updated pages

I have updated the prayer page and the calendar page.

Traveling

I realize that most of my posts lately are post-dated and for that I apologize.  My computer is broken and I’ve given up trying to guess when it will be fixed. 

 In short, in the last month I have spent a week of mental/emotional refreshing in Tanzania with friends and was blessed by being able to talk to a few of you on the phone.  God is amazing with all of this technology, huh.

I have hosted a co-worker here from Uganda for relief work.

I have been switched to some temporary relief work.

I am traveling via caravan with two co-workers to Eldoret tomorrow, on Tuesday 19 Feb.

I will be helping with relief assessment with the relief team as the female staff member to help with gender equality as well as gathering information to share with you.  After all, that is my job, to help you understand Kenyan and what CRWRC is doing here.

I feel safe going to Eldoret, particularly in the company of my two co-workers, one of whom I’ve mentioned here before as the ‘father to all foreigners.’  I am not sure when I will be flying back to Nairobi but am looking at early next week.

Again, I will be limited in my computer access and I apologize but hope to have great stories of God’s work in Kenya upon my return.  Please be patient and keep checking. 

I know it has been a long time since I’ve sent out an enews and it’s time for another snail mail newsletter as well.  I will get to those as soon as possible.  I knew I was attached and dependent on my laptop but I had no idea.  On a positive note I’m reading a lot more! (Thanks Lynnae, Marty and Beth for the book; Chris and Dawn and my Calvary Small Gp for ALL the magazines!)

If you would like to be included on my enews list (goes out approx. once a month) and/or my snail mail list (quarterly) please let me know.

 Many blessings, my friends!  thank you for your support, encouragment and prayers, you mean the world to me.

thoughts of Kenyans

We have office devotions every Monday morning around 9 am our time (I’m 9 hours ahead of CST).  Since we came back after holiday and the elections, devotions have focused on the current situation and been a time of debriefing for everyone.

One Monday last month I took some notes.  I have shown them to the staff and not identified anyone and they have agreed to let me share these thoughts with you to give you a Kenyan perspective instead of my American perspective.  It’s a blessing to sit in these devotions and here people be honest and genuine and seek and hunger for God’s righteousness and truth and what that means right now in the ‘heat of the battle.’

If you have any questions for my staff, please leave a comment and I will try and get a response for you. 

These are thoughts that do not have resolution, they are ideas, concerns and prayers that I am sharing with you.

• What is happening here is like slavery in the US; the holocaust in Europe; Vietnam.  The people fight before there is stabilization
• We need to repent. 
• How can we stand in the gap as individuals and organizations?
• Misunderstanding is guided by fear
• One of the expatriates asked forgiveness as an outsider.  He asked for forgiveness for the role that governments where often they are or seem more focused on economics instead of the Kenyan people.
• Was the election a scapegoat – an excuse for vengeance?
• That reminded me of something that I believe that Ghandi said, ‘an eye for an eye makes the world go blind.’
• One of my coworkers mentioned how she was a refugee in her own city.  She moved in with family during the worst of the rioting in early Jan.  She has moved back into her own home after about five days.
• Someone said, “I’m calm but I’m not at peace.”
• “I am praying for God to restore peace in my heart.”
• We need more healing.  As people heal, more hurt appears.
• Gen. 1:28
  • “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
  • If God has given me authority, I have to accept some blame for what is happening.
  • We are kings and queens on earth for Christ and yet we didn’t ‘rule.’
  • I’m taking blame as a Christian.  If I stood as I should have, as God has called me to stand, this war could have been lessened.  Where was I?  Where was the prophetic voice of the Church?  Where is the prophetic voice of me?  I didn’t play my role well.
  • This conversation reminded me of the old song:
    • I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together.
• When you are born again, you cease to be a Luo or a German, and you become a child of God so we can be brothers.  We join a new tribe, the tribe of Judah.
• We have free-will and must accept our part of the blame.  We are to blame and must point fingers at ourselves.
• ‘let my people go’
• Are we like the Israelites and God is allowing someone’s heart to be hardened?  Why?
• We are instruments of Christ.  What song shall we play?  Will we play in harmony?
• The poverty level is about 60% in Kenya and we are not talking about poverty.  We’re talking tribe.  Who is fighting on the streets?  It is mostly the poor and the middle and upper class are at home, ok. 

Farming subsidies

Now, I come from a family with farmers in it who work(ed) very hard.  I have helped with harvest in a couple of ways myself. 

 However, this hurts my heart.  I know that there are many battles over the topic of subsidies and I am not an expert (I feel like I say that a lot) but I hope that you will look at this article and think about what you might do to help.  The fabric in Mali is unbelievable!  Seriously. 

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080213.wmalicotton13/BNStory/International/home

Relax

I just found this on the CRCNA.org website and I would say that this is good news. 

Kenya Travel Re-Opened for CRC Constituents

< Back

February 13, 2008, Grand Rapids, Mich. — The situation in Kenya is currently calm enough to re-open travel and allow CRC members to go to Kenya to help conduct relief efforts and perform other activities, Christian Reformed Church officials said late Wednesday. The CRC discouraged travel to Kenya following the violence and widespread property destruction that took place in early January over a disputed presidential election. CRC staff remained in Kenya to continue regular programs and initiate relief efforts, says Andrew Ryskamp, U.S. director for the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. Just this week, CRWRC staff members in Kenya are “again working with the North American constituency to determine which visits are warranted,” says Ryskamp. Meanwhile, CRWRC workers are busy distributing food and other forms of emergency relief to people in Eldoret, one of the community’s hardest hit by the violence. In addition, CRWRC representatives are using funds from a grant from the CRC of Canada to distribute blankets and other forms of aid to people in Nairobi, the nation’s capital, says Ryskamp. While Kenyans tensely await news of a political power-sharing agreement that they hope will restore normalcy to daily life, the CRC’s Kenya Event Response Team continues to monitor the situation with daily calls and security alerts, says Ryskamp. The ERT was formed soon after the troubles in Kenya began. Hopes are running high, says Ryskamp, that former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the mediation team that he heads will be able to announce a solution to the crisis. Annan and his team are in seclusion for three days and a statement is expected by the weekend. As the mediation team announced a news blackout this week, however, it was clear the two sides remained deeply divided over a political solution, according to news accounts. Annan told a newspaper in Kenya that the mediation team was expected to conclude a deal on the political solution by the end of the week. Once that happens, Annan said to members of Kenya’s Parliament, “some of the resolutions will need a legislative agenda and we will expect you to expedite your work and also engage your constituents so that they can stop the violence and accept the resolutions.” The trouble that has beset Kenya began late last year after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election. Raila Odinga, the challenger, charged that the election was rigged and has refused to concede defeat. Ryskamp says he is asking CRC members to continue praying for an end to the violence in Kenya. “Your prayers make a difference,” he says. The Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) has five full-time staff in Kenya. The country is also the base for the CRWRC’s HIV/AIDS coordinator for the East/South African region. Partners Worldwide, a CRC business-development ministry, also has a staff person in Kenya. To donate to the Kenya relief response, mark donations “Kenya Conflict” and mail to CRWRC, 3475 Mainway, PO Box 5070, STN LCD 1, Burlington, ON, L7R 3Y8 or to CRWRC, 2850 Kalamazoo Avenue, Grand Rapids, MI, 49560. Donate online at www.crwrc.org. In Canada, call               1-800-730-3490       . In the U.S., call               616-241-1691        or               1-800-55-CRWRC       . Email: crwrc@crcna.org.

“don’t pretend”

This was written two weeks ago.  I apologize for the belated posting. When asked if he had any wisdom about what was going on in Kenya, a coworker replied, “I tell people things are bad, don’t pretend.” The second opposition member of parliment was shot and killed today in less than a week.  Tensions have been on the rise for as long.  While mediation talks are in the works, things are getting worse.  This doesn’t make sense.  The AU – African Union – is having their annual meeting in Ethiopia right now.  They are saying that Kenyans must find a solution. The people are crying for an end to the violence.I go home at night and pretend nothing is wrong sometimes.  It is easy to do.  I sit in my office in a ’safe zone’ and hear the construction at the building behind us and keep working.  My work is modified and I’m doing more research and news watching than before, but I’m at the office with most of my coworkers and we keep plugging along.  I go home, walking (or driving) down the same few streets as normal, waving to the guards I know as I go.  I get inside, lock the door and turn on a movie or TV series.  I veg.  I do very little.  I read.  It’s easy to pretend that things will be OK and better than normal very soon.  It’s easy to pretend in my little cocoon.God forgive me.  Open my eyes, heart and mind to the real tragedy and be willing to face it, to feel it and to cling to finding a solution, even if it’s only a solution for my part of the world, regardless of how small. I wrote a poem in like the fifth grade maybe.  I remember reading it in front of people in the gym for something.  It was about voting and how every vote counts.  Even as you are only one person, you are valuable and your vote counts so vote.God help me to understand that I can do something as me and show me what that something should be.I’ll come back to the vote thing in another post.

Why?

Dear Lord, I cry, when will it end?What can I do? How do I pray? Where are you?I do see God in the midst of all of this, I do.Many people are safe even though they’ve been evicted from their homes because of their ethnicity. Some who have been evicted, were given enough time to find a new place to live or at least a temporary place to store all of their belongings so they have not lost everything. People are reaching out to take care of those around them. People around the world are learning more about Kenya and justice.We, in Kenya, know that we are not alone. We know that God is before us, behind us and alongside us. We know that you are with us in prayer and thought and spirit. However, when I watch the news everyday and see children who have been seperated from their families in the hurry of evacuation I wonder why? When I hear that women are being raped at an even more alarming rate than before I wonder why? When I see the thousands seeking refuge at a chapel inside a maximum security prision because they feel safer there than on the ‘outside’ I wonder why? When I look at the fact that a coworker can’t leave her village because there are roadblocks that are unsafe to try and pass I wonder why? When I look at my relatively ‘cush’ surroundings in my neighborhood, office and apartment I wonder why?Why?It must be the question that God gets asked the most.

where am I?

I’m in Kenya in never-ending meetings and a broken computer.  Hope to be back soon.

Happy Pancake Day!

I have limited internet right now and will only post this one picture of Pancake Day in Africa.

Happy Pancaking everyone!