Friday update from Kenya

Just a quick update to let you know how things are progressing in Kenya. Once again, the opposition tried to hold a demonstration in the city center. After a chaotic chase around the business district, police prevented it from happening once again with teargas. Other than that, I haven’t heard of anything else happening in Kenya today as far as the strife is concerned, so a sliver of normalcy may be coming back. We actually have several kids spending the night at our house tonight. I think the fact that their parents feel comfortable enough to let them be away from them speaks volumes. I know I feel considerably better about this situation.

Two friends of mine attended a meeting for employees of the U.S. embassy and told me that news was all very calm. In fact, they are not even evacuating their personnel from Western Kenya, where the violence has been the worst, and they are encouraging their employees who were home over the Holidays to return to Kenya. We are pretty much following the lead of the embassy, and we plan to go to a town hall meeting there Monday. I’ll keep you posted as to what they say.

On the political front, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has been here with the Kenyan Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi meeting with political leaders, and while we don’t really know what they are saying behind closed doors, it does appear that both sides at least may be willing to talk, as the top U.S. envoy for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, is supposed to be arriving to help bring the parties to the table. It is being reported that the U.S. and U.K. are pushing for a power sharing agreement amongst both sides.

Please pray that the opposing parties will talk to one another and that the Lord’s hand will intervene in the whole process bringing peace to this land. Also pray that the political leaders are able to curtail the senseless violence of their followers all around Kenya.

On a much lighter note, our Labrador Retriever Sukari (Swahili for “sugar”) is in the process of having puppies, just two so far, one yellow, one black. So it may be a long night around the Tipton household between the kids and new puppies.

We truly appreciate everyone’s prayer support. Please keep it up. Things may be a bit better, but I don’t think we are quite out of the woods yet. We’ll let you know something tomorrow as well.

Blessings,
Horace