Prayers and Praise

Still not much news from Nairobi… We understand that Kofi Annan has put a gag order on all sides of the mediation efforts. We don’t expect to hear much coming from them for several days. I think it may be another instance of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. Sometimes, the political posturing gets a bit tiring – ok, not just sometimes, it is probably more like most of the time. I cannot imagine the frustration of being a mediator between them.

Today’s basketball game was against Rift Valley Academy – which, being another American school for missionary kids, proves to be quite the rival school! We won 17 – 4. Horace played an excellent game. (His uncle Joe will be happy to know he had his share of fouls – some called fairly and some a bit questionable.) We have a few weeks with an empty sports schedule as we wait for the basketball tournament in early March. The schedule has been strange this year with all the troubles in January.

We do appreciate your prayers for us, our family and this country, but tonight I feel a special need to ask for prayers for friends of ours in the US. Jim and Elaine served here as missionaries. They were truly bright spots in our lives. Their three children, Josh, Luke & Anna were students at the same school as our children, and Anna was one of my students. We worshiped with them on Sundays, ate dinner at our favorite cheap restaurants, enjoyed intramural sports at school and went camping with them. Elaine held my hand and kept my sanity in check when Horace, Jr. received an especially hard hit in rugby once – even going out onto the field to give him a quick medical check as she is a trained nurse. It reassured me, but more importantly, it saved my son the embarrassment of having a mother who went down to the field. Last July, they found out Jim had a brain tumor. They rushed him from Nairobi to the US, but the situation was already pretty grim.

Elaine’s updates are always full of love and grace – she was a trained hospice nurse and has said repeatedly that she know she will use these experiences to be a better care giver in the future. I recently received an update from Elaine talking about Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”. As you can well imagine, Elaine has been reminding – or forcing - herself to rejoice daily in anything she can consider good. Jim is not always alert anymore and has suffered terrible pain. However, one day recently, Jim had a great day where he was alert and really with his whole family. She said that she didn’t have to remind herself to rejoice that day, she just did. She talks about how God gets us through everyday, but sometimes He sends those messages to us to let us know how deeply He really cares for us.

Of all the whining and complaining I have done about the many inconveniences we have experienced, I am ashamed to say that very few times I have stopped to realize that we have never truly known suffering as many have in this country and around the world with various forms of suffering. I am also ashamed to say that I don’t think I have rejoiced in the good news half as much as I have complained and whined about the bad.

We do praise God for our family’s safety in the turmoil as well as the glimmer of hope of reconciliation and peace for Kenya. We praise God for all the scattered stories we hear of good news that don’t make the international media. We also praise God for the inspiration of our friends Jim, Elaine, Josh, Luke and Anna – even in the midst of their suffering, their lives continue to be a light to others.

We have had computer issues with our old trusty laptop – which someone not too long ago described as a dinosaur computer (OK, I might be whining again). One morning this week, it simply greeted us with a plain black screen. Once I got it back up, I immediately backed up all our pictures on a disc (and I did praise God that I had that second chance to save them). So, bear with us if we are a bit inconsistent in getting a blog written while the computer issues are being sorted out.

Blessings,

Anne