Garissa

It was Friday, Good Friday, when I read about Thursday's attack on college students which left 147 dead at Kenya's Garissa University. Kenya is far from Gabon, the country in Africa where we worked with university students for eleven years. Gabon is on the west coast, Kenya on the East--a continent away. Kenya is English speaking, not French. I've never been there.

And yet.

I've slept in a dorm room with student friends at Omar Bongo University in Gabon. I've met with students for Bible study and choir practice and a shared cold bottle of Coke on campus. I attended weekly meetings in a room on campus where we prayed and sang together. 

I know the feel of a university in Africa. Students work very, very hard. A college education is not a given. With their degrees, graduates will not only be supporting themselves but their extended family. They will be contributing to the development of their country and community. 

In Gabon, Christian students had a level of discipline that was new to me, sometimes jarring. They were willing to meet to pray for hours on uncomfortable chairs in the heat and humidity. They cooked for those who were sick, served in their churches, got sick with malaria. 

I read these separate posts from our sister organization of InterVarsity, FOCUS, in Kenya, on Easter morning:

April 4th. We can confirm that the Christian union members in a prayer meeting in Garissa university college were among the first targets of the terrorist attack. It appears most of whom died. They have gone to be with the master whom they loved and served. We pray for strength for the relatives as they seek to identify bodies, and rest them in peace. Shalom.

April 4th. FOCUS staff were at Nyayo stadium to offer support for the students who survived who were anticipated from Garissa. Some other staff and student leaders were at the KNH hospital to pray and console with those who were admitted at the hospital. By yesterday there were about 24 students admitted, and by Saturday afternoon about 13 had been discharged. Meanwhile the rescued students were moved to Nairobi today, as part of the process of getting back to their families. Let us pray that the agony of identifying bodies and finding the loved ones who are not accounted for will not be long-stay for the relatives.

April 5th. All staff in Nairobi are on the way to Chiromo Mortuary to console with the parents of the Garissa University College students and offer support to them. Let's pray for God's grace and strength as they go through this difficult and tedious process of identifying the bodies.

Over twenty students were meeting together for prayer Thursday morning, like students met at our InterVarsity prayer meetings at Ball State (though there were never twenty of us), like our students at Omar Bongo University in Gabon, like the small groups of students in Nice, France. They were the first ones targeted.

At church, I was grateful that the sermon focused on the pain before the resurrection; sometimes we like to skip that part. For these families in Kenya, death will always shadow Easter. Easter will be the day they identified their sons' and daughters' bodies at the Chiromo Mortuary. 

I have to sit with that. 

At church, as we sang about Jesus' resurrection, death seemed near. Knowing that our colleagues in Nairobi and students’ families were facing the horror of death changed the way I sang about Christ's victory. I cried.

I believe in the resurrection, even in the face of unimaginable horror.

And I will keep praying for peace, for shalom, even as darkness seems like it's winning.