The IDP CAMPS of Mt ELGON

The politically correct name is IDP CAMP...internally displaced people... what used to be called REFUGEE CAMPS.

Whether or not the word refugee is the best term, the fact is that on Mt. Elgon, in West Kenya...people are seeking REFUGE.

• refuge from starvation
• refuge from rebel terror
• refuge from the elements, because of their homes being destroyed
• refuge from utter hopelessness

Our PEACE RELIEF team of summer interns has been able to partner with Pastor Crispen and the Mt. Elgon Pastors Network to distribute much needed aid and hope in Christ to these folks. In one village, 22 children have starved in the past month.

People were so 'over the top' happy and celebrated the 2 relief days in typical Sabaot style...with songs and dance and prayers and hugs.  

People who have been run off and burned off and shot off their ancestral land, have gathered and huddled together in these IDP camps for security and survival.
They have no more than a tarp given by the United Nations...and each other...

There are 5 women for every man because so many men have been killed...leaving kids and women to fend for themselves...

Our PEACE RELIEF team has been able to deliver:

• 40 220 lb. bags of maize...a Sabaot staple
• hundreds of pairs of sandals to protect from worm and jigger infestation
• hundreds of warm wool relief blankets...the folks here live 7000 ft above sea level 
• hundreds of 'lesos' or traditional fabric wraps...for dividing up tents or carrying children
• hundreds of Swahili New Testaments and Bibles
• thousands of women's sanitary products (the biggest cheer you can believe)
• sugar, wheat flour, and cooking oil  

4 to 6 families live in each of these tiny dwellings.
Everything we do in PEACE RELIEF is done through the local pastor...as wonderful as all the great help agencies and ngo's are... they pack up and go away... but the CHURCH REMAINS.
Sammy from Cal State Fullerton delivers a blanket to an appreciative mom.
Torie from BIOLA University has made a lifelong friend by delivering... of all things...'Stay Free with Wings' (many asked why do they have 'wings'?...I hope to never know the answer) 
Anne, a 4th grade teacher from Providence Christian School, in Dallas, delivered Swahili Bibles to hundreds who have never had their own copy of God's Word.

We are going back next week and spending the night in one of the camps...something NO white person has ever done in Mt. Elgon...to demonstrate our solidarity and care for these hurting people... please pray...it works

Hannah from Rwanda...big changes...little steps

If you go back to one of my blogs from the end of March...of '08...I was buying blankets and rice and relief supplies with Floyd Mohr and Ron Neufeld in Kigale, Rwanda, to take to an IDP camp in Kibuye.

That day we came upon this little Islamic girl named Ameni sitting on a bag of sugar...

Ameni had a difficult past...

• Her mom was brutally cut to pieces during the genocide
• Her dad died of AIDS
• She was orphaned at 4 with NO ONE who had the ability or inclination to care for her
• She and her brother carved out an existence on the streets of Kigale, 'hawking' or selling  tiny things...candies, soaps, anything... to buy some food.
• Not a day of school in her entire life
• Could not spell her name

She and her friends, Janet and Juliette, followed our Rwanda outreach team from schools to orphan care centers...from youth groups to churches...all the time listening to the Gospel presentation of Christ's Love...everywhere we went in town...they would show up...a stadium, a restaurant, a gathering...just soaking up the message...

One Sunday morning, as our group was sharing their about their own journeys with Jesus, at Deliverance Church...Ameni had heard enough...  

She quietly removed her Muslim headdress, layed down her Islamic prayer beads...walked to the front of the church and knelt with our team.

She asked Jesus to forgive her sins, she said she wanted to accept Him as her Lord...to begin a new life...

Ameni's decision that day has changed alot of things...first she led her brother to Christ...he was baptized in the Kigale Assembly of God Church and Changed his Islamic name to Emannuel.

Emannuel and Ameni have worked with Juliette and Janet in their faith journey.

In Feb of '09 I invited Ameni and Emannuel to come by bus to join our Kenya outreach...On that trip, Ameni changed her name to Hannah and I had the privilege of baptizing her in the Kitale Club pool. 
Since then it has been quite a wild ride...here is Hannah after she told the men at ANNEX PRISON about how they could find a new path through the Lord.
Here's Hannah talking with women inmates at Kitale prison about how change is possible.

You just never know who that little girl...sitting on the bag of sugar... is or will turn out to be.

more on Hanna later...please pray for her...Torie Fields, one of the leaders of our Kitale PEACE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE, is co-ordinating daily English classes for her. 

SIGNS and wonders...part 3

OK... I'm getting into this 'signs thing...

but they are roadmarks for me...of where I've been and with whom...

like these kids outside a Congo IDP camp...

...like this billboard inside Kakuma Refugee Camp along the border of Sudan...
Is it just me or does a sign for 'deformed animals'  just grab your attention?

All those other things...camping and butterflys and picnics and nature trails...nice...

but DEFORMED ANIMALS...woah...how can you walk away from that???
This may be one of my favs...the memorial plaque at the Dorothy Beck Bridge we built with Harmon Parker in West Pokot to honor a true PEACE HERO...
BIG MESSAGES sometimes come on little pieces of paper...

Sometimes along the way, the sign and what's going on around it are in PERFECT sync...

Street kid day at PD Academy...
When you pass the 4th banana tree on the left...just past the cow, but before the mango grove...

you are at Sister Freda's !!!

More SIGNS along the JOURNEY...

Some days the signs we pass along the way are just a BLURR of messages that we don't even see or have time to absorb. I love looking at Kenyan signs...they say so much... and sometimes they just crack me up or baffle me.

Here are some more signs along the road...inside schools or on the pathway...

The size of this church is only slightly bigger than the sign...but what a worship service we had..
I've stayed at a lot of hotels in Texas...but never at the Texas Hotel...it does appear to have wi-fi though...that's a plus
I'm not sure what these guys definition of 'modern' is ...but as a general rule...if I can't spell 'modern'...I'm probably not modern...
Psalm 133:1 ...a sweet sign of harmony in the dining room of Africa Theological Seminary in Kitale...