May 29, 2008

Dear Friends,

Children affected by tribal clashes

“Help us train leaders to serve our people.” This is the most frequent request of our partners in mission. Fortunately, this is what the Presbyterian University of East Africa is all about: equipping young men and women to serve.

After the tribal clashes in Kenya, our university students knew what to do to help alleviate the suffering and begin the healing process. Many of our graduates worked in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.

Mwaura, our clinical pastoral education student, assigned to Kikuyu Mission Hospital, noticed a young adolescent boy sitting alone on a bench in the out-patient clinic. The boy’s eyes looked vacant and his body was slumped. He seemed totally unaware of his surroundings as Mwaura sat down to talk with him. After a while Ndung’u’s story tumbled out:

The mob came suddenly, out of nowhere, about 50 of them, swooping in from all directions. They were running, yelling, screaming, carrying machetes, bows and arrows, and gasoline. They rushed our house and set it on fire. I was some distance away, near the banana trees on our farm, when my mother came running out of the house. She saw me and yelled for me to run away. As I looked back, I saw them hack my mother to death with a machete. I kept running and hid in the bushes. I could see my mother’s dismembered body in the distance. I knew she was dead, yet I wanted so badly to run across the field and gather her mangled body in my arms and carry her away. But I panicked. I froze. I could do nothing but hide. As time stood still, or did the minutes go on for hours, I worried about my father. Where was he? I hoped he had been able to escape. Where could I find him? Did he need my help? I stayed there for a long time as I watched my home burn. When the flames subsided and the mob dispersed, I crept out of my hiding place and went to look for my father. It was then I discovered that the mob had locked my father inside the house, and I had watched the fire consume my father. As I knelt beside the mutilated bodies of my parents, the world closed in on me. I disintegrated. Somebody came and took me away and brought me back to boarding school. I am overwhelmed. I cannot concentrate. I cannot bear this pain. I have thoughts of suicide. What am I to do?

Mwaura, our clinical pastoral education student, assigned to Kikuyu Mission Hospital.

Mwaura listened  intently and  lovingly as Ndung’u wept bitterly and told his story over and over again. In time, this  young  boy—and  others like him—will gather strength and courage to live again, because the Christian community is here to bear witness to their tragedy, to comfort and to care, and to enfold them in the compassionate love of Jesus Christ. These stories, and many like them, are so difficult to hear. Yet we know the students being trained at the Presbyterian University of East Africa make a difference.

After the violence subsided, Christian leaders went to the camps to assess the needs of the children. Some of the children were so traumatized they could not speak. Leaders immediately organized trauma therapy to gradually encourage the children to talk about their experiences.

It is customary for students to attend boarding schools, so more than 500 children from the IDP camps were placed in various boarding schools in the Kikuyu area.

Seventy-four pupils are being provided with teachers and lodging in a school facility near our house. It is a joy to see those little ones run and play and giggle. They are children drawn from the IDP camps. The parents of the 42 boys and 32 girls are still in the camps.

We feel humbled and privileged to be on the faculty of the Presbyterian University of East Africa, helping to train students to give quality pastoral care to traumatized children and their families.

As the school year closes, we want to thank all of you who support the Presbyterian University of East Africa. Your gifts help to equip Kenyans with the skills and knowledge to extend the love of Christ to a hurting world.

Lyle and Terry Dykstra

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 15

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