talk and pray

I got a note today inviting me to a reunion of folks who went to Nairobi International School back in the seventies. My parents were missionaries and we lived outside of Nairobi in a small town called Karen that took it’s name from Karen Blixen or Isak Dinesen, as she is known to many. I was in ninth grade, my brother in seventh. On Saturday mornings, we would walk out to the road and hitchhike into the city to eat at Iqbal’s (whose specialty was chipati and keema).

My view, looking back, is romanticized because I was a ninth grader and I’ll also stand by my statement that Kenya was a great place to grow up. Though it shares many of the same problems of other African nations – poverty, HIV/AIDS, postcolonial tribal issues – Kenya has been a haven for refugees of the surrounding war-torn countries (Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, and others), so the brutal rioting and ethnic violence that broke out in Kenya over discrepancies in the most recent presidential election are damaging in many, many ways.

Here are two first hand video accounts from a Kenyan television station, one from Kisumu



and one from Nairobi.



I follow my blogging pals Bill and Laurie in asking for prayers; I would also ask you to talk about what is going on to those around you. On a night when our presidential race is officially beginning (does it ever really end?), a country I love dearly is imploding over the election of their president. Hundreds have been killed. Tens of thousands have been displaced.

Please, please, talk and pray.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. -- NPR has a good collection of information.