Message from the Trustees

Dear friends,

I was excited to visit St. Martin community in November 2023 and witness first hand all the good things that were happening in the communities despite all the hardships. More so, I was glad to be part of Saint Martin of Tours feast that we celebrate annually to recognise the gift of sharing and solidarity in our communities. The sharing by the volunteers and beneficiaries on this occasion was a testimony that the spirit of Saint Martin is alive and healthy.

As you all know, the 2020-2022 period was marked by challenges at local, national and global level mainly attributed to the COVID 19 pandemic. Towards the end of 2022, we thought that finally stability would resume. We had an outlook of finally coming out of it and, just like Jesus and the disciples in Mark 6: 34-44, we were wishing a time-out and we anticipated some solace and rest.  We thought: “Let us go aside and rest”. But Alaa! The Ukraine-Russia war broke out causing unacceptable cost in terms of human lives and economic impact worse than the impact of COVID. The costs of fuel and energy and – consequently – costs of essential goods like food and transport reached all-time high. High inflation, speculation on the trade markets and drought created an explosive mix that showed no sign of ending. Fear of the future spread in the families, in the communities, in the companies, in the institutions, often provoking a reaction of closure, defensiveness. We can definitely say that 2023 was uniquely challenging for our organizations. It was a year that we lived in Providence. It is a year that challenged us to introspect, individually and collectively. It challenged us to the go an extra mile to see how differently we could deliver on our commitment.

The community needs intensified in 2023 with the combined effect of the global instability, high inflation and climate change. The influx of people in dire need was on an all-time high. We had never seen our beneficiaries so vulnerable! The number of people seeking direct support, especially food grew every day, and they were very genuine cases. Many days, people in Saint Martin were crashed seeing mothers crying in desperation in their offices. Stores and reserves were diminishing and the community capacity to replenish them was compromised by the drought in the region. The community expressed more demand in the need for St. Martin services: we never saw such a number of young people in need of psycho social support. We were really tired and we felt the temptation to say: “it is already late, send them away..”

No one was exempted by the effect of the triple crisis: inflation had eaten away staff salaries and some of our staff and assistants struggled to pay school fees for their children. But, thanks to the joint support of our leadership and the amazing support of each and every one of you, we remembered that we can choose the lens with which we look at people in need or the situations that need our intervention. We followed the invitation of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 6 that say: “Give them something to eat yourselves”. Imagine the disciples faces when they listened to these words…. We’re tired, hungry, hopeless… and you ask us to give them to eat ourselves…But possibly some of the disciples said: “Let’s try to see what we can do”. For us, this meant to reflect and take decisions that would promote more efficiency and effectiveness in delivering our mission. Some of these decisions affected our people, and we took them with a heavy heart, trying to do our best to cushion them with practical measures and a lot of compassion.

Despite the difficulties, this is a challenge we need to take up positively, to look within us even when we feel that we are faced with nothingness. Like the disciples we sometime felt frustrated because we had nothing to offer, and as Trustees we often lost our sleep, looking for funds to continue to operate our services. We cannot hide how heavy the year was, but also the unity that these difficulties brought to us as Trustees. In these difficult times we shared our tiredness and took advantage of the remaining energy to deepen our relationship. Sharing from nothingness is deep! It means giving oneself. The giver and the receiver connect heart to heart. We felt that this is the real essence of service and a wounded healer has the capacity to heal perfectly.

Time again, we looked to our donors and friends, but they had been affected by the same crisis as well and many were forced to reduce their contribution. The remaining money in our bank account was close to “five loaves and two fishes”. Then the Providence and the continuous effort of many of us reversed the trend. We started to see a big sign of hope in the extraordinary, from unlikely and unexpected sources. We wish to take this chance to thank everyone who shared their resources with us. They did not share from their abundance but from their conviction that sharing is noble and that they are instruments of divine provision or agent of change of a better world. The farmers in Ng’arua and the traders from the Nyahururu market represent many other groups and individuals locally and internationally who continue to facilitate this miracle today in our context. Through their acts of giving, they restored dignity to the thousands of people that St. Martin CSA reaches every year.

We are grateful as a community Saint Martin together with our associates- Fontana Foundation, L’Arche Kenya and Talitha Kum, the supporters and friends to have been witnesses of these extraordinary events. We are very grateful to our donors, former staff members, trainees, volunteers and guests who replicated the approach and preached the spirit of Saint Martin. The twelve baskets that remained in our organisation as in the Gospel of Mark represent the impact of transformation that this generosity created in us and our community. We have been transformed into facilitators of what we have received; creating pockets of solidarity wherever we are. Discovering and collecting the fragments of this impact is a beautiful duty that involves each and every one of us; making good use of them is not only a moral obligation but a way to generate new fragments, and through them, new ways to serve our people.

We look forward to 2024 with gratitude in our hearts!

Pierino Martinelli,

Director General, Fondazione Fontana Onlus