the expression of gratitude to God and to Compassion is priceless. The Lord has also provided for the improvement of shelters for families that have been living in unsafe and deplorable conditions, some of which are headed by aging grandparents, caregivers suffering from serious medical conditions, and others are child-headed. During the ensuing global food crisis, over 46,000 families have been supported to access life-saving supplies of food and water and medical treatment.

Through Compassion sponsorship, the lives of our program participants are being touched and transformed in amazing ways - for good. The mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name continues to be advanced in tangible and observable ways. A shining example is one of our program alumni who works with the State Law Office of the Attorney General. She is also serving as one of our board of directors at the Compassion Kenya office. We have several others who are serving as pastors, teachers, doctors and entrepreneurs. To our generous supporters like you, what I would like to say is best captured in 2 Corinthians 9:12 (NIV). This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.