The photos coming out of Somalia are just heartrending. The starving children, the mourning mothers. Tens of thousands of people in camps. No food or water. Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and other countries in the Horn of Africa and the East Africa region are experiencing the worst drought in 60 years. Two years of sporadic rain - and the driest year since 1951 - have resulted in severely reduced access to drinking water and major crop and livestock loss. The UN estimates that 11.6 million people are at risk, including 2.2 million malnourished children. 500,000 of these children face imminent life-threatening conditions. In hard hit areas, like southcentral Somalia, masses of people are leaving their homes in order to meet their basic need of food and water.

Don't you wish you could help? You already do, through your contributions to your congregation, a portion of which in turn gets sent as a mission commitment to the Synod.

In December 2010 the ELCA pre-positioned $250,000 for use in East Africa to meet the needs of the local population in future disasters. Thus these funds are already at work, helping those who are seeking water, food and shelter in the midst of this drought. Working at the epicenter of the refugee crisis in Kenya and Ethiopia, the Lutheran World Federation is already using these ELCA funds to provide water in Dadaab to both refugees and the local population and enriched porridge for older adults and children too weak to take solid food. In late July the ELCA also contributed an additional $400,000 to assist Ethiopian and Kenyan communities at increased risk, as well as Somalis seeking refuge in those countries.

It is September, when we in America harvest our crops. There are no crops to harvest in these drought-stricken African countries. But food and water is reaching the people through your donations. Thank you and thanks be to God.

God's work, our hands...

Submitted by Marcia Brown, Mission Interpreter