On 1st April, at about 4:45 am early in the morning, when the city was still covered by the darkness of the night. CBN/OB staff gathered in the office. All on time, nobody wanted to miss the departure set before dawn. In this Easter holy week, our humanitarian team stepped out to bring relief to 160 families living in the village of Ndoundokh in the region of Fatick.
People living in the communities of Ndoundokh needed to travel six miles before reaching key social services such as school, and health clinics as well as markets.
The widespread poverty coupled with the impact of Covid-19, have caused hunger to be inexorably on the rise at a time when humanitarian access is becoming increasingly challenging because of the multitude of communities requesting food relief. The government relief plan hasn’t yet reached all rural communities.
This situation has forcibly displaced the youth towards the city leaving large communities without manpower, occupied by old people who are vulnerable to food insecurity.
In recent days, we’ve seen how preventive measures against Covid-19 have disrupted food supplies and trade in general and enhanced food insecurity. As a result, during the last political unrest we saw the outrageous looting of Supermarkets that took place.
Delivering an emergency food assistance to the most affected communities was no longer an option but a call to duty. In partnership with the Association of Pentecostal churches and ministries of Senegal led by Bishop Okafor of Harvest Intercontinental Church, this humanitarian relief activity was organized. 160 Christians and Muslims families were selected by the Pastor of the Local Church of Ndundokh from 10 communities (Modane, Gneless, Bassiss, Meme, Diohine, Mbine, Kory, Soussane, Djambougoum and Happine) that composed the village.
The emergency packages distributed contained basic necessities such as 25 kg of rice, 25 kg of onion, 3 kg of powdered milk, 5 liters of oil and 5 packets of sugar.
This humanitarian relief activity was the first of its kind in this community. All the representatives of local authorities addressed the participants and thanked all stakeholders for their kind gesture.
Nevertheless, the emergency package was complete because Operation Blessing fulfilled the great commission by inviting a vibrant Young Pastor, a former Muslim, the son of a notable imam, who preached the gospel to the participants both young and old for about 20 minutes. When the altar call was made 41 people came to receive Christ as Lord and savior.
At the time of receiving their packages, the women and men came dancing, praising God in “SERERE” their local language. “ You’ve blessed us at a time when we least expected such a great help. We appreciate your generosity; may God keep blessing you ” said an old woman who is 100 years old.
When the chief of the village who is a Muslim and couldn’t come to the distribution site because of his sickness got the news of how people were blessed with the packages given to them, he managed to stand up and came to witness with his own eyes. “ This is God’s provision for us who are about to start the fasting season (Ramadan), without this help, it would have been hard for us to go through this fasting period, may God bless you more and more ” said the Chief of the village. He went forward to write a letter of appreciation to CBN Afrique.
It is a great relief for the community whose conditions have been worsened with the advent of Covid-19. We will keep praying for you. Said another old woman.
For the humanitarian team, this activity was a great success, and we give God all the glory for making it possible.
