IAFR in Kakuma

IAFR is partnering with United Refugee and Host Churches (URHC) in Kakuma to provide emergency food assistance to vulnerable people. URHC reached out to us in late May to see if we could help them with this need. Within a couple of weeks, God provided! We are thankful to our IAFR partners that were quick and generous in their response to this need (including National Presbyterian Church (Washington D.C.), Awaken Community Church (St. Paul, MN), and a private donor.

So IAFR wired $5,250 to URHC in June. We received a report and several photos from URHC this week.

Emergency food assistance was provided for 82 households that included 625 people. The maize flour, rice, beans, sugar and cooking oil will meet their need for food for the coming month.

We hope to send further assistance in August, assuming that God will continues to provide for as long as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect the economy and there is need for emergency food assistance. Please pray with us to that end.

Photos: Recipients of emergency food assistance in Kakuma this month. Photos provided by URHC.

Hunger is always an issue in Kakuma refugee camp, but the Covid-19 pandemic has ramped up the need to where our refugee brothers and sisters have asked for help (something they haven’t done before).

They have asked if IAFR can provide a month’s worth of maize, beans and cooking oil for 50 vulnerable families during the pandemic. To do so, we need to raise about $25/per person per month – or $6,250/per month to offer assistance to the 50 families (250 people).

I told them we will do what we can to try and help with 3 months worth of assistance. I prayed that God would answer their prayers and provide them with their daily bread. And I prayed that God might give us the joy and privilege of partnering with Him as he provides.

Less than 24 hours later, I got a call from a partner church in Washington D.C. They asked if IAFR had any Covid-19 Emergency Response needs related to our work. And a few days later, my home church in St. Paul, Minnesota asked:

“Do you need funding for food [in Kakuma]?”

It may well prove that between these two generous churches, that 2 months worth of food assistance will be provided. They both said that they will confirm soon. How beautiful it is to see churches in the USA partner with churches in Kakuma refugee camp in this life-giving way in the midst of the pandemic!

I often feel like I get to look behind the curtain and see how God is at work to answer the prayers of refugees and asylum seekers. In the past two months alone, I have been talking with them in the morning, listening to them share their needs – and within 24 hours I find God has already moved someone to give what is needed to meet the need through IAFR.

Once again, God has provided before I’ve had time to share the need and invite people to help. It is nothing short of breath-taking.

It’s the message running through Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, and it continues to be true today.

God sees. God hears. God cares.

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If you'd like to help provide food assistance to our friends in Kakuma, click here.