A quarter of Africa’s population is facing a food-security crisis driven by severe drought, raging wars and a rise in world food prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned Tuesday.

Some 346 million people, from Mauritania in the west to the Horn of Africa in the east, are affected by food insecurity, Dominik Stillhart, the agency’s global operations director, told reporters in Nairobi.

“What we don’t want to see is the response that comes too late, and that is why it is so important to draw attention to the situation now,” Mr. Stillhart said.

Russia and Ukraine were major grain suppliers before the war, and the conflict is causing pain across the developing world, spurring price shocks, constraining imports of basic commodities and causing food shortages, with poorer nations in Africa especially affected.

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A quarter of Africa’s population is facing a food-security crisis driven by severe drought, raging wars and a rise in world food prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday https://t.co/KVUqd9HOUr

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 5, 2022

Past a nudist beach and a sleepy marina, a gigantic mesh of metallic pipes rises from the pine forest behind the tiny village of Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic coast.

If few people have heard of Lubmin, from Berlin to Washington almost everyone seems to know the name of the two gas pipelines arriving here directly from Russia: Nord Stream 1, which carries almost 60 million cubic meters of natural gas per year to keep Europe’s biggest economy humming. And Nord Stream 2, built to increase that flow but abruptly shuttered in the run-up to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

The pair of pipelines has become a twin symbol of Germany’s dangerous dependence on Russian gas — and the country’s belated and frenzied effort to wean itself off it — with calls growing for the European Union to hit Moscow with tougher sanctions as atrocities come to light in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, proposed banning imports of Russian coal and soon, possibly, its oil. But Russian gas — far more critical to Germany and much of the rest of Europe — was off the table. At least for now.

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Germany is scrambling to wean itself off Russian gas, as it effectively subsidizes President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to the tune of some $220 million a day.https://t.co/YbcL2mKzq4

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 6, 2022

Yet small congregations are surprisingly faithful. The FACT survey found small congregations have the highest percentage of members in church each Sunday. They give the highest amount per capita to the church and are more likely to volunteer.

And since small churches often have part-time or unpaid clergy, they also spend less on staffing, which frees up their budget for missions and local ministry.

As a single 27-year-old, [Caleb] Fugate has the time and energy to invest up to 70 hours each week in three separate ministries, but he feels the stretch. The church in Clymer has some families with teenagers, so they need a youth ministry. Growing ministries need more time from their pastors, but with three ministries depending on him, there is only so much he can do.

“It is a strenuous job,” Fugate admits.

Diamondville United Methodist resides in a town of 200; the church ’s 20 attendees make up 10 percent of the local population. Fugate admits the church is not thinking about growing, something the FACT survey found common among the smallest churches. But the congregation wants to give as much as it can to the community while the church is still around.

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All churches, regardless of size, have gifts for their communities. My latest for @CTmagazine and @CT_Pastors looking at data from the @HartfordInt FACT 2020 survey.https://t.co/AhhxSrkWvD

— Megan Fowler (@Fowl_Words) April 6, 2022

The Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, has criticised the Government’s Spring Statement for not doing enough to alleviate pressures on the poor, and said that the Church was “reaching the limit” as to what it could do to cover the shortfall.

Dr Inge was speaking in a debate on the Spring Statement in the Grand Committee of the House of Lords on Thursday.

“While it is clear that the measures announced in the Spring Statement and previously by the Chancellor on energy prices and other measures will help lower-income families, it is far from clear that they will compensate for price inflation,” he said. “The fact is that they most likely will not. It is also the case that, while the increase in prices is universal, the support offered by these measures is not, and there will be vulnerable groups who will not feel their impact.”

Dr Inge said that the Church had been “very active in seeking to alleviate poverty and everything associated with it since the crash of over ten years ago”, but it needed more support from the Government.

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Church ‘reaching the limit’ on what it can do to alleviate poverty, says Bishop of Worcester https://t.co/OHl6fYLCSO

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 5, 2022

From then on, he was entranced by every language he encountered. His mom’s French record albums. A German dictionary he found at one of his dad’s handyman jobs. A boy from the Soviet Union who joined his junior high class. By then, one of Vaughn’s favorite places was the library. He checked out a beginner’s guide to Russian.

Soon after, he overheard a Russian woman in a grocery store.

“Здравствуйте, как поживаете?”. Vaughn asked. Hello, how are you? He explained that he was trying to learn Russian.

He liked the look he put on that woman’s face.

“Like she was hit with a splash of happiness,” Vaughn remembers.

His teachers and his parents, meanwhile, so often looked at him with disappointment. He’d chosen the wrong sentence when it was his turn to read aloud in class, again. His teacher called his mother to say he wasn’t paying attention, again. His dad was sending him back to his mom’s house, again. Always, it felt to Vaughn like there was something wrong with him.

“I feel like I didn’t know how to guide him to do better,” his mom, Sandra Vargas, says now.

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Have you ever met someone who makes you question the limits of human potential?

For the past few months, I’ve had the honor of spending time with a carpet cleaner named Vaughn Smith. You’re not going to believe me when I tell you what he can do. https://t.co/ZNc6wYLlN8

— Jessica Contrera (@mjcontrera) April 5, 2022

O God, whose blessed Son did overcome death for our salvation: Mercifully grant that we, who have his glorious passion in remembrance, may take up our cross daily and follow him; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

#POTM competition entry by Caroline @CaroBenyon "Starry Aurora – nature’s firework display"#StormHour #ThePhotoHour @RMetS pic.twitter.com/QAQEaDosTm

— #StormHour (@StormHour) April 6, 2022

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.

–2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Ardvasar sunrise – Isle of Skye #scotland @angie_weather @ThePhotoHour @VisitScotland @StormHour pic.twitter.com/dsSCfzGDNn

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) April 6, 2022