I want to share a quick story with you. I’m not gonna lie, this story will challenge you, impact you, and possibly even change your view on the world around you. I had the privilege to meet Francis today. Francis lives at an IDP camp in Maai Mahu and his story goes a little something like this. It all started in the elections of 2007 when his whole world was turned upside down. Â Â His life would never be the same. He and his wife lived normal lives..a Christian family that devoted their time and money raising their seven children. He worked as a truck driver and she was a business woman who worked in the trading market. Their main focus was to get their children an education, unlike the US, highschool isn’t paid for. They struggled night and day to pay for school fees. Their life wasn’t any different than mine and yours..a simple family living life and trying to move ahead. It all changed when one day their village was attacked. Imagine this..some men enter your house and threaten your life, with them they have weapons, torches, Â they then set the house on fire as you and your whole family are in it. It becomes physical and they start to beat you. Everything you ever owned, all of your possessions are being burned right in front of you as you begin to panic your main priority becomes to get your family out without them being killed. In that desperate attempt, your father is killed right in front of you. Your. Mother is beaten. Confusion strikes as you try to pan out what is going on. Your life is crashing down in just minutes and just when you think it can’t get any worse, they take one of your little boys. A father is fatherless and he fears that his son is about to experience the same thing. His family is falling apart and everything he has ever worked for is gone. Just like that. The next day Francis and his family along with 27,000 people get shipped To a camp where they were forced to live for over a year. This is a criminal act, something that no one should ever be a part of. After the year of living like dirt and being treated like slaves the Kenyan government gives them 10,000 shillings which is equivalent to around 100 US dollars. Imagine a family of 9 given a miserable 100$ to live off of. His family along with 230 people were shipped off in buses as to a desolate land, a barren desert. They were dropped off and were only aloud to consume 2 acres..all 230 people on two acres of land. Keep in mind that most people make a living off crops and in order to grow crops, you need land. With that many people with that amount of space..it was impossible. They had nothing to grow, nothing to eat, no clothes..absolutely nothing. Francis and his family were treated worse than animals..left abandoned with no hope. The government then gave them tents to live in..literally tents. A family of nine in a tent smaller than my own bathroom. Life literally had no meaning at this point in time but francis had faith, he believed in a God who has power and all authority. He gives God the glory because he says that the weather and the land has literally changed. It went from extremely windy and dry to hardly no wind and a land that produces crops, where rain hits every season. Over some years awareness was made to these people. They were internally displaced people. They weren’t criminals, they weren’t ex convicts, they were innocent people like you and I. They were triggered because they were from the smallest tribe, simply because they weren’t from the tribe that the candidate for president was from. They weren’t violent people at all. It was just the injustice and the corruption of the filthy government that killed and completely ruined innocent lives just for presidency. They were harassed, beaten, and killed simply because of the tribe they pertained to. I’m standing in front of a man who has suffered through everything imaginable but yet says ” I have faith in a God who does miracles, I know he can provide me with the things I need in life.” now he isn’t asking for anything but the necessities we all have and take advantage of. He wants a job, he wants money for his kids education, he wants to buy his family clothes and food. Nothing bizarre. I can’t help but to put my head down in shame and sorrow. I myself let my faith be shaken when things don’t go my way, when I can’t take full control of every situation, my faith is “feeling” based so many times. How can I buy myself excess amount of things when there are colonies of people struggling to survive? How can I throw away food when these people would give themselves up just to feed their families. As I stare into Francis’ eyes I begin to tear up. I see a man of God who in the eyes of this world lacks everything, but yet carries faith and a passion for God that many pastors or missionaries or frequent church-goers don’t have. Life isn’t always going to be the way we want it or planned it. But one thing is for sure that we serve a sovereign God that loves us. He has power and authority over everything..no situation is too big for him. And Francis sees that and lives his life by that. And even with having nothing, his joy radiates and blew me away. Our American life style has really placed a veil over our eyes to the reality of this world. This is just one of many horrible but yet convicting stories I have encountered in my time in Kenya. Please pray for Francis and the whole IDP camp. Next year there is another election let’s pray that stories like this won’t happen again.
