one tribe
January 28 2008
IMAGE REUTERS
"One month after a deeply flawed election, Kenya is tearing itself apart along ethnic lines..."
NYT Article here
Today I walked the streets of Kibera. It is the largest slum in Kenya. (I've heard it called the largest in the world.) People estimate that a million souls reside there, but no one can be sure. It's practically in our backyard. Always has been for the many years we've lived in Kenya. It's the place our Kenyan friends and co-workers come from and go to each day. From the air, on my standard departure out of Wilson Airport, it's a compact, rusty scar on the landscape. It's also a place we've mainly avoided while living in Nairobi.
What took me into Kibera today was the opportunity to interview a pastor there. I'm on a media assignment with AIM this week. To write a few stories about what God is doing amidst the chaos that has crept into this country. To see what difference the Church is making. And hoping that we don't have to look too hard.
Pastor Timothy walked me around his mission field for four hours. The Kibera slum is hard to capture with words. There is no counterpart in the western world. It bustles with life. And it provides an ever present reminder that life is cheap. We trodded the footpaths and walked the railroad tracks for a while. From Timothy's Bible school that he started, to the church he pastors. Around every corner, it seemed, someone would recognize him and call out his name. We'd stop, greet, and be introduced. Here was a student at the school. Here an old woman who's become a pillar in the church. Here a drunken youth. Here another, saved from a similar fate. "I love this man," the youth tells me. And I believe him.
There are signs of war in Kibera. Crumbled buildings. Charred remains of little shops. Spray-painted pleas for peace on whatever is left standing. Kenya is smoldering with ethnic tension right now. Today's news is perhaps the most troubling we've heard so far. (link)
But beating the beaten paths of Kibera with Timothy gave me a glimpse of redemption in the middle of it. At one point he walked with another pastor, a co-worker in ministry, and gave me a little lesson on tribal identity in Kenya. One of them a Luya. One of them a Kikuyu. In today's climate... bitter enemies. But in Christ they are one. There are 42 tribes in this land. "But we are one tribe in Jesus," Timothy declared, stepping closer to his fellow servant to make the point.
These guys are a blatant, courageous example of the difference the Church is making. With a gathering storm on the horizon, it is an example we hope is repeated throughout this weary land.
thank God for Sundays
January 20 2008
Finally a Sunday. A number have gone by in recent
weeks, but at last this one feels like a Sabbath.
Nairobi is calm today. No doubt what millions of
Kenyans are praying for all over the country. Peace.
I spent a good part of last week up in Sudan, doing some of the regular flying I am used to. AIM AIR ceased flying refugees over a week ago. Once military escorts became available, and large convoys of cars and busses began to evacuate those fleeing, we have not been flying so many people related to the election unrest. It has been reported that a quarter million Kenyans are internally displaced right now. It's also the first time in Kenya's history that anyone can remember Kenyans living as refugees in neighboring countries.
For the first few weeks of the unrest here, AIM AIR flew about 500 people out of western Kenya with our small airplanes. The last flight I did in this sortie brought in a bunch of well respected church bishops – peacemakers on what was probably an impossible mission. I prayed they could make a difference.
Peace is not coming easily however. The crazy days since we were locked down on our compound have now ebbed into a strange kind of normalcy here. We go about our lives and work, passing Kenyan police in riot gear at main intersections, and driving over and around debris on the roads. The odd gunshot here and there doesn't raise our alarm anymore. Honestly, the current state of our host country is hard to gather. There's still small, and often violent, demonstrations which erupt without warning. And there's flamboyant headlines in the newspapers. The photographs are grim. We don't hear about many of the actual stories however. Except from our house-worker. She came to work this week with a front tooth knocked out... visibly upset. In the process of telling us about running from rock-wielding youths, and about the dark things that happen in the slums at night, Renee became visibly upset.
We are learning more about the "why" behind the trouble in Kenya in recent weeks. I am beginning to realize that it is not just about a flawed election and a step backward for democracy. It's also about power and corruption (and the power to cover up your corruption.) It's about wealth – the "haves" and "have-nots" (Most Kenyans are of the latter designation.) It's about fairness and justice. And underlying it all, it is about race. Tribe.
Just this week I discovered that our house worker is of the Kikuyu tribe. I never knew that before. It didn't matter. I am learning now that it matters very much. And how I wish it didn't.
Across the ocean we are following the struggles of my dad as he in in the opening salvos of battling cancer. We know now that he has leukemia. We know that it will take his life eventually. As the news of dad's sudden illness became worse and worse, Renee and I began to think about going home. We are struggling now with the implications of this. When and how we will go is something we really need wisdom about.
Before I left for Sudan this week Renee had a low day, with the plight of our house worker (a good friend) and my dad weighing heavy on her heart. She was washing dishes in the kitchen pretending that all was OK, but it wasn't. I reached out to hug her and she broke down. "You know, he's my dad too," she said.
I took those words with me as I flew in Sudan. (And I asked Renee to work out her thoughts in her journal, which she did.) The long hours between destinations in the airplane provide a lot of time for reflection, and I did a fair bit of it this week. Mostly about Renee's words. I would ask you to pray for me, to have wisdom and courage as I lead our family and ministry, but that seems rather selfish right now. I'd rather you pray for my dad, who is in the fight of his life. And for Kenya... probably in a similar fight.
~~~~~
A friend in New Jersey is keeping a website for my dad, with frequent updates. If you would like to peer into the life of a remarkable man for a moment, you can visit the site here:
www.caringbridge.org/visit/mattd
And lastly, for the many of you who have sent us a quick note of encouragement recently, we are thankful. Even for the prayers. Especially for the prayers. Thank You!
I spent a good part of last week up in Sudan, doing some of the regular flying I am used to. AIM AIR ceased flying refugees over a week ago. Once military escorts became available, and large convoys of cars and busses began to evacuate those fleeing, we have not been flying so many people related to the election unrest. It has been reported that a quarter million Kenyans are internally displaced right now. It's also the first time in Kenya's history that anyone can remember Kenyans living as refugees in neighboring countries.
For the first few weeks of the unrest here, AIM AIR flew about 500 people out of western Kenya with our small airplanes. The last flight I did in this sortie brought in a bunch of well respected church bishops – peacemakers on what was probably an impossible mission. I prayed they could make a difference.
Peace is not coming easily however. The crazy days since we were locked down on our compound have now ebbed into a strange kind of normalcy here. We go about our lives and work, passing Kenyan police in riot gear at main intersections, and driving over and around debris on the roads. The odd gunshot here and there doesn't raise our alarm anymore. Honestly, the current state of our host country is hard to gather. There's still small, and often violent, demonstrations which erupt without warning. And there's flamboyant headlines in the newspapers. The photographs are grim. We don't hear about many of the actual stories however. Except from our house-worker. She came to work this week with a front tooth knocked out... visibly upset. In the process of telling us about running from rock-wielding youths, and about the dark things that happen in the slums at night, Renee became visibly upset.
We are learning more about the "why" behind the trouble in Kenya in recent weeks. I am beginning to realize that it is not just about a flawed election and a step backward for democracy. It's also about power and corruption (and the power to cover up your corruption.) It's about wealth – the "haves" and "have-nots" (Most Kenyans are of the latter designation.) It's about fairness and justice. And underlying it all, it is about race. Tribe.
Just this week I discovered that our house worker is of the Kikuyu tribe. I never knew that before. It didn't matter. I am learning now that it matters very much. And how I wish it didn't.
Across the ocean we are following the struggles of my dad as he in in the opening salvos of battling cancer. We know now that he has leukemia. We know that it will take his life eventually. As the news of dad's sudden illness became worse and worse, Renee and I began to think about going home. We are struggling now with the implications of this. When and how we will go is something we really need wisdom about.
Before I left for Sudan this week Renee had a low day, with the plight of our house worker (a good friend) and my dad weighing heavy on her heart. She was washing dishes in the kitchen pretending that all was OK, but it wasn't. I reached out to hug her and she broke down. "You know, he's my dad too," she said.
I took those words with me as I flew in Sudan. (And I asked Renee to work out her thoughts in her journal, which she did.) The long hours between destinations in the airplane provide a lot of time for reflection, and I did a fair bit of it this week. Mostly about Renee's words. I would ask you to pray for me, to have wisdom and courage as I lead our family and ministry, but that seems rather selfish right now. I'd rather you pray for my dad, who is in the fight of his life. And for Kenya... probably in a similar fight.
~~~~~
A friend in New Jersey is keeping a website for my dad, with frequent updates. If you would like to peer into the life of a remarkable man for a moment, you can visit the site here:
www.caringbridge.org/visit/mattd
And lastly, for the many of you who have sent us a quick note of encouragement recently, we are thankful. Even for the prayers. Especially for the prayers. Thank You!
helpless vs. hopeless
January 07 2008
It's 5 am in Nairobi and I can't sleep again. Amelia
woke up with her obligatory "bad dreams" and is camping
out at my side, asleep again under the protective watch
of her father. I spent an hour with tears slowly
soaking my pillow. Reached for my daughter and rubbed
her back. Reached for my wife and held her hand. I can
barely remember this past week, or what I did on any
given day of it. I'm not even certain what day it is.
There are instances, however, that have been set in my
memory for good.
I remember the black smoke billowing above our housetops, just outside our compound here in the city, and the uneasy feeling which came over me that bad things would follow.
I remember the phone call with my brother in New Jersey telling me that our dad was just diagnosed with an incurable cancer.
I remember being called in to fly late one afternoon – meeting the plane at customs as it rolled in from a medi-vac flight from Mombassa, and all of us in a hurry to get it turned around for my urgent flight to western Kenya.
I recall the phone call I got, cramming the cellphone under my ear as I helped unload two teenagers on respirators from the airplane, their mother now dead from the car crash that left them unconscious. Peter, a Kenyan friend who works for Tear Fund was on the line. He had details for my flight. I didn't know what was going on. "You're going to save my family, Mike", he told me – a distant voice braking through the wind and chaos and jet fumes around me.
I remember blasting off that afternoon, one of my most flustered takeoffs ever.
The week is all mixed together in my head. There were days and portions of days that I helped fly some of the evacuations AIM AIR did from western Kenya. Days I helped with the logistics. Days we spent locked down on our compound. There were sounds of tear-gas canisters bursting open onto swelling crowds just a block away. Sounds of automatic weapons. Sounds of my mom crying and laughing with me over a phone conversation that spanned two worlds, and two wounds. Sounds of silence where life should have been.
I encountered some scary words this week – words that don't usually get much attention in our lives. Evacuation. Genocide. Chemotherapy. Helplessness.
One night at midnight, a Kenyan friend of ours called our neighbor in a panic. He and his young family were being attacked. He was fleeing his slum home for the forrest. The phone went dead. Myself and two other missionary men racked our brains on how we could help him. There was nothing we could do that would not have been an exercise in futility. So we prayed for Steven, and his wife, and their baby. I went to bed with a deep sense of helplessness that night. It was the theme of my week.
I have met many people this week who shared this point of view. Perhaps the refugees all over Kenya knew more of this feeling than I could ever understand. Most certainly my dad does.
I found it interesting that as I was helpless to be there for my mom and dad this week, there were people who took great joy in being there for them. And as Peter was helpless to save his family from danger here in Kenya's turmoil, I was able to stand in the gap – to swoop down and rescue his brother and sister and nieces and nephews.
I remember that dark night, as we pushed the plane back into AIM AIR's hangar, and Peter's family spilled out to greet him. He came to me and hugged me, and thanked me a dozen times. And it gave me great joy.
Being helpless is not entirely a bad thing I realized. It opens the door for others to step in and save the day. It allows us to be the community God intended us to be. Help can come in many forms. An Airplane. A gifted doctor. A neighbor or friend. A church family. A stranger even. We would do well not to be so independent sometimes.
In all our trouble this week, in the course of helping others and being helped, I never remember feeling hopeless. And for that, I can only thank God. Hope does not come in the same form as help does. We cannot really give it to other people. We merely point them to the hope that we have. Sometimes that's easiest when we are in the greatest need for help. Perhaps that's why we are here in all of this. Perhaps that's why dad is in that cancer ward.
~~~~~~~~~
Update on Kenya : Our country has calmed down some. We are no longer "locked down" but this crisis in Kenya is not over. If they can finally get the government sorted out, some say this past week will take months, if not years to recover from. I flew through Kisumu yesterday, the town hardest hit by the post-election violence. Many of the people I spoke with there were truly feeling hopeless. AIM AIR evacuated five hundred people from various locations in western Kenya this week. Peter from Tear Fund organized many of those flights. Our friend Steven turned out to be OK. His neighbors were murdered that night.
I have read many reports and articles trying to understand what happened here and why. One of the best comes from NRO online in this article – Democracy Endangered
Thanks for praying for us this past week. Please keep it up.
I remember the black smoke billowing above our housetops, just outside our compound here in the city, and the uneasy feeling which came over me that bad things would follow.
I remember the phone call with my brother in New Jersey telling me that our dad was just diagnosed with an incurable cancer.
I remember being called in to fly late one afternoon – meeting the plane at customs as it rolled in from a medi-vac flight from Mombassa, and all of us in a hurry to get it turned around for my urgent flight to western Kenya.
I recall the phone call I got, cramming the cellphone under my ear as I helped unload two teenagers on respirators from the airplane, their mother now dead from the car crash that left them unconscious. Peter, a Kenyan friend who works for Tear Fund was on the line. He had details for my flight. I didn't know what was going on. "You're going to save my family, Mike", he told me – a distant voice braking through the wind and chaos and jet fumes around me.
I remember blasting off that afternoon, one of my most flustered takeoffs ever.
The week is all mixed together in my head. There were days and portions of days that I helped fly some of the evacuations AIM AIR did from western Kenya. Days I helped with the logistics. Days we spent locked down on our compound. There were sounds of tear-gas canisters bursting open onto swelling crowds just a block away. Sounds of automatic weapons. Sounds of my mom crying and laughing with me over a phone conversation that spanned two worlds, and two wounds. Sounds of silence where life should have been.
I encountered some scary words this week – words that don't usually get much attention in our lives. Evacuation. Genocide. Chemotherapy. Helplessness.
One night at midnight, a Kenyan friend of ours called our neighbor in a panic. He and his young family were being attacked. He was fleeing his slum home for the forrest. The phone went dead. Myself and two other missionary men racked our brains on how we could help him. There was nothing we could do that would not have been an exercise in futility. So we prayed for Steven, and his wife, and their baby. I went to bed with a deep sense of helplessness that night. It was the theme of my week.
I have met many people this week who shared this point of view. Perhaps the refugees all over Kenya knew more of this feeling than I could ever understand. Most certainly my dad does.
I found it interesting that as I was helpless to be there for my mom and dad this week, there were people who took great joy in being there for them. And as Peter was helpless to save his family from danger here in Kenya's turmoil, I was able to stand in the gap – to swoop down and rescue his brother and sister and nieces and nephews.
I remember that dark night, as we pushed the plane back into AIM AIR's hangar, and Peter's family spilled out to greet him. He came to me and hugged me, and thanked me a dozen times. And it gave me great joy.
Being helpless is not entirely a bad thing I realized. It opens the door for others to step in and save the day. It allows us to be the community God intended us to be. Help can come in many forms. An Airplane. A gifted doctor. A neighbor or friend. A church family. A stranger even. We would do well not to be so independent sometimes.
In all our trouble this week, in the course of helping others and being helped, I never remember feeling hopeless. And for that, I can only thank God. Hope does not come in the same form as help does. We cannot really give it to other people. We merely point them to the hope that we have. Sometimes that's easiest when we are in the greatest need for help. Perhaps that's why we are here in all of this. Perhaps that's why dad is in that cancer ward.
~~~~~~~~~
Update on Kenya : Our country has calmed down some. We are no longer "locked down" but this crisis in Kenya is not over. If they can finally get the government sorted out, some say this past week will take months, if not years to recover from. I flew through Kisumu yesterday, the town hardest hit by the post-election violence. Many of the people I spoke with there were truly feeling hopeless. AIM AIR evacuated five hundred people from various locations in western Kenya this week. Peter from Tear Fund organized many of those flights. Our friend Steven turned out to be OK. His neighbors were murdered that night.
I have read many reports and articles trying to understand what happened here and why. One of the best comes from NRO online in this article – Democracy Endangered
Thanks for praying for us this past week. Please keep it up.
waiting, listening, praying
January 03 2008
"Within the span of a
week, one of the most developed, promising countries in
Africa has turned into a starter kit for disaster. "
(NYT) (Article - Kenya Topples Into Post-Election
Chaos)
(Photo BBC)
Our bags are packed, sitting near the door downstairs. We are poised for leaving the country, by road, or by air. All is quiet in Nairobi this morning (Thursday). Today is expected to be a watershed day, as the political opposition is planning a million-strong rally and protest downtown, one that has been declared illegal by those who have all the guns. I flew AIM AIR's little Cessna 210 yesterday, making several stops in western Kenya. The roads all over the country are apparently too dangerous to travel on. People come to the airstrips with armed police escorts. Many of them have been sleeping in the police stations overnight.
AIM AIR is flying a full day again today, much the same as yesterday - evacuating people whose lives are in danger. I'll go in to the airport around mid-day in order to have enough duty time to fly well into the night. I'll be separated from Renee and the kids when going to the hangar (about 5 miles away) but they are part of a small group of missionaries who are hunkered down on the compound here, and very safe in their care if I should not be able to drive home tonight.
For now, we are NOT expecting to leave Kenya. As bad as things are, I am hopeful that the Kenya I know, one full of peaceful and good people, will rise above this. Keep praying with us for that.
(I can hear mobs of people on the streets now. Gunshots. Not quiet anymore.)
(Photo BBC)
Our bags are packed, sitting near the door downstairs. We are poised for leaving the country, by road, or by air. All is quiet in Nairobi this morning (Thursday). Today is expected to be a watershed day, as the political opposition is planning a million-strong rally and protest downtown, one that has been declared illegal by those who have all the guns. I flew AIM AIR's little Cessna 210 yesterday, making several stops in western Kenya. The roads all over the country are apparently too dangerous to travel on. People come to the airstrips with armed police escorts. Many of them have been sleeping in the police stations overnight.
AIM AIR is flying a full day again today, much the same as yesterday - evacuating people whose lives are in danger. I'll go in to the airport around mid-day in order to have enough duty time to fly well into the night. I'll be separated from Renee and the kids when going to the hangar (about 5 miles away) but they are part of a small group of missionaries who are hunkered down on the compound here, and very safe in their care if I should not be able to drive home tonight.
For now, we are NOT expecting to leave Kenya. As bad as things are, I am hopeful that the Kenya I know, one full of peaceful and good people, will rise above this. Keep praying with us for that.
(I can hear mobs of people on the streets now. Gunshots. Not quiet anymore.)
bad to worse
January 01 2008
Fighting Intensifies After Election
in Kenya
Above is a link to the latest report about events in Kenya from the New York Times. Such sights are common for me. But not here. Not in my hometown. This happens in other places like the Congo, and Sudan. I never thought I would see this in Kenya.
I'm sitting here at our dining room table at 11 pm, still in my flight shirt. I came home a few hours ago from a night flight to Eldoret, in western Kenya. AIM AIR began to get requests yesterday, and more intensely today, to evacuate certain people from the western areas of the country. My flight tonight was the first of what appears will be a wave of flights we will do. Tomorrow our DC-3 will pull out 100 more people (mostly children). I will be back in the Caravan more than likely.
My flight home tonight was surreal. The countryside was spotted with bright orange fires – houses going up in smoke... along with Kenya's democracy.
We've no idea where this is going, or if fighting in Nairobi will intensify, so we would appreciate your prayers for our safety in the coming days.
Above is a link to the latest report about events in Kenya from the New York Times. Such sights are common for me. But not here. Not in my hometown. This happens in other places like the Congo, and Sudan. I never thought I would see this in Kenya.
I'm sitting here at our dining room table at 11 pm, still in my flight shirt. I came home a few hours ago from a night flight to Eldoret, in western Kenya. AIM AIR began to get requests yesterday, and more intensely today, to evacuate certain people from the western areas of the country. My flight tonight was the first of what appears will be a wave of flights we will do. Tomorrow our DC-3 will pull out 100 more people (mostly children). I will be back in the Caravan more than likely.
My flight home tonight was surreal. The countryside was spotted with bright orange fires – houses going up in smoke... along with Kenya's democracy.
We've no idea where this is going, or if fighting in Nairobi will intensify, so we would appreciate your prayers for our safety in the coming days.
