Dear Friends,

My visit to Ethiopia went well.  Thank you for praying.  The mind picture one gets of Ethiopia is usually of starving kids with flies crawling over their faces.  That is a good fund raiser, but not a true picture of the entire country.  Much of Ethiopia is very modern with a good climate and good agricultural output.  However, it is a large country with a varied terrain and it is true that there are perpetually areas of food shortage.

This year the needs are particularly bad.  The southern parts of the country are populated by subsistence farmers and herdsmen.  This spring the rains did not come at all, so the grain crops did not grow so there was no harvest.  The pastures died, so there is not food for the livestock.  The end result is that about 1.4 million people have been left with no food.  This is an awesome number facing the possibility of starvation.  It is raining in some areas now, and farmers are planting crops, but the next harvest is still four months away.  That is a long time to go without food.  The lack of pasture is so great that the UN has recommended that people slaughter their livestock and eat what they can and try to preserve what meat they can since all of the animals are likely to die soon anyway.

The situation is compounded by the lack of excess food in the world markets at the moment.  WFP (World Food Program) supplies emergency food to Ethiopia, but has 38,000 tons less in its stores than is needed.  It is in the process of bringing food from South Africa to fill the need, but it won’t arrive for six to eight weeks.  In the interim, there is likely to be starvation.

Samaritan’s Purse has a small role in the crisis.  My assignment was to monitor and advise our very competent field staff as they bring our relief programs into action.  We have received grants from international agencies to provide highly concentrated special foods and medicines to the most severely malnourished children to try to keep them alive until the next harvest.  There are currently 7,800 children under five years of age being treated in programs such as ours in the southern regions.  All are at risk.

It is a frightening situation.  SP is filling the gap with donated funds while the emergency supplements are on the way. (Things such as Plumpi-Nut, believe it or not!)  We are rapidly setting up therapeutic feeding centers.

I spent a lot of time in the Somali region on this trip.  This is a sparsely populated desert area of pastoralists.  There are few roads or towns.  Many kids have already died.  Many more will do so over the next few months.  Our teams have set up mobile clinics with therapeutic feeding units to enable us to reach out to these migratory people.  The lack of roads, poor living conditions and absence of water make this a most challenging task.

Here are a few pictures.  No dying kids or flies.  Just life in Somali.

 Paul wearing a Man Skirt     Aaron and Friend     Somali KIds 

I haven’t painted a very encouraging picture, because it is a desperate situation.  Only through God’s grace and His power will we be able to help.  Our teams render all aid in His name.  Your prayers will enable them to succeed.  Thank you.