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As churches worldwide focus on the “Action Week for Food” in October, increasing numbers of people going hungry due to violent conflicts, failed harvests and rising food costs are compelling faith-based organizations to offer urgent intervention.

Are church schools in Kenya engaging with youth the best way they can? The WCC-EHAIA programme helped 22 principals, education secretaries and church leaders ponder this question when they met at St Julian’s Centre in Limuru.

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women were searching for ways to not only help women across the globe seek justice but also highlight their contributions to churches and the world.

As part of their work to care for creation, Kenyan church leaders are backing a government effort to restore the Mau Forest, a vital ecosystem in the Rift Valley region.

“Where is God?” Evoking the desperate cry of a South Sudanese girl stranded in a refugee camp far from home, WCC moderator Dr Agnes Abuom opened the Central Committee’s biennial meeting on 15 June with a stirring yet clear-eyed cry for deeper engagement by the WCC and its member churches to counter the world’s most intractable problems through nurturing hope and empowerment.

The Global Day of Prayer to End Famine has found relevance in Africa, where communities bear the brunt of severe food shortages associated with the challenge. On 10 June, the WCC, All Africa Conference of Churches and World Evangelical Alliance called on churches to pray for millions of people at risk and those who face severe hunger.

From opening church doors to providing food and shelter, Kenyan churches are offering an initial response to the nation’s growing flood crisis.

The WCC, World Evangelical Alliance and All Africa Conference of Churches, along with church-related humanitarian organizations and a coalition of church-related networks and organizations and partners, are planning 10 June 2018 as a second Global Day of Prayer to End Famine to be observed in faith congregations worldwide.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit extended congratulations to the new general secretary-elect of the All Africa Conference of Churches, Rev. Dr Fidon Mwombeki.

“Reach out to one another in peace and humility. Stretch your hands to your neighbours, despite their circumstances. Go down on your knees and wash their feet,” Rev. Joseph Njakai, an Anglican priest in the Mount Kenya West diocese was urging on 28 March.

Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser has been on an ecumenical journey for most of his adult life, which spans 80 years. The former WCC general secretary relates some of this pilgrimage in his newest publication, “The Challenge of Transformation: An Ecumenical Journey.” On 5 February, shortly after Raiser’s birthday, ecumenical experts from different generations, confessions and continents met in Geneva to discuss the newest publication by the man who led the WCC from 1993 to 2003.

This week world leaders are gathered in Davos under the very theme of “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”. They do so at a time when we see poverty amongst plenty; hunger and thirst in the midst of abundance; shocking disparities in the quality of life between neighboring communities: real problems that the world has the potential and the possibilities to resolve.

It’s 70 years since the World Council of Churches was founded in Amsterdam on 23 August. In addition to a commemoration service in Amsterdam on 23 August, the WCC, its member churches and partners are planning a variety of events to move forward on our ongoing Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, and at the same time honour and learn from these 70 years of ecumenical endeavour. Dr Abuom, from the Anglican Church of Kenya, is the moderator of the WCC Central Committee. She is the first woman and the first African in the position in WCC’s history. In an interview, she reflects on the evolution of the WCC in the past 70 years.

“Christ is born” declares a drawing by Kenyan schoolboy Richard Ochieng, whose work is featured on the WCC’s Christmas card this year.

In east Africa, some good rains in October and November 2017 have created hope for communities recovering from several months of severe drought.

The book, “There is Something We Long For” compiled by African female theologians received accolades when its authors were presented with the Marga Bührig Award 2017 at a weekend symposium in Basel, Switzerland. The prize was celebrated on 4 November at the Missionshaus in Basel with some of the authors and editors of the group known as Tsena Malalaka who wrote the book.

Rev. Rahab Wanjiru Kariuki, an Anglican priest living with HIV in Kenya, strongly believes there’s a reason for an uptick in HIV infections among young people: “It is because we have kept silent.” Kariuki refuses to be silent and refuses to remain passive. These are mantras not only for the way she lives but for the ways in which she ministers and cares for others.

Church leaders in Kenya are proposing a national dialogue conference to help find ways of the resolving the current political and social crises facing the East African nation.