Never have I known the urgency for prayer, than what I do right now. My friends may be dying in the streets of Kenya.
I just received word via email, that Alex was shot in the stomache the other day in one of the riots in Kibera. They saw his name in an interview. He is the one in the yellow shirt. I just got this email from the pastor we worked with there.
Hello, Thank you for the email and the prayers for all of us and Kenya. I had not known about Alex but I called Steve immediately after receiving your email. He told me that Alex is in hospital and is recuperating from a bullet wound. I talked to Pastor Timothy from Kibera too but he has not been able to visit the hospital to verify what is going on. It is very tense here and movement is very limited. It is very confusing for all of us Jim. Mary’s 3 brothers live in Eldoret a town in the west part of the country where the violence is in high gear. We are communicating with them through cell phones and they are already displaced. Their wives and children are camping in a church there and the husbands are out in the cold. They spent the whole of last night in the cold. We heard that a church was burnt there and women and children died. However the wives and children of our brothers are in another church. They are still in the same condition right now. You can not go in or out of Eldoret so it is very difficult to know how to help. According to the media reports, the Red Cross society is attending to some but they are overwhelmed by the numbers. All we are doing now is praying. If there will be a way for them out of there we have offered to stay with them until things cool down. I would keep close correspondence with Steve and Pastor Timothy in Kibera and know how we could be of help to the situation of Alex. Thank you for your prayers. God bless
This is another post from a member of AIM staff. AIM has a base in Kibera,Kenya – where I was both of my trips to Kenya.
December 27 elections were held for the presidency with the front runners being
Mwai Kibaki (sitting president) and Raila Odinga (Member of parliament representing
Kibera). On Friday rioting began for delayed results. On Sunday afternoon the Electoral
commission declared Kibaki the winner and he was immediately sworn in for a second
term without media being present. All live Radio and TV has been banned to quell
the violence. Raila’s party declared him the winner and asked Kibaki to concede.
Raila has also now declared that he is the president and that he will take over
Kibaki and will be installing a “parallel” government. Western observers,
the US and the UN all seem to agree there were large irregularities in the election
count process. The outcome of all this is large scale riots, violence, killings,
and chaos in Kibera, other slums in Nairobi and increased tribal violence across
the country. This is a worst case scenario situation.
Our friends are without food and unable to leave their homes because of the violence.
Gangs run the streets, going from house to house, breaking in, looting for any food,
water, whatever goods they can get. Then they force the occupants to show their
ID cards. If they are of a rival tribe, the occupants of the house are killed. There
is a one million man march planned by protestors for Thursday to gather in a downtown
park and storm the capital, taking it back by force. The current government has
shut everything down and plans to shoot to kill anyone who tries to enter downtown.
Police are already going through Kibera where they shoot first and ask questions
later. These are not some strange faces on a television. These are our friends.
These are the pastors we walked through the streets with, proclaiming the gospel.
These are the students in the Bible college where we taught. These are the people
who came over for strange American food and games with us. These are friends.
We are asking for you to pray… to lift them up in intercession… to fast… to shake
heaven and earth with our prayers for our friends. They are standing in faith, knowing
their only hope of survival, their only hope for life, is God’s intervention. We
will be interceding and fasting from 6pm on Wednesday to 6pm on Thursday that the
plans Satan has to destroy this nation will be met with God’s miraculous intervention.
Check out http://kaylaphillips.myadventures.org<http://kaylaphillips.myadventures.org>
for more details and regular updates.
For His Glory,
PLEASE, join us in praying for our borthers and sisters, my friends, in Kenya. (1 Cor. 12:12,26a) “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.”
