I can remember gallivanting around the marble corridors of the Pentagon as a child, marveling at the hall of flags and dancing to the clacking of business heels against the glossy floor.
I would take corners too quickly and embarrass my mom often, especially when she’d walk into an Admiral’s office and find me standing on top of a couch and asking if there was any candy, or if we could play hide and seek, or if it was finally time to go home.
My parents both worked at the Pentagon when I was a kid. Maybe that’s why this terrorist attack in Kenya has hit me so hard.
Maybe it's just because I’m a DC kid. DC kids felt the weight of 9/11 and of the DC sniper and raised security alerts a little differently than others. That could be why terrorism pierces me.
When I found out about the attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, it affected me deeply.
I won’t recap the whole thing, the cliff-notes version is this:
Saturday Afternoon, 10-15 gunmen from the extremist rebel group Al-Shabaab (affiliated with Al-Qaeda, have been attempting to impose Sharia Law in Somalia since 2011) tore through an upscale, popular shopping mall in the capitol of Kenya. The death toll is up to 68 with more than 170 injured, and there were close to 40 hostages taken. Nairobi police responded, followed by the Kenyan army and Israeli Special Forces who have all been working to rescue the hostages and bring this whole thing to an end. It still isn't over, though. For more, click here.
Adventures in Missions has had a team of long-term missionaries in Kenya since 2011. We have a Passport team and World Race Squad there right now (all of them are and have been safe). I can only imagine that if I were a parent and my child were in Kenya, I wouldn’t care about anything but getting him or her out of there immediately.
Thank God I’m not a parent because I think God might have bigger things going on.
Kenyans lined up to donate blood at a hospital in Nairobi on 9/22/13
Photo from Ashley Brady, M Squad
Often times when our feet hit foreign soil, we attempt to empathize with the locals and we just can’t.
We can’t imagine having grown up in their shoes. This time, that’s different. This time we know what it feels like. We aren’t strangers to terrorism.
Our nation was rocked by evil on 9/11. In response we chose to love one another, to commend our troops and back them up, to stand together.
There are a lot of ways that we can respond to an attack of this magnitude. We can rest, relieved that it wasn’t on US soil. We can condemn the nation of Islam in general (I’m sure someone, somewhere, is).
We can turn a blind eye because bad things happen in the world and we can’t save everyone. We can send blanket hatred confused with partially-informed condolences in the direction of the continent of Africa and hope they get their stuff together one day.
And while there is nothing wrong with being thankful that today we are healthy and safe, there is a lot of ignorance in those responses. In fact, can I tell you that CNN has reported that three of the rebels involved in the attack were from the US or had lived in the US for an extended period of time?
Our natural responses to this will not suffice. Our perspective is too limited. So, can I suggest a different response?
Can we arm ourselves with the belt of Truth, helmet of Salvation and sword of the Spirit before we form a flesh-based opinion about this?
Can we choose to believe this:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
Terrorism as a whole is just a symptom.
It’s the fever – the outward evidence that a much bigger ailment is present and actively working against all things good and healthy and beautiful.
Hate does not drive out hate. Darkness does not drive out darkness. Placing blame, speculating, degrading, and spouting ignorant and racially-discriminatory phrases will not ever cure the world of this kind of disease.
But the cure is here. We know it because we know Him, and He has invited us to join in what he's doing.
We’ve been invited to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and yet we so often choose to inflict wound for wound rather than taking the invitation to heal.
Let’s not do that this time. Let’s stand on the side of the Victorious. Let's fix our eyes on the good and the healthy and the beautiful.
Let’s cover the missionaries and believers who are there in prayer as they move forward in loving a hurting nation this week.
Let’s praise the Jesus who saves, and who takes what is meant for evil and uses it for good. Let’s trust that he’s faithful to that word, right now, in Kenya.
Photo from MK Hill, M Squad
