Kitale

The ACTS team from IHOP is almost finishing our first month in western Kenya. From the very beginning of meeting the YouthApart team here in Kitale, it was apparent to us that truly we are on God’s mission not our own.

We boarded a 12 hour bus to head up north to a desert area called Turkana. This land has been plagued with drought and is home mostly to the nomadic Turkana people. And low and behold in the middle of this wasteland, a refugee camp. Thousands from Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Congo congregate into this most unlikely place of refuge.

We met one family in the nicer area of the camp (500 USD for a little more elbow room, yet most people/ refugees could never afford this). This Congolese family gave us a little insight into the tragedy of being uprooted from your country, from being community leaders to joining the countless numbers in line for food from the UN in a place where no one knows you. They told us about camp life, the small food rations, the violence, the disease, and the ever present hopelessness.

Like many refugee camps, there is no end in sight, to downsize the camp or work towards re-entrance into society. The small city of Kakuma needs the camp to survive, as well as the many that need the UN jobs to provide for their families. In fact, the camp is growing with the continuing flow of Somalis being shipped from the eastern camp in Dadaab. As they come in, they bring in dangerous connections with radical Islamists and Al-Shabab. This force has been felt by the people of Kakuma as Islam sets root, and even in the camp as many kids are being recruited to Madrasas. The camp has also created strife with the local Turkanas, as the UN trucks drive past the Turkana villages full of people dying from the drought to deliver food only to foreigners. The Turkanas have renamed themselves The Forgotten People.

What good could come from such a mess like this?

Within a week after travelling back to Kitale, Gadhafi was shot leaving more confusion for Lybia, and northern African countries remain in turmoil. Al-Shabab, the radical Islamic terrorist sect from Somalia has been kidnapping westerners in coastal areas of Kenya and threatening to openly start attacking Kenya. Yesterday, 2 bombs went off in Nairobi. Obama has declared to support Kenya in their reaction to the insurgence of these terrorists. But they are coming into Kenya crossing from Somalia into north eastern Kenya., unquestioned, arriving in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world with half a million people. Al-Shabab uses this camp as their access point, fueling up on UN supplies as they pose as refugees and go on with their business.

We truly are here at a specific point in history. This is no game. What is God asking of our team? What is God asking of Mombasa, a coastal Islamic stronghold in Kenya where the attacks are being focused more and more? What is He asking of us and our friends as we are in Kitale? As the world rages, and terrorist groups go on with their plans, so do we.

We spend every morning in a little room: our team, church leaders, youth, piano, guitar, and bongo. It doesn’t sound like much, and truly it’s not, to the human eye. But to God this small room is the birthing place of national and international response to crisis. While the world looks to the UN, to a new government, the economy for answers, we look to One Man (Mt 16.15). The One who delivers justice for the refugee (Isa 42:13-16), who responds to oppression (Isa 61.1), who gives water to the dying (Jn 4.10), who loves Somalis, Libyans, Kenyans (Mt 11.28-30), who has the only unyielding plan for the nations in this hour (Rev 5.4-5).

Every day the reality becomes more apparent. The world shakes and does not know which direction to turn for relief, but we do not fear because we know the only prescription for the hour (Joel 2.12-17). God has been stirring our hearts in our small prayer meetings, asking us and our fellow Kenyans, would we be willing to respond with Him in this hour? Would we care for the nations? Could Kenya rise up as a nation of light to Somalia to Northern Africa? What would happen if the youth of Kenya gave themselves to God fully, regarding not their lives, but caring more for their brothers and sisters who do not know the only Giver of Life, the only Man of Peace.

We believe God is birthing a missions movement from our little prayers that will change Kenya and the continent. Will you join us in prayer?

We are praying about going to Dadaab. Last Sunday as we were leading a church service, a deadly dispute broke out 20ft. away, and as bullets were whizzing in the air just outside, it was posed on some of our hearts, are we willing to give our lives for the Truth to go forth? Is it worth my life? Was it worth His life? (Jn 19.28).