We Really Are OK

Yes, it is bad. But we are safe.

I can’t lie and say things are normal here, because they are not. There is always the “what if” in our minds as we go about daily activities. But, we do feel it is as normal and safe as possible for us right now. Please know that if we thought we were in danger, we would not be here.

That being said, there are things that we cannot and will not do. I don’t have a wild desire to drive across town, but our normal routes are OK. I won’t be visiting the Nairobi Game Park anytime soon – as you would drive right by Kibera, one of the slums that has had the most violence. However, we drove to Westlands today to take a diseased passion fruit plant for testing at the KARI labs, and that was OK. Yesterday, Horace drove two hours north to Murang’a to visit one of our projects. He felt fine about the drive and the area in which he was working.

Mary Shea started swim team practice this week. Other than being totally exhausted (in a good way), all was fine. Horace had two basketball games. They won one and lost one – by two points from a last second shot. We have Sports Day tomorrow – which is a day with track and field events for Grades K – 8. The high school is having a Luau tomorrow night at the new pool. All these things seem quite normal, and they are.

I, however, am not traveling outside of Nairobi for the time being. This is not because our work areas are unsafe; it is because there is always a possibility that school would have to dismiss early one day due to trouble in some parts of Nairobi. Though our school is in a very safe location (around the corner from the UN and the US Embassy and next door to US Embassy housing), they have to consider navigating buses all over Nairobi. They simply will not take any chances.

What this means is that we are behind schedule on our work. The passion fruit and flowers don’t know that, so they aren’t going to stop growing. The farmers still need technical assistance along the way. We are postponing the business classes for now until we can be assured that school is on schedule.

I read a list today of the “possible signs” of stress which was published in our school email newsletter. It said we aren’t supposed to beat ourselves up if we aren’t very productive right now, so I guess I will have to go with the expert advice. It also said that watching the news can cause increased stress in an already stressful environment (OK – a clear statement of the obvious). I am sure you can relate somewhat that the news media does tend to focus on the most graphic and horrific images they can possibly find. I am finding that they repeat these particularly disturbing pictures regularly on both BBC and CNN International. I am sure what you are seeing is just as bad, and I do realize that you worry for us. We are blessed to have many at home praying and caring for us – not only now, but also the past three years of our work here.

We do appreciate the prayers, and they are a great comfort to us. There are so many people here in dire straights. There is a flower farm in Naivasha that we know of that has been inundated with refugees. As one of the managers told a friend of ours, they are farmers and business men, not aid workers. They feel totally overwhelmed with the responsibility to help and clueless about how to do it. At one camp in Limuru last week, in just one night, 15 babies were born. We have options – such as a safe place to live, transportation readily available, food, water, electricity, clothing and all our possessions. There are people here that are not so fortunate, and they truly need your prayers.

We pray that politicians will be able to put greed and pride aside as they negotiate a deal for peace. This is a miracle for any politician to do, but more so in this case, it seems. That will truly take the power of prayer, of course, but we do feel that it would be God’s will for this to happen.

We will try to keep you updated as much as possible. Thank you for the emails and the prayers. Keep ‘em coming!!

Blessings,
Anne