Kachibora Refugee Camp

Hi Everyone!

I know a few of you have been wondering if I'm safe...you watch the news reports coming out of Kenya and wonder just how safe I am. Well, don't worry. I'm perfectly safe.

Last night I spent the night at the Kachibora refugee camp with 22,000 displaced people. They were so appreciative of our coming. We brought blankets, Swahili bibles, and the most popular item we brought was, believe it or not, feminine sanitary pads! The women were jumping up and down screaming and doing their ever-so-distinctive "yell." Many of you know the sound I am talking about...it's a cross between a yell and whistle of sorts and they do it while singing and apparently, when they are very excited. Anyways, the people at this camp had fled their homes with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Some even left without their children. They are sleeping in tents provided by the Red Cross, which are nothing more than tarps slung over wooden stakes. Sleeping on the red Kenyan dirt, these refugees fall asleep not to the sound of the stillness of the night, but rather, the incessant chewing of termites overhead threatening the stability of their makeshift shelter. They have been there for a month and honestly, they just want to go back. But, go back where? Many of their homes have been burned. The road ahead is shrouded by the unknown...barriers both seen and unseen.

I preached a message on Luke 5 and the men who brought Jesus their paralyzed friend. I spoke of their four defining attributes: persistence, cooperation, unselfish love and faith. The men were persistent in trying to get to Jesus...so much so that they climbed up on the roof to get to Him. They worked together being that there was no way they could do it alone. When everyone is in it for themselves, the group as a whole suffers tremendously. This point truly resonated with the people. The men were unselfishly loving because they could have brought their own problems, diseases, etc. but instead they brought their friend to Jesus. And, certainly, these were men of faith. If they had no faith in Jesus, they would have looked like total fools going through all of the trouble to reach Him not knowing if He could really help them. No, they had faith and the bible says Jesus saw their faith and forgave them and healed the paralyzed man.

That night, 100 people knelt down on the cold, rain-soaked Kenyan earth and accepted Christ. I can't even begin to describe the scene...just a sea of white tents. It looked almost like a civil war encampment. Quite an amazing experience. We gave Pastor Mwange, the camp chaplain, a copy of the Purpose Driven Life and a Swahili bible and he did a dance of joy. { Ok, so now it's Megan Affleck here...Last night on the phone, Steve told me a story that I am going to share with you whether he thinks I should let this out or not haha I am just kidding. He told me I could include it on the blog so, here it goes: It was just after dinner and the dirt was now mud from the rain that had belted down on the camp. They had been playing with all the children, muddy and tired I assume, but happy to have had some fun amidst the circumstances. Laughter had turned into silent anticipation for the imminent message. Steve was now up on high ground preaching the message I detailed a paragraph ago when all of a sudden a flare goes off in the sky. Picture it if you will...600 people immediately hit the floor and were lying frozen, face first and not about to move an inch. People were screaming and running around. Steve had no idea what the flare meant. Turns out, a flare is a sign of an imminent attack! Thank you Jesus, our Precious Lord and Savior, for being a fence for Pastor Steve and all of those people in the camp that night. }

We are now on our way to go pick up Dan Hamer...Stonic is taking us through the back roads. Also, thank you guys so much for all the comments. I love reading them and they are a real blessing!