If There Ever Was a Time…

If you’ve ever wanted to help with people so poor and so excluded from resources they cannot help themselves, this is it. Bad charity gives us a lot of reasons NOT to give, but this project in Pokot ticks all the right boxes for me.

• The need is genuine. This is one of the truly tragic places left in the earth with great need and little aid from government or nonprofits from anywhere in the world. It is remote and the need is so great many turn away overwhelmed. It is truly one of the uttermost parts of the earth where drought, malnutrition, and lack of hygiene are killing off thousands of people.
• Every dime you send goes to the need in Pokot. We do not take out any administrative or transactional fees. All that is paid for by Lifestream.
• It is furthering the Gospel in a non-coersive way. The help is being given freely, but with it the opportunity to come to know the Living Jesus for those who are interested. And there are so many interested, because they used to pray to their ancestors, but their ancestors did not come to help them. You and our friends in Kitale helped them.
• We are not creating an ongoing dependency on western aid, but intentionally helping them no longer need it. This is not giving someone a fish, but teaching them how to fish and supplying them with the nets and boat so they can actually do it.
• The Pokot people are deeply involved and vested in each phase of this project. Resources from us are matched 50/50 with sweat equity from the people there so that they come to “own” it. These people already began to clear land in advance of our saying we’d help provide irrigation in hopes that God would provide some way.

Please don’t let any of that put you under a load of guilt. I say this so people who are normally cynical about these kinds of needs would look a bit deeper. We do not need and do not want any guilt-driven dollars to help here. We are looking for generous hearts who have some extra resource and upon hearing of the need, a growing desire to help the people of Pokot.

This week ChristianityToday.com ran an article about World Vision having a difficult time raising money to help with the desperate need in Turkana.  It was called, Why Christians Should Stop Caring About So Many Causes. Turkana is the county right next to Pokot, with the same challenges we have faced there. Here’s a brief excerpt from that article:

Many people come here and take pictures,” the elder told me as he leaned on his walking stick, his slender frame swathed in heavy cloth despite the heat. “Then they go away and never help.”  This is the moment that haunts me from my recent visit to Turkana, a region in northwestern Kenya crippled by drought and sliding inexorably into widespread hunger.

This article made me all the more grateful for the generosity of this audience and those at The God Journey for helping us send over $1.3 million to that region in the last nine years.We began after the disputed election brought tribal violence to that region leaving hundreds of children homeless and in need of care.  It has continued in recent years as people we know there discovered the great need in Pokot and have been helping them with water, food, education, medical needs, and income generation. We are helping on a five-year plan to create sustainable economies in this very desperate regions of the world.  Our hope is to continue to send them $10,000 per month for another 42 months, but there is still more that’s needed to give them the tools to determine their own future.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been asked by the villagers in Pokot if we can help them begin agricultural projects near the wells we drilled for them a couple of hears ago. There is simply no food to go around and they want to put in the irrigation infrastructure to help raise their first crops. Just since putting the need out last week, we have already received enough to do the first well as a prototype to do five others.  I am amazed and blessed and want to see if we can find enough ($150,000) to do all six over the next year or two. That will provide them with a steady source of food and they will look to expand it in years to come.

If you have it on your heart to help these Kenyan people suffering under such a huge strain, you can direct it through Lifestream as contributions are tax-deductible in the US.  As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya.  We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Thank you in advance on behalf of the people of Pokot for your gifts and prayers for them.

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