Processing through destruction

    I’m sitting at a table in a mall food court in Kenya and I managed
to grab some random wireless internet signal so here I am trying to figure out
what to say about my time in Kenya thus far. 
It’s hard for me to even begin to process or reconcile in my mind both
what I have seen and what I have heard. 
I have had many opportunities to just sit and listen to my friends.  I can sense that they are still trying to put
words to the things that they have witnessed months ago.

I have heard to quotes from several people that cut me to the
core.  So much so, that I am still
rolling them over in my mind.  The first
being, “it was awfully bad here in January and February, you could not go out
of your homes, no stores were open to buy food.”  That quote in itself was hard for me to
imagine, but then I heard this one, “Not even animals would do these kinds of
things to one another.”  Repeatedly, I
heard stories of people having to flee their homes because one day their neighbors
woke up to decide to rob them or kill them, maybe even burn their house to the
ground.   These neighbors would have had children that
played together and even went to the same school and yet they saw this time of
uprising as a perfect time to benefit from what their neighbors had.  Scott and I walked through some local markets
that had been burned down to the ground and we saw several blocks in the slums
that had been burnt to the ground as well, but had already been rebuilt.  We also walked into a large church in the
slums that had the roof burnt off of it. 
We went inside of it to find out what the story was.  It appears a band of thieves went to steal
the generator from the church.  They
found it full of gasoline so they poured it all over the wall of the church and
lit it on fire. 

The hard part for everyone is that you can’t really explain
what went on here.  You can’t rationalize
it.  It certainly doesn’t make any sense.  The hard thing is that things have settled
down and people are being told, “It is over. Return to your homes.”  However, if you had to flee your home because
your neighbor burnt it to the ground, or because a band of thieves hacked your
husband to pieces with machetes, how do you move on from that?  How do you return to your home when you know
that your neighbor is using your furniture or watching your television in his
house?

I know that I have painted you a very ugly dark picture of
Kenya right now, but I will not leave you there.  Although I see and feel a tremendous amount
of hurt; I still see hope.  Scott and I
have seen many places that were rebuilt, or somewhere in the reconstruction
process.  In one area where several
blocks were torched, now new shops stand in their place.  In January-February, Toi Market in Kibera
slums was a total loss.  Mobs of people
were seen running through to grab anything they could get their hands on and
then it was burnt to the ground.  Today,
Scott and walked through and were surprised to see that the whole market was
almost completely rebuilt.  People are
trying to move on and figure out how to go about everyday life.  One approach towards moving on that surprised
me was a friend that said, “All we can do is pray to God and ask him to forgive
us for what we have done in Kenya.” 

So here is where I’m at right now in trying to process
through things.  I know that my God is a
God of redemption and that he will redeem these things in Kenya.  He will bring hope and he will take care of
his children.