thinking of Nairobi

Some of you, maybe all of you, heard about the situation in Nairobi. A group of gunmen entered a mall, took out security, killed people, and held a group of people hostage. This is one of those "it's so far away it hardly seems real" scenes to me. It just so happens that it really isn't that far from me here and that many of the missionary families here have ties to Kenya and specifically that mall even. The older King children go to Rift Valley Academy and sometimes spend weekends in Nairobi and at that mall. One of the other families here was recently in Nairobi and spent a fair amount of time at that mall as it was so close to where they were staying. This event was real to them and very near.

The missionary families in Ruhengeri get together every other week for a potluck to fellowship and pray and look through scripture together. As the situation at West Gate Mall was unfolding this weekend, it was much talked about at the dinner. People were shaken, confused, disturbed and really hurting for what was happening there, and that is good. I realized that as I heard the news, it didn't sink in. It was just another situation gone horribly wrong with bad people doing bad things. Was it awful? Yes. Was is uncommon? No. More pain, more brokenness and nothing that I can do beyond prayer.

I thought that because these families willingly chose to move to a country that the majority of the rest of the world sees as dangerous and other that they must not have been afraid, that they were somehow stronger or more sure than the average person to make the choice to move so far into a place so many can't even fathom living. That just isn't true. There are still things that shake them to the core and that's why they are here. In the midst of so much hurt and so many things that aren't right, they are here standing firm on the truth that God is good.

I've been really anxious about my future. You may not think that this relates, but it does to me somehow. It sneaks up on me in waves (and seems rather foolish when held up next to tragedies like that in Nairobi) when I'm not prepared to think about it. What will I do? Where will I live? When will I actually be an adult? Does being an adult mean I have to stop reading teen fiction? (Absolutely not.) I worry about these and so many other things. The truth is, I don't think it matters where I am or what I'm doing. What really matters is that I am a good neighbor, and I stand firm in the love of Christ to the end because the truth is

God is so good.

And besides, when have my plans ever been better than His?