An Uneasy Calm

The past week and a half has been up and down with protests, violence, demonstrations and general unrest. We are still doing fine, feeling safe on our compounds, and able to get out and about on our end of town during the day without any trouble.

Rosslyn started classes last Monday January 14. They ran the bus routes as usual Monday and Tuesday. Students were given the time to share in their classes about their experiences if they wanted to. Some students live close to the areas of Nairobi that experienced a lot of violence, and some of those students saw some pretty rough things. Others were far from the violence and spent fairly uneventful days waiting out the demonstrations.

The opposition party announced they would have demonstrations in 25 cities on the 16th, 17th and 18th (Wed, Thurs, Fri).

In light of the announced demonstrations, Rosslyn Academy felt it would not be safe for the buses to be out on the streets, especially on some of the routes that were near some of the hot spots. So they decided to send textbooks and assignments home with all the students on Tuesday. Teachers were in their classrooms for 3 hours each day Wed- Fri for any students who live near the school and who wanted extra help. Most of the teachers either live on Rosslyn's campus, or live nearby. Teachers were also available by phone. So we had some days of homeschool with Christina, but Mary opted to ride with Kevin each day to school, and went to her classroom to do her assignments. There were a handful of students in each class.

The crowds at the demonstrations were much smaller than the ones held previously, but the violence was still present. Protesters threw rocks at the police, built road blocks and set them on fire, and in the Kibera slum, a large group of young adults flipped over several hundred meters of the main railway ties as their protest against the government!! Police fired at demonstrators, killing several over the 3 days of demonstrations. Some shots were fired into the air but came down over the crowds and injured several. The actual numbers of casualties are conflicting - some reports say as many as 24 people were killed over the 3 days nation-wide.

The opposition group is saying they will begin boycotting businesses owned by the government or owned by government-related families. That sounds nicer than rallies and demonstrations. But they just announced today they will hold another protest on Thursday this week.

This is far from over.

Yesterday our mission had one of their quarterly mission meetings. We heard a report by the Kenya Assemblies of God General Superintendent. He traveled (by plane, since the roads are still blocked by thugs & armed bandits) to many areas where KAG churches have been destroyed either by looting or burning. He visited with pastors and refugees, helping where he could and praying with them. It was sad to hear about so many churches being destroyed just because of the kind of tribe that attended that particular church.

It has been raining quite heavily this week - one good thing was that it rained on two of the rally/ demonstration days, which kept the fair-weather demonstrators at home! The bad thing is that there are SO many internally displaced people, sleeping outside in the rain, in hastily set up refugee camps!! Nairobi doesn't have typical African weather due to its elevation (5, 500 feet above sea level), so it gets very cold at night (into the low 60s and 50s at this time of year). With rain and no shelter, that is very cold!!

Our church has taken up an offering 2 weeks in a row for some of the nearby refugee camps. A good number of people who attend our church have also gone to volunteer their help at a refugee camp that is very nearby. Everyone wants to do something to help. It's hard to sit and watch and wait.

Thanks again for praying.
Two more new blog posts are below this - but I wanted to update the situation first.