The past has been one filled with anticipation, excitement, goodbyes, and remembering the things we learned during training at Harrisburg Discipleship Center. Just as we seemed to get settled into the routine in Songhor, and our language studies, our time there was up. 

Over the past few weeks, we have been very busy with learning the culture, making contacts, learning Swahili, and fitting in. While these are all good things, we have been taking our focus off Chepilat. While we were preparing to leave Songhor, we have started to remember all the excitement and energy we had for Chepilat.  

The next four months we will be involved in community of the small Kenyan town of Chepilat. The town is on a major road connecting Tanzania and major parts of Kenya. Chepilat is on a border of two tribes, the Kisii and the Kalenjin. During the election violence after the elections in December, these two tribes were fighting and many people died here. On our first walk through the town, the pastor of the church took us down one road, and he explained to us that there were many people along that road that had died. Many people have said that this place was devastated. There are buildings that are still ruined from fires. 

The past is very strong, but hope for tomorrow is even stronger. People have died, but that is history; how do we mourn with the people, and grieve for their losses, while helping them to not dwell on the injustices that have been done to them? We see burnt buildings, but we also see the buildings rising from the ashes of hatred. The youth were the leading force in the chaos that went on last year. They were the ones burning and destroying. We got the chance to talk to a wise man named Gordon, who visited here with many other people after the violence and started this church. He was telling us what to watch out for in Chepilat, and how the town can move on. The thing that he and everyone we have talked to at EMM and in the churches here have stressed is to bring the two tribes together. During training this was a vague goal that I was very excited about. Now that we are here, and seeing the place, it seems like a large goal that we cannot complete. Soon after we talked with Gordon, I asked God for leading on how we are to move forward. I must say that I have seen God come rescue me from many things, and this was one. When the spirit leads, it can be easy to tell, because thoughts come that are surely not man made. God is a God of vision and leading. Because the people who did most of the violence were near our ages, we have an opportunity there to open doors. Because we are white people (wazungu), and are not from either tribe, we have the credibility there to go beyond tribal hatred. The thing that I was shown most clearly was that it is possible to bring together youth from both tribes to talk it out. This will take a very long time, and will probably fail at first, but God does great and crazy things like this, so we can trust that he will follow through. 

There are many other things here that the church should answer, such as HIV, prostitution, poverty, and hopelessness. This can only happen though the tribes working together, at least in the churches. When the churches are still divided, God’s hands will continue to fight each other, while the truth is lost in the conflict. Unity is the only way forward.

Prayer Requests:

-Please be praying for peace here any time you think of it. 

-We will also need God to lead us in just about all we do because we wont be able to do anything worth our time otherwise, so be praying about that too.

-Colin isn’t felling too well. 

Praises:

-We have started to settle in here at Chepilat.

-Our pastor here is the greatest man alive.

-Safe matatu rides all over west Kenya (as I type this drops of sweat are rolling down my forehead, across my face and dripping off my nose onto the keyboard, making it hard to type, just from the memories of those rides). 

-We have Settlers of Catan (we will also have a homemade version of Cities and Knights soon). 

God is providing for us here, and all we can do is thank him. 

Our blog is wakatiwachai.blogspot.com.

‘Spread the word that peace is not beyond us.’

Taylor