Help for Somalia

Every time I get hungry, I think about Somalia.

Ten million people in East Africa are hungry. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya have the lowest level of rainfall in more than 50 years. It's a crisis. Crops are dead, livestock have perished, and local food prices have gone up.

It's a famine: acute malnutrition exists among children (exceeding 30%); more than two persons per 10,000 die daily; and people are not able to access and sufficiently utilize food and other staples.

This causes thousands of people to flee to Kenya from Somalia, and now they have a drought and a refugee crisis.

Meanwhile, I will be attending a 25th anniversary party tonight for a couple I love. Tomorrow, I will be celebrating our church organist, Cathryn Wilkinson, at her farewell party. And finally this morning I put it all together.

Instead of buying an unneeded gift for my friends' anniversary, I will donate money in their honor to the United Church of Christ for famine relief in Somalia. Instead of giving a gift to Cathryn for her farewell, I will donate money in her honor to the Presbyterian Church disaster relief fund for East Africa.

This weekend, while I go to the refrigerator to get what I want for each meal, our denominations are at work in East Africa to provide family food packages, nutritional supplements for children, water for livestock, as well as emergency shelter, clothing and hygiene materials.

The United Church of Christ has issued a $250,000 emergency relief appeal for people in the Eastern Horn of Africa. The Presbyterian Church is at work with other partner agencies, including Church World Service, to help save lives.

If you'd like to be part of this, you may send gifts to:

United Church of Christ
Financial Services
700 Prospect Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115

or

Presbyterian Church USA
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700

Mark your gifts for East Africa Famine Relief. Be grateful for the love of Christ and for the work of the wider church.