Praying for Kenya

Canadian Baptist Ministries

Project Officers for Ministry with Muslims 

William, Geoffrey and Laura

We spent today in meetings with our friends and colleagues Laura, Geoffrey and William who are each leading CBM's project interventions with local churches serving in Muslim majority communities in Kenya. These past few years have been increasingly tense as conflict between Kenya and the radical Islamist group Al Shabbab continues to escalate. The Easter week massacre of students at the Garissa University College has led to wide spread fear and anger. 

Despite the challenge of high insecurity in these areas, God is at work bringing about hope and transformation. In the CBM food security project, the number of Muslim farmers has doubled in the past three months with now 40 local farms in the "Farming God's Way" conservation agriculture initiative. Our colleague William, and volunteers from six local churches, continue to facilitate training and weekly mentorship for these local Muslim farmers and their Bulas (villages).

Public Health Forum in Bula Bukuyu

In the CBM relief project, monthly mobile health clinics are providing antenatal care, immunizations, and other public health services that are making a dramatic difference in reducing child mortality. In the past three months, 31 new pregnant mothers have been coming to the village clinics and 15 newborns have been receiving care. 

In a recent public health form on sanitation and hygiene an astounding 95% of each of the three target villages attended the half-day training. Together these communities have identified needs for more safe latrines and school facilities for their children. Through "food for work" initiatives, the villages are constructing their own latrines and classrooms:

"Food for work has had a dramatic impact in the community. The people are very proud of the roads, farms, and latrines that they have already built through food for work." shared Geoffrey.  "In these activities both men and women are involved. In the latest project the elders had identified the need for opening a road from the community to the nearest market and primary school. The work was planned to go on for 8 weeks whereby 20 people would come each week and work 3 hours a day (time that they had sacrificed from thier own farms) and at the end of the week they each received a family food bundle of 10kg of rice, 5kg of beans, a litre of cooking oil, and a packet of salt. Through their efforts they opened a clear road for the children to reach school and for the mothers to reach the market."

Monthly mobile health clinics in Garissa County

In Prayer:

May God kindle in the hearts of all people a love for peace, and the wisdom and courage required to set aside violence for reconciliation and forgiveness. Come Lord Jesus come.

Please pray for the families of the student killed this past week, on April 12th, in a stampede at a Nairobi university that was sparked by an electrical explosion. We pray also for the other 141 students who were also injured in the rush of trying to escape what they perceived to be another terrorist attack.

We pray for the families grieving for the loss of their 148 sons and daughters who were murdered in the Garissa University College attack. Many families are still desperate to locate missing children who were studying at the school. We also pray for eleven families from our partner churches who lost children in the terror attack. We stand in solidarity knowing that God alone can heal their brokenness. 

We pray for the 30 local churches of Garissa, including their pastors, as they seek to comfort the mourning and build peace and understanding with their neighbours. Many of these churches are struggling as so many Christians have moved out of Garissa following the Easter week tragedy. We continue to pray that God will sustain their witness through these difficult times.

Searching for Resurrection

Children's Sunday School Easter Egg Hunt

At the International Christian Fellowship

Nairobi, Kenya

Searching for Resurrection

The rainy season has returned to Kenya. The dry and seemingly still earth is opening up and new life is springing forth. Of course it is only from our perspective that the earth seems dead and still. Our agronomist friends tell us that there is actually a lot of life and unseen processes going on beneath our feet. In the darkness, something is happening: life is stirring, new molecular bonds are reshaping organic and inorganic matter, and God is moving in mysterious ways.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has declared this Easter weekend a time of national mourning for the 148 people who were murdered this past Thursday by Al Shabbab terrorists in Garissa. It has been a somber time in Kenya mixed with grief and anger, people are stunned by yet another massacre.   

It is not hard to relate to the doubt and fear of the disciple Thomas, the disciple who missed Jesus' appearance among the other ten disciples. When the others celebrated "We have seen the Lord!"  Thomas shook his head "I will not believe, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and touch the place where the nails had been and the wound in his side" (see John 20:24-29). Surrounded by so much death and despair, Thomas couldn't see what God was doing below the surface. He wanted to believe, but how could he? It had seemed so clear that evil had won and that hope was lost.

But the story was not over for Thomas, it is not over for Kenya, and it is not over for any of us. Signs of resurrection are breaking through the darkness, but we need to seek them. Like the women and disciples who went to the tomb on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis recently shared that as Christians, “we are called to be sentinels of the morning, who know how to see the signs of the Resurrection.” Thomas did not give into his despair, for we read that a week later he remained with the other disciples, he stayed in the community of faith and there in their midst Jesus appears and everything changes for Thomas.

We gathered this morning with our community of faith here in Nairobi and joined together in prayer and songs of hope. We do not know, nor do we understand, how God is moving within this situation. It is hard to imagine how any good can come from such a time of suffering and senseless loss, but we are seeking signs of resurrection. We believe that God breaks through the darkness. That the story is not over. That Christ has overcome.

As a grain of wheat that dies, but then it must bears much fruit (see John 12:24-25)

In Prayer

Please join us in praying for Kenya and the community of Garissa. We pray for comfort and healing for the families of the victims of this massacre. 

We pray for local churches throughout Kenya that they might witness a powerful movement God's Spirit reconciling them to their neighbours through the love and compassion of Christ.

Maundy Thursday Prayers for Garissa, Kenya

For many Christians, the Thursday which falls between Palm Sunday and Easter is known as Maundy Thursday: from the Latin word Mandatum meaning "commandment."  

The commandment being referred to is Jesus' command at the Last supper when, after passing among his disciples a cup of wine (a picture of the new relationship between God and his people that Jesus was about confirmed in his death and resurrection) Jesus said, "Do this to remember me as often as you drink it". 

Tonight hundreds of millions of Christians will read that story from the upper room, and we will break bread and share a common cup of wine. It is a picture of the sacrifice made by God, broken that we might become whole. 

Our world needs that kind of healing. We need that kind of wholeness.

Early this morning another sign of the brokenness erupted in the town of Garissa, where Canadian Baptist Ministries and many of our local church partners serve. We received an early morning call from our friend and colleague, William Wako, that Al Shabbab terrorists had stormed the Garissa campus of Moi University. The ordeal is still ongoing tonight with the local media reporting more than 147 students killed. We are sure that by now the story is being reported throughout the global media as well. Another violent attack. Another hostage taking. Another travesty. 

On every second Thursday night, Erica and I host a small Bible study group in our home. Tonight was such a gathering and we prayed together for the captive students, for the hostage takers, for the police, for the mourning families, for the community of Garissa and for the people of Kenya. We prayed for peace. We prayed for reconciliation. And we prayed for healing. 

Our study was entitled the "Tragic Sense of Life", and it was a heavy topic especially given the current horrors of Garissa. But one line in particular struck us tonight from the Franciscan Richard Rohr, and it is a word of hope that we would like to share:

"Salvation is sin turned on its head,

and used in our favour."

Evil, brokenness, and death do not have the last word. God is moving among us and although we all must experience the loss and suffering of this world in in one form or another, that experience of fallenness is not the end of the story. 

Maundy Thursday, the night of the "command", led to the cross, and to the tomb, but that was not the end of the story either. 

Please join us in praying for the people of Kenya.

* Pray for the freedom of the remaining students (possibly more than 300 are still being held).

* Pray for peace in Garissa, that this senseless incident will not devolve into further violence.

* And please remember the local churches of Garissa, our colleagues and friends that are committed to living in gracious hospitality and mutuality with their Muslim neighbours. 

CBM and ACC&S Ongata Rongai Borehole Project

Ongata Rongai Borehole Project from Wayne Morgan on Vimeo.

We are thrilled to share this brief video update from our friends and colleagues Wayne and Maureen Morgan from the joint urban ministry project of the African Christian Church & Schools and Canadian Baptist Ministries.