NEWS

MONDAY, 4TH FEBRUARY 2008

 

DARYL and I went early to the Presbyterian main Church in Eldoret this morning.

We found them having just finished breakfast camping in some spare timber buildings in their School Compound.    The Pastor and some of his Elders, one or two that I have known for many years, were gathered together there, and we joined them.   They were very glad, even moved, to see us there.      Tears in their eyes they recounted how they had woken in the early hours of Saturday night to the blood curdling screams and yells of a two to three hundred strong gang of destruction.     

The children were sitting on the dusty ground as we talked - about 14o of them.   They had enough food and blankets. and refused any other assistance until Wednesday.  They are all very concerned as to what to do next.      Their Congregation, almost 100% Kikuyu also disturbed and wondering if they can really have a future in Eldoret any more.      Certainly they do not feel they can rebuild on the Church land out of town upon which they were raided.    Next time the raiders might KILL them.   

They are considering seeking bedspace in other Homes in the area for the children they have, and then closing down their operation.    If that becomes a hard and fast decision then they will ask the Children's Forum to step in and offer places........

I am sure we WOULD all help even if it means squeezing!      Talking with them there was a sense of great LOSS and 'lostness' amongst them.....HOW could this all be?  Just a few short weeks ago everyone had been living quietly together......

 

NO STORY in the papers!    Just a photograph of ruin, but no description of what had happened, or how a hundred infants had woken terrified in the night to be chased out of their safe place and put to flight......probably not bloody enough for the press to sensationalise about!

Today's Headline in the Daily Nation

AGONY IN CAMPS AS MPs APPEAL FOR PEACE

'At least about 300,000 Kenyans are still sheltering in about 44 makeshift camps around the Country.

 

Testimony Faith Homes has continued to be strengthened by the Word of God, and by Prayer, and much generous giving from brothers and sisters in many places.   We have been more than Thankful - not just to have our own growing needs met - but also to have been able to distribute more than £4,500 in material aid to friends and neighbours around us.      We will soon provide an account of how this has been spent, and relief provided to local victims of this deep sorrow.    Some being members of our own staff, and many from outside, young and old.      We want to demonstrate the fellowship of the suffering that has at least a little been alleviated by the love of so many.

 

TODAY I have written to the Uasin Gishu District Commissioner asking that he arrange a Meeting with the Children's Services Forum (the officers) and the Children's Department.       Many NGOs busy working amongst children are wondering what the future holds - IF as seems likely the policy of ethnic cleansing should continue would it become necessary to employ ONLY Kalenjins, and care ONLY for Kalenjin children?

How safe would property owned or managed by non Kalenjins actually be, and what measure of officially protection could be expected.    Most of us came to Kenya to help the NATION not just a small part of it.

 

IF the idea of DIVISION of Kenya were to actually come about (although the politicians strongly deny this would mean tribal divisions) it might well end up producing a situation in which none of us would be free to reach ALL needy children from ANY area of Kenya.      This would mean that all of us would need to seriously re think HOW to fulfill the vision given to us.

 

SOME schools and colleges are opening.     BUT the Eldoret Campos of our own local University (MOI) remains closed - Residential Halls still burning and gutted having been totally vandalized by the local population - apparently quite unaware that they are also destroying their own livings and local economy (the students have been the source of a real increase in their prosperity - until now!)         The other part of the University, the MAIN CAMPUS is about 40 kilometers away and expects to open next week - and our son Manu will have to take up his studies there again - with some trepidation on all our parts.

 

This afternoon a tiny, emaciated Kikuyu woman came to my offence.     She is a single mother, slightly physically deformed and recovering from an operation that has gone septic.    Her poor shanty home has been burned down and now she is out in the street with her three infant children - will I take them in.........She will come again tomorrow - Esther and I thinking how to help her.    We do not want to just take her children from her.....SO MANY PROBLEMS.

 

It has been a quiet day.    Everything normal.    The sun has shone.   The Leaders still talking in NAIROBI without a word of how they are progressing - It is truly AMAZING that they can be so apparently unmoved by the PAIN so universally perceived and born.

 

All for now, dear friends and family.

 

John and Esther