Solidarity in the Flames

Nairobi Women's Hospital is a safe and stable place amidst the brokeness and havoc erupting within Kenya. Over the past month, hundreds of women and children have been cared for through their gender violence recovery program that addresses both physical and emotional wounds of sexual assualt.

Last night, fires were set ablaze in Mathare Valley slum running people out of their homes. Some of the people who have been living in the Red Cross camps, saw the homes they had been struggling to rebuild over the past month reduced to heaps of smoldering charcoal in the muddy lanes of Mathare Valley. Five such families arrived early this morning at the Eastleigh Community Centre tired and dumbstruck by the senseless destruction which they have suffered.

By mid-morning, Erica and two female social worker collegues at the ECC had found a young woman who had been missing from the centre for several days. They were able to take her to Nairobi Women's Hospital for medical attention and trauma counselling as she had been a victim of a sexual assualt. We are so thankful for the compassionate and generous services of the Nairobi Women's Hospital for women and children.

It is SO difficult for us to see such senseless violence. Maybe we can begin to understand the anger and rage loose within impoverished communities throughout Kenya, but the wickedness and evil exacted against children and women is beyond understanding. It breaks our hearts. We know it breaks God's heart. It is a devastating perversion of humanity. And like the flames in Mathare, it destroys. It tears apart the soul.

And yet we hold onto faith through the flames, God is here. In the hands of the neighbour who pulls a stranger from the inferno. In the community that embraces homeless children, washes away the ash from their faces and hands, bandages wounds, and finds room. In the gentle touch of the nurses who wipe the tears from a woman's eyes and whispers "You are not alone".

We are so thankful for the unexpected signs of solidarity that stand against forces that would destroy, and for the Spirit of God that binds us together! Please continue to lift up Kenya before the Lord.