Coffee with Christine

The situation in the west has deteriorated rapidly in the last 24 hours.....many have been brutally and violently murdered - often the victims are women and children. Children who were at school were being flushed out by armed gangs in Kisumu. The armed gangs/youth left behind a trail of burning buildings and victims. We have a German missionary family who evacuated from Eldoret and is living on campus. Several of our staff member were given eviction notices from their landlords as they were from the "wrong" tribe. They were told to leave immediately or they lives will be at risks. I was told that in this particular area where our staff live, the men has been sleeping outside their houses to ward off attacks, or to at least keep watch, in case the gangs turn up to burn their house. Please continue to pray for us that the Lord will show us how to bring help and healing to this nation. Tony preached this Sunday at a local church and we have heard from many who had been in ...

It's exactly one month ago that Kenya has found herself in this current turmoil and violence. It felt a lot longer than a month, if you ask me....I can only imagine what it must be like for those who hd been displaced. Fresh violence has erupted in Naivasha, the latest city to fall under the violence. About 800 homes were burnt. I wish there were better news to report but there isn't....Let's keep praying

On Thursday, the whole nation saw on their television sets, that for the first time since election on Dec 27, President Kibaki and Raila (the opposition) shook hands after meeting together with Kofi Annan (the former UN General Secretary). Both men said that they are committed to bring peace to Kenya and urged Kenyan to be patient and not to attack one another. The nation almost gave a collective sigh of relief that at least the process of dialogue has begun. However, just an hour later, the opposition team held a press conference and criticised the President for calling himself the "duly elected President". Our relief was certainly short lived. Once again, we seem to be in a deadlock again. Meanwhile, another city, Nakuru which has been pretty calm has now erupted in violence. The news say that 12 were killed and hundreds of homes burnt. Like Eldoret and Kisumu, Nakuru was one of the thriving economies of Kenya - a bustling city. By now, I admit I am feeling pretty tired of ...

As I am typing this, Tony has left to get the girls from school instead of having them ride the school bus. The reason is that we just received an SMS on our phone that the peaceful march has now turned violent and spontaneous rallies may happen anytime throughout the city. I guess you can say that not much has changed.... More marches and rallies are planned the next couple of days- we need to continue pray. Today we have a debriefing with the student body concerning the situation here in Kenya. In the group that I was leading, I continue to hear of the terrible violence that has confronted our students directly. The details are too graphic and too violent for me to share in this post, except to once again to ask our friends and partners to stand with us in prayer to arrest this evil that has been unleashed in Kenya. Our work continue to be challenging with our student body. Many confessed to me personally that they are struggling with hatred and bitterness; their spiritual life a...

Sorry for the long absence...between having the girls at home and preparing for the new semester at the University and weekend preaching, we were kept busy. The city is still trying to get back to normal - there were still fighting and violence especially in the slums. We heard from the news that a few children were fatally shot during those skirmishes. The nation collectively heaved a huge sigh of relief when the opposition announced that they will stop the mass rallies while waiting for mediation with Kofi Anan. Well, it was a shortlived relief as they retracted from their promise just hours after making it. Once again, this week, we are bracing for rallies from Wednesday to Friday. The opposition now has taken a turn to hold "prayer meetings" instead of rallies, which in my opinion, is just another way to get around the police ban on public gatherings. Alice, the girl who works for me three times a week, and lives in Githurai slums told me that things has cooled down ...

I am continuing from my post below....so as not to lose my posting in case the internet or power should go out on me! The girls school closed from Wednesday to Friday due to the rallies. They were given study packets and will do their school work at home. It has been challenging for Kathryn since she needs the internet for some of her assignments..oh well.... We have received so many thank yous and testimony from the families who received our groceries package. One couple came to us and told us that they did not have much food left and he had gone to town hoping to be able to withdraw some money if there was a deposit in his account. Unfortunately, there wasn't and he had to returned empty handed. While he was in town, his 7 year old son called and asked him to buy them bread as they had not had bread for quite a while. Bread is considered a luxury food since it is a "soft" food and one would be hungry soon. Africans are used to heavier, "denser" and cheaper foo...

For those who have been checking in and wondering why I have not blogged for a couple of days - we've had internet problems and when we did get internet connection, the power would go out on us! Yesterday, the power came on and off for at least 10 times! This is not unusual but it still aggravates me. Tony did turn on the generator last night for a few hours so that our compound would at least have some light instead of total darkness. For those of you who have been here, you remember how pitch dark Africa gets when the power goes off! Not much has changed since I last wrote. The rallies that were called for yesterday, today and tommorow is still on. There were confrontations between the protesters and the police yesterday and many were hurt and busnessses were closed. It was relatively calm in Nairobi for most part of the day until late afternoon, when the protesters attempted their march. Tear gas were fired at the crowd. There were also trouble in the slums in Nairobi. ...

Today Tony preached a powerful message, "Things to come - Part 1" - he talked about the confusion that is in the world and how the church need to hear the voice of God. He stressed on how important it is that we return to holiness and learn to listen to the voice of God and to live in a state of repentance before the Lord. He ended the service with an altar call encouraging the church to repent before God and to live for Him, and make a difference in our world today. More than half the congregation responded to the altar call. It was a good service. After that, we visited a Malaysian family whom we've gotten really close to and had lunch with them - yummy Malaysian food. It is a good day! On the home front, we have no water right now as the water tank on campus has a terrible leak and the pump has to be switched off. We hope the problem will be solved soon. The girls are getting ready for school tomorrow after their extended holiday....it might be difficult to wake them u...

We are bless with a few days of normalcy and calm since Tuesday while negotiations and talks were going on. However, it seems that none of these talks has yielded any resolution and today, the Opposition has once again call for nationwide rallies to protest the election results. Once again, we have this cloud of uncertainty hovering over us. Schools are supposed to start next week, after a one week delay, we will see how things go. Please do not let up your prayers for Kenya, we still have a long way to go before this crisis is over. We received some data from the Kenya Assemblies of God this morning. We lost 98 churches either by fire or by destruction and iron sheets and timber being stolen. We have about 12,818 families that are displaced making a total of 64,159 people (Adult and children) from various parts of our church districts. Concerning the Eldoret Church (Kiambaa) which was burnt down while over 300 people were taking shelter there, (it was on CNN and most news channel) the...

We hear that there were fresh violence since the Kibaki named his cabinet. As if things are not complicated enough, the Law Society of Kenya has demanded the resignation of the cabinet. It frustrates and angers me that a professional group such as the LSK is willing to add to the boiling political temperature in the country instead of helping with the conflict. The news reported that the President visited Eldoret yesterday, one of the worse affected area and that while he was giving a speech, more houses around where the meeting took place were set ablazed. We received an email yesterday from a friend, that a church, not too far away from where we are, has become a shelter for over 260 people from the slums. The email calls for food, supplies, volunteers to help these people who suddenly find themselves refugees in their own country. There are so many needs all around us - even before these post election violence began- but now it is simply overwhelming. We are continuing to pray for K...

Vickie and I left the house early this morning to shop for the 14 student families on campus as I wasn't sure how well stocked the stores would be. Traffic was back to normal and on Thika Road, that means bumper to bumper busy. I never thought I would be happy to be in a bumper to bumper traffic but I was!! At least, it is an indication that life is back to normal....for most people anyways. We were in the grocery store for a full two hours as we collected basic groceries items, after we were done shopping, we went to a favorite coffee shop for a break! We filled our little car with bags and bags of groceries....which we unloaded in our dining room. The girls help sort out the goodies and put them in individual bags for each families.. This is Bashir, she is from Sudan. Desta who is here with two little boys is from Ethiopia Rejoice (pretty name, huh?) from Sudan (farthest from Tony) and Beatrice from Congo. Bethlehem from Ethiopia There were other families from Rwanda, ...

Thank you for your continued prayers....as of now, the Opposition has called off all public rallies! Both the goverment and the opposition are showing a softening on their stance as they meet with international envoys. There is now talk on power sharing - not sure what that means. The calling off the public rallies is significant - this means that life can go on in the city. When the rallies are on, we have to be home as roadblocks can take place anytime and anyplace, and any public rally most likely will turn violent.....so we are grateful for this news. It gives everyone a breather. We have our power restored! and our water returned about 6 hours later; another prayer answered! Our househelp came today and she was distressed as one of her neighbours, a man in his 40s was killed last night. She was also unable to buy food from the shops in her area as she is from a "wrong" tribe. We sent her home with some money and flour, oil, sugar, beans, etc. Nairobi is trying to return ...

As of now, Monday 8.10am, we have been without electricity for nearly 24 hours. Our water supply is pumped from a borehole on campus and since we need electricity to work the pump, we have no water either. We do have a small storage tank and we are using that for dishes and bathrooms. We are also fortunate enough to have a generator which we keep going for a couple hours at a time to keep our fridge and freezer cold.....but we want to be careful so that we won't run out of petrol needed for the generator. Pray that we get our power back soon.... Yesterday there were about half the congregation at the church we go to regularly, the children's church was cancelled, we are not sure why but we think because they had no teachers, so the kids attended the main service. The church is collecting food, money and personal effects for the displaced people - Vickie has already packed a sack of clothes that she can share. We will try to bring it to the church with some more food items somet...

The above title was taken from an editorial in one of our local newspaper. It is a brilliant article and can be read at http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=24&newsid=114056 . Yesterday, we ventured out as a family. We went to Village Market, a mall about 20 minutes from where we lived. The streets were calm, there were no evidence of the riots that has taken place a day before along those very same streets. Traffic was not as busy as it normally would be. The mall was busy - the parking lot was almost full; the food court very busy, check out lines at the supermarket were busy but flowing.... We met several other families eating at the foodcourt. Everyone was glad to be able to get out of our homes for a little bit. However, we continue to hear about the distress in different parts of the country. Tony talked to our General Superintendent of the Kenya Assemblies of God. He sounded weary and worned out. Thousands of people - homeless, tired, worrie...

We managed to call the bank at 8.45 this morning and found out that they are open and that there are no queues.....so despite the news that a rally is taking place at 10 am and the fact that the running battle between the crowds and the police yesterday was about 10 minutes from where we live, Tony (aka Jack Bauer - yes, we are big fans of 24...we are watching season 3 right now), OUR HERO, braved the streets and ventured out!! Yey!!! He was suprised to find the streets calm and managed to get some cash, and bought groceries from a minimarket. Here is our man with the loot!! This is why we love our daddy!! And this is THE REASON, this man can do no wrong, in my eyes anyways.....(for a couple of days???) While Tony risk "life and limb" (not really :-) to get us sustenance, the other man in our house, our very fierce and vicious guard dog, Max, was on duty keeping us girls safe and sound. Below is Max on duty... I know, after my serious posts the previous days, I must seem f...

Tony won't be going anywhere tomorrow morning as planned...we just heard in the 9 pm news that they are planning another rally tomorrow, and that they plan to do this on a daily basis till the situation resolves. That means we have to double up our prayers.....I will try to keep this blog as updated as I can. Pray for our internet to be working...we have been having problems, more than usual.

We had another prayer meeting on campus in the chapel this evening. During the prayer meeting, I had a mental picture that I saw on the news today of the map of Kenya and different places of the nations on fire indicating locations that are experiencing rioting and violence. As I was praying, the Lord ministered to me and challenged me to pray that these fires of destruction be turned to fires of revival all across our nations. I was encouraged and prayed as the Spirit leads. Let us believe that out of these smoldering ashes, God will bring forth beauty. Someone has also written to me that they were not able to comment on my post. I just found out that my blog apparently only allowed gmail account users to leave a comment. I have now changed that setting and now allow "annonymous" comments which means anyone can comment on my posts now. I look forward to reading your comment. Pray for Tony tomorrow as he will leave early to see if he can get any cash and continue to stock up ...

This morning began with some trouble in the city and the situation rapidly deteriorated when crowd began growing and the police triedd to prevent them from reaching the city centre. While the crowds were gathering, (one particular group was very near us, about 10 minutes on the main highway that we use daily); their leaders were in a meeting with Desmond Tutu. Eventually, the leaders called off the rally for today and postponed it to next Tuesday. On campus, Tony initiated a prayer meeting and almost everyone on campus attended the prayer meeting. We all called upon the Lord for our beloved nation. There will be another one this evening...we will continue to pray till peace returns. The University has also decided to delay registration for a week, so officially, we will begin the semester next Thursday. The goverment has similarly delayed the beginning of school till next week. We haven't heard from the girls' school yet but I am quite sure they will delay that too.... Havin...

We had a humbling experience today....when Lucy, the director of the orpahange came in the afternoon to get the money to buy food for the kids, she brought with her two tray of eggs!! She wanted to share with us what she has.....can you imagine the orphanage feeding us?????? Most of you reading know that we have lived and serve in this beautiful nation for 16 years. If you had ever wondered why, you now know....! As we give ourselves to the people of Kenya, our lives and hearts are knitted to the people here. They have loved us in return and are taking care of us as their very own...I know that if we ever needed help of any kind, many homes will be open to us. We were so touched, humbled and grateful by this tremendous act of generosity and sacrifice, in the midst of trials and scarcity....we are bless. Kathryn was a little concern that we did not have enough fresh vegetable - not that she is a big vegetarian, but I think like most of us, we tend to want to hoard when there is scarcity...

We have updated news about the church. Apparently over 200 people were seeking refuge there when the mob set it on fire. Many managed to flee but around 50 people, mostly women and children were killed. The pastor of the church, one of our very own AG pastor, is alive but injured. He couldn't be admitted to the Eldoret Hospital as it was full. The General Superintendent is finding a way to airlift him to Nairobi for treatment. We have heard from others too, that many Luos are hiding Kikuyus in their home, keeping them safe from the mob - this is probably something you won't hear from the news station! These are the unsung heroes in our chaotic nation. Majority of the people in this nation are peaceful Kenyans, The four major towns that are affected are Kisumu, Eldoret, Kakamega and Rift Valley. Yesterday, things were quite normal in our side of town. Tony ventured out in the morning and chcekced out a nearby supermarket which was opened and well stocked. He immediately wen...

I just send out the following email to our friends. If you are reading this, we ask that you please take time to pray for the nation of Kenya. Dear friends, We are writing from very troubled circumstances here in Kenya. We just received news that 200 people were burnt to death in a Kenya Assemblies of God church in Eldoret. We do not have confirmed figures at this point, some said 35-40 poeple. They were taking refuge in the church as their homes were already burnt down. We also received news that a pastor (from the Luo tribe) has been helping other pastors (from the kikuyu tribe) by hiding them in his house and then taking them to the police station as a safe house. These kikuyu pastors have had their houses burnt and their lives at risk - theirs as well as their families and church members. The situation here is very volatile. It almost seems surreal to us - we have lived here over a decade and never thought this could ever happened. We are safe and we live in an area that is quie...