Our family recently sponsored a child from world vision....and while I new these people in other countries are hurting and struggling just to be able to feed half of there family one meal each day {usually the youngest first} I didn't realize the the severity of it until I started following world vision on Twitter. I didn't anticipate hearing words like drought and famine....and then we play it off as though the drought isn't that bad, if they can just walk farther to get to the water. But this year God decided to show me what a drought looks like in a very insignificant way, yet seemed so powerful in my mind. Sometimes all I need is a visual to understand and that is exactly what I got yesterday.
Yesterday as I was getting on the freeway heading the wrong direction I thought well God must have a reason or a plan, and then I turned my head and saw this area that i've seen a. Hundred. Times. But then I realized it looked different. Where there is normally water there was none. Where there is normally wildlife wading there was none. Where there was normally green plants and trees around it was brown and yellow from lack of water and heat. Where the water should stand was dark brown dirt cracked from heat and drought.
The image so clear in my mind, and I thought wow. Lord we could really use some water.
That same say we were on our way home from dinner, it was my sweet husbands birthday, and it was a 45 minute drive home so I thought i'd surf twitter. World vision tweet. Drought. Famine. A mamas story on life in Kenya. I reD the story aloud to my husband as he drove, and it took so much in me to controlling my emotions. This mother has 7 children. She is unsure of her own age. She being a mother {like any good mother would} sacrifices her own needs for food to feed her family. She is malnurished and walks miles a day just for aittle dirty water. She had twins one died. They married there 14 year old daughter off to be able to provide for the family as they traded her into marriage for some livestock. However with the drought the livestock have now died. They also felt if they married there daughter off she would be provided for better than they could have done. They have a farm to grow mayza, however no water no crops. There children are hungry, but they have learned to not ask for food as they know there is none. All their kids are sick...the twin daughter who is 5 is pretty sick, worse off than all of their children, but they can not afford a doctor because it costs $1.16 in u.s money.
Are you kidding me....I yelled to my husband. $1.16!! I spend more than that each day on a soda. Or coffee. $1.16 could save their daughters life. I just can't imagine all that this drought and famine has cost these poor people.
World vision is asking for $10.00. If you can text 4AFRICA to 20222 this could help provide for families like this mama and her sick children.
I hugged and kissed my children extra long tonight and praised God for His blessings....and I prayed for rain and provisions for Africa and any other countries struggling as they are. See this mama isn't alone. She is one of many that are in this condition. God dumped bucketfulls of rain on us last night....oh how I pray He did the same for Africa.
You can read more of there story
here...
http://wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/updates/C188CE91EE415E7C882578D900712D94?opendocument Sweet Jesus you promise to provide for our needs. Please do so for this family and all that are just like them. Amen.
XOXO.
Gina
