01 October 2020

       POST ELECTION VIOLENCE

I am remembering the postelection violence that I experienced in Kenya in 2008.  Each of these pictures depict events I actually saw myself.  Certain shops were looted and destroyed because they belonged to a particular ethnic group.  Homes were destroyed and people were crowded into camps for displaced people.  Young kids were paid the equivalent of USD 0.50 to carry petrol in yellow plastic jerry cans, throw it on buildings and burn them down.

I saw hundreds of people in our little hospital each day and heard their stories of rape, beatings, torture and relatives shot in their fields at 9am in the morning while planting their crops.

     I had seen all of this during the 12 years I worked in Sudan during the second war (1991-2003) but I never expected to see it in Kenya.  We later learned it had been planned by others for more than a year before the elections.  Some of the planning was done by our neighbors whom we knew.

     From December 2007 to April 2008 we ran out of petrol and had to wait in long lines until it became available.  A nearby farm couldn't transport their milk to the creamery so I bought it to feed the people in our displaced camps.  Our ability to use internet was through the phones and we couldn't buy air time to load our phones.  A friend in Nairobi would send air time to my phone when I as desperate.  I watched from my little home while fires on Mount Elgon burned at night for weeks on end.  The Bishop, Maurice Crowley, wanted me to leave this little home in a small village and stay in a bigger town and I was grateful for his concern.  But I felt safer away from the bigger town and I had a lot of work to do at the hospital.  He always answered his phone when I called him for something I needed.

     I couldn't leave our little town except by air during the worst of it.  When I left in April to come home to care for my mother I travelled in a bus under armed convoy through the burned out villages and camps with flimsy tents for people who had lost their homes.

     I now expect to see postelection violence in the USA next month.  I am preparing for it.  I have registered to vote by mail and am awaiting my ballot.  As soon as it arrives I will complete it and take it to the drop box at the voting center.  I am encouraging everyone to vote.  Please make a specific plan for when and where you will vote.  Tell others about it to help you stick to your plan and encourage other to do the same.

     I am recommitting myself to the Pax Christi Vow of Nonviolence.

https://paxchristiusa.org/resources/vow-of-nonviolence/#:~:text=Vow%20of%20Nonviolence%20%E2%80%93%20Pax%20Christi%20USA.%20Tens,liturgy%2C%20or%20any%20other%20way%20that%20suits%20you.

     I am praying fervently to center my resolve and show my care and concern for others.  I will stock up on enough essentials to care for my mother and myself as well as to assist others who will find themselves in need if disruption occurs.  

     But I am not afraid.  I have been through all of this before and I have seen how people take care of one another.  I have seen how God takes care of us too. There will be a lot of pain and we will suffer.  But we will learn and grow in the loving embrace of the source of all being and love.

PEACE OF THE FALLING AUTUMN LEAVES BE WITH YOU

It is the practice of Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Kenya 

to pray and work for peace on the first of each month.

Oct 2nd - I am praying fervently for the Trumps, and all who are infected with SARS Cov2, that they will recover quickly.  Illness can be a powerful, life changing experience.  I am much more compassionate and kind since I became ill with Sjogrens in 2009.  Please join me in prayer for their healing.