by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M. and Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
There is tremendous food insecurity in Kenya with more than two million Kenyans considered to be experiencing either a food crisis or a food emergency. This dire state of affairs is prevalent in both rural and urban settings and continues to be exacerbated by certain factors including below-average crop harvests, weaker crop sales for families, lower wages for casual labor and food inflation of about 7%.
Over the last year, Father Waldrep has been able to help people affected by food insecurity in five different counties in Kenya and hopes to do so again this year. In three of these counties, the people that Father Waldrep helped are food stressed and eating minimally adequate diets but must make significant changes to their lifestyles to support non-food needs. In two of the counties helped by Father Waldrep, some people are in a food crisis and acute malnutrition affects 10-15% of the population.
While some families are simply not eating enough food, others are adopting non-sustainable coping mechanisms such as selling assets to eat. In the county where many people are classified as being in a food emergency, the risk of hunger-related death is rapidly increasing.
Father Waldrep wants to continue to help as many of these Kenyans as possible receive adequate food and nutrition and your gift can help to make this happen.
“For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.”
Psalm 107:9
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Well at St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School
Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M. and Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
Clean water is a precious commodity in Kenya.
By digging and constructing a well on the land of St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School, owned by the church, some pressure will be taken off about 3,000 residents of the rural areas in Kabaroti Parish and St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School.
Your gift will help us with this mission by improving the access to clean water and sanitation for many of these people.
“Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”
Isaiah 33:15-16
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Protecting Female Adolescents by Building a Dormitory
Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School is a charitable institution which provides education, shelter, medical care, recreation programs and basic needs to about 830 children from poor family backgrounds, orphans and from the streets in or around Ruai-Nairobi. The school’s goal is to empower these children through teaching, training, mentorship and role modeling to be self-reliant and easily integrated into the community.
Father Waldrep wants to help protect the 405 young women who attend this school from the harmful cultural practices of female genital mutilation and early marriage. This can happen through the building of a female dormitory, which will replace the current temporary structure built of corrugated metal sheets, and give day students, who have endured unsafe commutes to the school, the option of staying overnight.
Your gift will help these adolescent females buck the possibility of teenage pregnancy, dropping out of secondary school and many unpleasant consequences related to early marriage.
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 5:5
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Education, Equality and Environmental Sustainability
This multi-purpose Apostolic Project is a comprehensive plan by the Back to Society Organization to improve the basic state of the Leanna School located in Narok, Kenya. It will provide food for vulnerable populations, pay school fees for orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDs, distribute critical healthcare needs, install a water tank to ensure access to clean water and establish a tree nursery to promote environmental conservation.
These efforts bear the message of Jesus Christ by spreading Hope and Love in very tangible ways for those who will benefit while helping the environment at the same time and your gift will be a beacon of this light.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 15:13
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Well at St. Anthony Vengini Outstation
Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M. and Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
Access to water is a daily life-and-death struggle in Kibwezi, Kenya.
The goal of this Apostolic Project is to help ease that struggle by digging and constructing a well so that Kenyans in the Kibwezi area of Makueni County in southeastern Kenya have more access to clean water. It will sit on church land in this semi-arid district, which receives approximately half the annual rainfall in Juba, South Sudan and about ten times the annual rainfall in Death Valley, CA.
Your gift can help Kenyans in Kibwezi have access to a precious but needed resource for life: water.
“But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:14
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Well at St. Michael Kamboo Outstation
Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M. and Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
Imagine having to wonder whether you will have access to drinking and bathing water each day. It is hard to do given the blessings of infrastructure that we enjoy in the United States.
But in the Kibwezi area of Kenya, this is a daily question and struggle for the residents of this semi-arid district bordering Tsavo East National Park. To help ease up these challenges for some, Maryknoll is digging and constructing a well at the St. Michael Kamboo Outstation.
Your gift can help residents of this part of Kenya have greater access to something most of us take for granted: water.
“For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.”
Mark 9:41
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
St. John the Evangelist-Lobur Dispensary
Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M. and Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
This Apostolic Project supports a medical outreach program to the pastoralist, semi-nomadic Turkana people who live on the borders of Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia. In addition to operating the Lobur Parish dispensary, the dispensary staff conducts 12 mobile clinics each month in various areas of North Turkana.
Each year, the dispensary treats approximately 19,000 clients. Over the last six months alone, more than 600 children were immunized, more than 600 mothers were given postnatal care, prenatal care was given to nearly 500 mothers, child welfare care provided to more than 1,500 children, nutrition was improved for about 2,570 people among other services administered.
Your gift can help Maryknoll to continue to care for the health and the well-being of thousands of Turkana people in 2025.
“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 30:17
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Smallholder Poultry Project for Vulnerable Youth
Fr. John W. Waldrep, M.M.
Orphans are a class of people for which Jesus would have had a lot of care.
Maryknoll extends this message of Love and Hope to orphans in Kenya, some of whom are HIV positive, and are dependent on older siblings or other relatives. In many cases, these older siblings are forced to drop out of school to take care of their younger sibling(s) and in most cases, this proves to be an overwhelming task without outside support.
This Apostolic Project addresses this need for support in two phases and has been an overwhelming success so far. First, these children and their siblings and relatives are taught about economic empowerment for sustainable food production. This happens through thorough training in smallholder poultry farming plus the gift of ten improved chickens and one rooster. Second, psychosocial support is provided to the children to help them handle everything they have been through.
Your gift can teach these vulnerable youth to become self-supporting while sharing the love and compassion of the Catholic Church.
“Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.”
Isaiah 49:13
by Dionel Rodriguez | Mar 5, 2025
Widows, Single Mothers and Their Children
This Apostolic Project supports women who have lost their husbands, have children and have been abandoned by their families and relatives. These women receive assistance with food, housing and healthcare.
Father Dinh also provides them with skills training for the young single moms to give them a chance to help themselves and their families.
Your gift can create a virtuous cycle of improvement for widows, single moms and their children in Kenya.
“And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
Exodus 33:19
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 14, 2024
Swahili Literature, Theological and Secular
Although number of Swahili speakers varies widely (between 60 million and 150 million), its importance as the national language of Tanzania, and one of the two official languages of Kenya, would be difficult to overestimate. Nevertheless, the present state of Swahili literature is stagnant, if not in actual decline. The majority of theological works are translations from English, despite the efforts of rather well known writers such as Fr. Titus Amigu. Fr. John Waldrep wants to assist writers in Tanzania who want to publish in Swahili. With your gift, there will be a wider selection of books available to the Swahili-speaking reading community on theological and spiritual subjects.
“He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read”
– Luke 4:16
