Thanks for the Prayers and Support As Crisis Continues in Kenya
by Ralph Bromley
One of our partner organizations, Hope for the Nations, recently went on a mission trip to Kenya, Africa, including the founder, Ralph Bromley. Although he had been to Kenya many times before, he experienced firsthand the common civil unrest that permeates throughout Africa as a whole. It was an experience Ralph won't soon forget and it also reinforces the importance and responsibility for us to continue to support those who desperately need it.
Dear friends and family,
The January 4 headlines of the KELOWNA COURIER read: "Kelowna man trapped in Kenya amid unrest"
My New Year started off with a 'bang.' Kenya, a nation who boasted 40 years of peace and security was descending into the quagmire of uncontrolled violence, the destruction of homes and businesses, and the killing of fellow Kenyans...the Kikuyu's. A fearful question arose: "Could this become Rwanda?"
My trip to Kenya with Randy, my son-in-law, Steve Whiting and three business friends from Toronto began with my being paged in the Vancouver airport. Donna called with an urgent message stating that the parts of Kenya we were going to were "in flames" as a result of the election crisis.
The empty streets of Nairobi were an eerie welcome to this once-peaceful nation.
The entire city went into 'lock down' mode and few were venturing from their homes. Businesses were closed, taxi service was down to a trickle, and the domestic flights were canceled. All were glued to their radios, televisions, and cell phones. The violence was spreading throughout the land without intervention from the police or military. People were vulnerable and very frightened.
Our team sat out New Year's Eve drinking tea in our hotel compound. A concert which was to feature Randy's music was cancelled. The whole event was so surreal. I thought of the poem: "Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."
January 1 was spent in Sinai Slum, a hovel of 250,000 squatters living in 10 by 10 tin shacks. We visited 30 homes where we chatted and prayed under the watchful eye of Sinai gang members who were there to protect us.
January 2 - Air Link was flying into Eldoret (the city where a church was burned to the ground with many Kikuyu inside) to evacuate fearful citizens. We took our scheduled flight and landed in chaos. Eldoret, a usually busy center, was closed down and evidence of destruction was everywhere. We took a soldier on board our Landrover and proceeded north to our destination in Kitale.
Steve was temporarily arrested at the airport check point for allegedly taking pictures of security personnel. He was removed from the van, taken to a small office, and interrogated on his knees. The drama was short-lived with our leader providing some Kenyan shillings for coffee. It was another warning that all were nervous and trigger happy.
The road to Kitale was strewn with burned vehicles, broken glass on the roads, and large boulders across the highway to stop any vehicles and check for Kikuyus. The highway was empty as we traveled, and shops and markets were all closed. We did not pass one vehicle on this hour and a half stretch of road.
Strangely enough, our time in Katile was very productive. It was a blend of providing leadership for those around us, communicating with the Canadian media, and visiting our many projects in the region. We quickly put together a two-stage strategy for both evacuation and the caring for many Kenyans in need.
We experienced:
tangible results of prayer for protection and wisdom
constant communication with friends and Canadian media
regular connection with the Canadian and Dutch embassies
the cooperation of AIM to charter out flights for Kikuyu friends
the injection of funds from the West to address the needs of food shortages and transportation
the privilege of bringing Kikuyus to safety and
a sense of God's protection and favor wherever we went.
This is a time to stop and thank you for your prayers and generosity. We experience the tangible evidence of God's protection and provision. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars on evacuation expenses, food drops, and cash drops given to pastors for their congregations. Our resources were distributed in the Turkana, Katile, and Bungoma regions, plus assistance to two slums areas in Nairobi.
We now need to get container goods into Kenya and to provide fertilizer and seed in time to catch the rain season just around the corner. Food security is of vital importance and the growing of crops is the best remedy for this need. We have a distribution network for container goods to reach 5 million people in the Western Province. We simply need goods to arrive.
The crisis is subsiding, but a large gash in the psyche of the Kenyans remains. The nation has been traumatized by this uprising...a result of chronic corruption and the flagrant abuse of power.
Injustice has once again been served out to the citizens of Kenya.
The rich and powerful have again muted the voice of the poor. The 'transgressors' remain free and the citizens pick up the tab. The cameras move on to another story while the victimized remain in their plight. The noble quest for change has been silenced and the "burning flax extinguished."
My prayer for Kenya is: "Let justice roll like a mighty river!"
I close with reflections on the great honor it was to serve in this time of crisis. I truly experienced the words from the song "a shelter in the time of storm."
Special thanks to all who expressed their care and support, through prayer, phone calls, as well as giving. It means more than you can know.
Thank You for Making Partners In Action First Classic 100 Golf Event a Birdie of a Success!
Partners In Action had a "ball" at our first 100 Hole Golf Event on Saturday, February 23rd at the Encanto Short Nine Course in Phoenix. We had 24 golfers who had a great day driving, beating, chipping, and shanking 100's of golf balls to help PIA with our administrative costs. Because we give 100% of your donations to your cause, it can be a challenge to maintain day-to-day overhead. And in the process of a great day of golf, sun, and fellowship, we managed to also raise almost $50,000!
Aside from our sincerest thanks to those who participated, we would also like to thank over 200 people who were generous enough to donate to this event. We also would like to thank the following businesses who contributed by donating prizes for the golfers for their efforts in finding sponsors: the Phoenix Art Museum, Broadway Palms Dinner Theatre, Arizona Jewish Theatre Company, Phoenix Zoo, Grand Canyon Railroad, Phoenix Motors, Tommy Bahama, and the Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center.
Again, thanks to everyone for your participation and sponsorship. You are enabling us as we continue to help the kids! We look forward to even greater success next year!
Where Have All the Swazis Gone?
by Stephanie Nolen From Saturday's Globe and Mail
As we mentioned last month, one of our current projects is based in Bulembu, Swaziland. Bulembu, a small town with heart and vision, is redefining and rebuilding itself, but it is not an easy or quick road. A recent Swaziland census offers a very chilling picture of the country's future. The population is shrinking – unheard of in a developing country – while per capital GNP is rising because of the decline in population. This is the making of a perfect storm of monumental proportions for the poor of this tiny and dying country. International aid is actually unavailable because of the way the decline in population affects the economic numbers giving a total false picture of reality.
What would you do if this were happening in your backyard to your children? If you would be called to action, please consider getting involved with our Project Bulembu. Please also keep the people of Swaziland and the work in Bulembu in your prayers. For more information, please contact us at 480-882-0800.
MATSAPHA, SWAZILAND — Solomon Dlamini decided the numbers were wrong: When the Swazi government released preliminary results of the national census a few weeks back, Prof. Dlamini, head of the national university's department of demography and statistics, took one look and concluded that the bureaucrats had made a terrible error.
The census, a door-to-door count through all of this country's hilly villages, found 912,229 Swazis. That is 17,489 fewer than were counted at the last census, a decade before.
Shrinking populations aren't news in developed countries such as Germany or Japan, but in developing countries such as Swaziland, in African countries where half the population was aged 16 or under the last time they counted, populations do not shrink. Until now.
"My training says that in demographic history, this is unprecedented and it cannot be accurate," Prof. Dlamini said in an interview this month in a small office crammed with books. "But my reality says otherwise."
Ncobile Ndwande is a traditional healer in Mbangazwa village in northern Swaziland. She's 60, and on anti-retroviral drugs for HIV. When she trained as a healer in the 1960s, she learned to cure everything but cataracts and cancer - but in the age of AIDS she says she sees so many young people for whom she can do nothing but suggest an HIV test. These days she is careful to wear latex gloves.
The Swazi government, reacting in consternation to what the statistics imply, is refusing to call the census figures final. But if they are accurate – and most experts believe they are – they mean that Swaziland's population has not only dropped by 17,000 people; it is 300,000 people, or nearly 30 per cent of the population, below what was projected as the likely rate of growth 20 years ago.
While the figures are debated, no one here is uncertain about the cause of the drop. "If I were to sit down to count the people I have lost to HIV, I wouldn't get up again," Prof. Dlamini said with a sigh. He found himself recently arguing with colleagues; some said that it simply isn't conceivable that the population has actually shrunk. No developing nation has ever shrunk. But others pointed out that no country has ever, in recorded history, had an epidemic like that of HIV in Swaziland. And nobody knows what it will mean for the country's future.
A toxic mix of factors combined to make the epidemic so bad here: a highly infectious and virulent strain of the virus circulating in the population; a culture that condones, even encourages, promiscuity and polygamy in men, while denying women the right to refuse to have sex or insist on the use of condoms; a limited economy that relies on sending workers away from home for long stretches to work in highly infected South Africa; and a government, led by a playboy king with an ever-expanding stable of wives, that has denied the scale of the problem, and, while people were dying, poured funds into luxury-car purchases and highway expansions.
Once the epidemic had dug in, in the late 1990s, Swaziland's grossly understaffed and underfunded health system collapsed under the pressure. As a consequence, only achingly slow progress has been made in getting anti-AIDS drugs to the sick. So Swaziland has experienced a rate of death that would appear to have outstripped even the high birth rate and the growth of the young population.
This country has the world's highest rate of infection: 26 per cent of adults, 43 per cent of pregnant women, a staggering 49 per cent of young women between the ages 25 and 29. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 in 1997 to 31 in 2004, the lowest rate in the world. Only one in four people will live to the age of 40.
"From 1986 to 1997, we grew by more than 200,000 people," Prof. Dlamini said. "But it's the period between these two censuses [1997 and 2007] when the epidemic reached its apex."
He had anticipated that the new census would show a growth in population of between 50,000 and 80,000 people, "which would still be 120,000 below the projection," but now thinks he was being naive. "Maybe as a demographer sitting here, you underestimate the degree of the devastation."
"I don't think anybody quite realized what the depth of HIV would be in Swaziland," said Derek von Wissell, director of the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS. Normally energetic and determinedly positive, Dr. von Wissell slumped in his chair and stared at the ground while he discussed the census.
"We knew people were going to die, but we started to do treatment and we stayed upbeat and then … you see this." Nationwide, he said, it's been a wake-up call. "Even if they undercounted by 10 per cent, we're down 25 per cent from where we should be."
That isn't news to Ncobile Ndwande. Back in May, a census taker from the central government trekked up her to her village, Mbangazwa, 100 kilometres north of the capital, and counted Ms. Ndwande, her eight children and nine grandchildren. Two of Ms. Ndwande's children have predeceased her, as have two grandchildren; she herself is on anti-retroviral treatment for HIV. Her husband won't test for the virus, and has gone off to live with two other wives.
Ms. Ndwande, 60, is an inyanga, a traditional healer. She learned her art in the 1960s; back then, she said, the only ailments an inyanga couldn't cure were cancer or cataracts. "People were not so much sick like now," she said, tucking her cellphone into her traditional wrap skirt. "But six or seven years ago, people started developing many sicknesses. They come with diarrhea, I cure this and they come with something else; I cure that and they go home only to find they are developing mouth sores and they come back. That's when I started to think, 'Something is really wrong.'"
All she can do for those people is send them to the hospital for an HIV test, she said, as she sorted the herbs and roots she keeps in old mayonnaise jars, alongside the latex gloves she now wears when she cuts patients to put traditional medicine beneath their skin. These days she spends much of her time at funerals. "We bury people even in the middle of the week, bury people daily," she said. It's difficult even to remember what life was like a decade ago.
"I suppose without HIV, things would be different here," she said. "You would find us with electricity and piped water and more people with jobs. Instead, all you find here is AIDS."
Ms. Ndwande's speculation about what might have been in a Swaziland without AIDS, or even with a lower rate of infection, is echoed by development experts. The population has dropped both because HIV infection lowers fecundity, the number of children women have, and, of course, because of death.
"And the people dying in the greatest numbers, they are your young, productive people, the ones who make the largest contribution to the economy," explained Alan Whiteside, who heads the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and who has made extensive study of Swaziland. Nearly half of all deaths today are of people between 16 and 35. (On a normal population curve, of course, it is the elderly who die in the greatest numbers.) "We don't have any idea what this kind of a loss will mean for Swaziland, there's never been anything like it. Where, for God's sake, do they go from here?"
There are two African countries with HIV infection rates that approach Swaziland's: Lesotho and Botswana, both of which also have small populations and a migrant-labour population that travels often to heavily infected South Africa. But Botswana has not seen a dramatic decline in population, while the 2006 Lesotho census found an increase of about 20,000 people to 1.8 million, compared with 10 years earlier.
Dr. Whiteside predicted that Botswana, which is far wealthier than Swaziland, has good health care and a much more comprehensive ARV treatment program, will not shrink. But if Lesotho's census were redone in 2009, he predicted, it would likely show a population contracting like Swaziland's.
"They are a bit behind Swaziland on the epidemic curve," he explained – that is, the highest levels of mortality had yet to kick in when the last count was done. South Africa, which has the world's highest number of people with HIV/AIDS, might also be shrinking or close to it, but the process is masked by the huge influx of refugees, including at least three million from Zimbabwe.
It is not clear what will happen with Swaziland: The rates of new infection have begun to drop slightly among young people, but they remain stable or are increasing among people in their 30s. It is not clear whether the rate of death has yet reached its highest point. Only a third of people who are sick enough to need ARVs are getting the drugs; if that figure does not accelerate significantly in the coming months, then the population may well continue to shrink, Dr. Whiteside said.
Not everyone is persuaded of the Swazi figures: "Experience has taught me to be skeptical of census data in general," said Rob Dorrington, a professor of actuarial science at the University of Cape Town, who said he finds it hard to believe that AIDS-related mortality could be so high, and suspects other causes for the drop.
"It is not unusual for there to be an undercount of children and of men [in a census], and deaths would have to have been implausibly high, given the estimated level of prevalence, for one to be able to detect this through the change in the numbers counted by the census."
Amos Zwane, Swaziland's senior statistician, wrote in his preliminary report on the census that "a population decline or stagnation was not expected and this result is most surprising." His office is going to find a logical explanation, he said, and will not speculate on the cause until they produce final numbers in the middle of 2008.
The census takers did not do a postenumeration check, which most censuses do to assess the impact of undercounting. Prof. Dlamini called that a shocking oversight, but then, he said, he is not sure how much it would help.
If they were to somehow "find" an additional 30,000 people, the country would only be breaking even, replacing young people as fast as they die. "And it's impossible that they would find 300,000 more people," he said, head in hands – and that's who is missing.
It's difficult for any woman to become a single mother - even more so if you are living in poverty. The BBC ran a piece of what it is like for a single woman in Kenya to have children without support or hope. Many of the children in our homes in Kenya were born to single mothers who could not take care of their child.
Ostracised
As women across the world mark International Women's Day, Ogichoya Kimogol from northern Kenya describes how she has coped as a young, single mother.
"When I became pregnant at 17, there was a lot of pressure to get rid of the baby because I was not married.
"None of the villagers here would talk to me then. I felt bad, I was really down and depressed when they rejected me like that. I felt like I was no longer a human being. I was so ashamed of myself."
Forced abortion
Ogichoya's mother, Nkarkar, says that when a girl in the Rendille community becomes pregnant outside of wedlock, a common predicament because of a lack of education or the girls have no control over sexual partners, she faces the terrifying prospect of a forced abortion.
When this happens, she is taken out into the woods by local women, who step on her belly until she miscarries.
"I didn't want Ogichoya to go through it as so many girls who do have lost their lives," she says.
Help
Nkarkar turned to her local church, where she had heard about a women's group who assist single mothers.
"The church women came to help me," says Ogichoya, "as I did not want to get rid of the baby.
"They assisted me in putting up my hut; they collected sacks and boxes to cover the frame to build it. They bought me cooking pots and cups.
"When I gave birth they supported me and brought clothes for my baby."
Customers
Traditionally livestock, the community's source of wealth, is passed from father to son so women are dependent on fathers and husbands to provide for them.
"In the past, single mothers have had no way of supporting themselves," says Ogichoya.
"But the women's group helped me to start up my own business selling tea, sugar, and batteries.
"That's when people started to accept me and to buy a few things from me."
She now receives a steady stream of customers at her home.
Maize mill
"I sell the goods from my hut. I use any profit I make to buy more stock as well as food and clothes for the family," says Ogichoya.
"I buy maize which I grind at the mill and use it to feed my family.
"And if I want to make myself beautiful I buy beads to make into necklaces."
Other mothers
"I learnt how to manage my business at a workshop run by a local Catholic organisation, the Diocese of Marsabit," says Ogichoya.
"As well as the workshops, I meet with other young mothers every week and we talk about our work, share ideas and help each other with our problems."
More work
"Life here is hard for women," says Ogichoya.
"We have to fetch water and firewood, cook, make milk gourds, build the huts, milk the goats. Women do more work than men.
"Even if a man slaughters a camel, he just kills it but then the women have to skin it and prepare it for eating."
Drought
Traditionally people here live off their animals, moving from place to place to find pasture and water.
"My parents have two camels and 50 goats but they lost 100 goats and four camels during the drought last year," says Ogichoya.
"Through my business I was able to support them. What I was earning was not enough but it helped. If I can continue with my business I think it will really help if there is drought again."
Happy
"People have changed their attitude towards girls like me," says Ogichoya.
"Through running my business I have become a role model in this village. Now I am happy, I am healthy, and I have a son, Hilary, who I really love.
"Women have taken a step. We are now in a better position, not like before."
We support Jesus Loves the Little Children Foundation in the Philippines. Below is a letter they sent thanking everyone for their support in 2007.
Dear Friends, Partners, and Sponsors:
As we begin the year 2008 with joyous expectations and on behalf of the staff, workers, and children of Jesus Loves the Little Children Foundation, I would like to thank you for your generous giving and faithful support in 2007.
Christmas 2007 was an unforgettable one for our twenty-five Residents and eighty Community children. The children's wish and ours to have a festive, remarkable, gift-filled Christmas were answered amazingly by the grace of God. JLLCF celebrated the holiday season with these young souls loaded with food, games, presents, prizes and people, young and old, from the slum. With all these blessings, we acknowledge your openhanded involvement in all our endeavors in the past year.
I am sure that our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we all served, is happy that you were able to honor and love Him in a very concrete way by loving and helping the abandoned, the outcasts, the neglected, the nothings of this world.
Again, thank you for being one in Spirit, heart, and mind with us and let us together continue to be rays of light and hope for the poor and needy.
God bless and have a bountiful new year!
Yours gratefully in Christ,
Bishop Augusto "Chito" Sanchez, Jr.
Founder and Chairman
One of our partner organizations, Hope for the Nations, recently went on a mission trip to Kenya, Africa, including the founder, Ralph Bromley. Although he had been to Kenya many times before, he experienced firsthand the common civil unrest that permeates throughout Africa as a whole. It was an experience Ralph won't soon forget and it also reinforces the importance and responsibility for us to continue to support those who desperately need it.
As we mentioned last month, one of our current projects is based in Bulembu, Swaziland. Bulembu, a small town with heart and vision, is redefining and rebuilding itself, but it is not an easy or quick road. A recent Swaziland census offers a very chilling picture of the country's future. The population is shrinking – unheard of in a developing country – while per capital GNP is rising because of the decline in population. This is the making of a perfect storm of monumental proportions for the poor of this tiny and dying country. International aid is actually unavailable because of the way the decline in population affects the economic numbers giving a total false picture of reality. 
Ncobile Ndwande is a traditional healer in Mbangazwa village in northern Swaziland. She's 60, and on anti-retroviral drugs for HIV. When she trained as a healer in the 1960s, she learned to cure everything but cataracts and cancer - but in the age of AIDS she says she sees so many young people for whom she can do nothing but suggest an HIV test. These days she is careful to wear latex gloves.
A toxic mix of factors combined to make the epidemic so bad here: a highly infectious and virulent strain of the virus circulating in the population; a culture that condones, even encourages, promiscuity and polygamy in men, while denying women the right to refuse to have sex or insist on the use of condoms; a limited economy that relies on sending workers away from home for long stretches to work in highly infected South Africa; and a government, led by a playboy king with an ever-expanding stable of wives, that has denied the scale of the problem, and, while people were dying, poured funds into luxury-car purchases and highway expansions.
"And the people dying in the greatest numbers, they are your young, productive people, the ones who make the largest contribution to the economy," explained Alan Whiteside, who heads the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and who has made extensive study of Swaziland. Nearly half of all deaths today are of people between 16 and 35. (On a normal population curve, of course, it is the elderly who die in the greatest numbers.) "We don't have any idea what this kind of a loss will mean for Swaziland, there's never been anything like it. Where, for God's sake, do they go from here?"
Amos Zwane, Swaziland's senior statistician, wrote in his preliminary report on the census that "a population decline or stagnation was not expected and this result is most surprising." His office is going to find a logical explanation, he said, and will not speculate on the cause until they produce final numbers in the middle of 2008.
As women across the world mark International Women's Day, Ogichoya Kimogol from northern Kenya describes how she has coped as a young, single mother. 
Forced abortion
Nkarkar turned to her local church, where she had heard about a women's group who assist single mothers. 
Traditionally livestock, the community's source of wealth, is passed from father to son so women are dependent on fathers and husbands to provide for them. 
"I sell the goods from my hut. I use any profit I make to buy more stock as well as food and clothes for the family," says Ogichoya. 
Other mothers
More work
Drought
"People have changed their attitude towards girls like me," says Ogichoya. 
As we begin the year 2008 with joyous expectations and on behalf of the staff, workers, and children of Jesus Loves the Little Children Foundation, I would like to thank you for your generous giving and faithful support in 2007.
Christmas 2007 was an unforgettable one for our twenty-five Residents and eighty Community children. The children's wish and ours to have a festive, remarkable, gift-filled Christmas were answered amazingly by the grace of God. JLLCF celebrated the holiday season with these young souls loaded with food, games, presents, prizes and people, young and old, from the slum. With all these blessings, we acknowledge your openhanded involvement in all our endeavors in the past year. 
I am sure that our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we all served, is happy that you were able to honor and love Him in a very concrete way by loving and helping the abandoned, the outcasts, the neglected, the nothings of this world. 
