Update from Kenya

Written by Tom Albinson | 12 September 2011

I've had a great visit here in Kenya this month. We spent the last 9 days in Kakuma refugee camp in the remote northeast of the country, near the border with Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia. The camp is "home" to between 80-90,000 forcibly displaced men, women and children from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda.

We spent every day with leaders from different refugee churches in the camp. The refugee initiated and led United Refugee Churches (URC) welcomed us and arranged for us to spend every day with pastors and leaders serving in the churches in the camp.

The URC organized a 2 day leadership training conference while we were there. We shared the teaching sessions with one of the gifted URC leaders, a pastor from Burundi.

Our final Sunday in the camp included a celebration of Ethiopian New Year with an Ethiopian church in the camp. They invited us to join in the feast of fresh goat meat, injera (Ethiopian bread), roasted coffee and cake - even popcorn!

As on our visit last March, the National Council of Churches, Kenya, was our wonderful host.

Good news! The area in which Kakuma is located had been suffering from the drought affecting the region - but the rains came a few weeks ago! Crops are growing. Animals are looking healthy. The drought there has ended.

Sadly, this is not the case in the northeast of the country where the people continue to suffer terribly from drought. As a friend in the region recently wrote: "We haven't had a drop of rain."

I'll write more and post some photos once we've returned to the US later in the week.

Thanks to all who have prayed!