God is good when all is bad

By James R. Henderson

NAIROBI, Kenya—When you are suffering, it is easy to forget that God loves you. Jesus, even when he was in agony on the cross, pointed to the goodness of God, and gave a message of hope to the thief who was in pain and dying with him.

I visited some believers Sept. 1 who have experienced rejection and destitution in a way that most of us cannot imagine. They are our latest church in Africa, a church of refugees.

Some months ago refugees fled their homes in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo to make the long trek (sometimes two months or more) through Tanzania or Uganda to a kind of freedom in Kenya.

Among them were six adults and eight children who formed a church when they were resettled in June in the township of Kangemi on the outskirts of Nairobi. On the journey some were robbed again, most were malnourished, and some of the children had died.

Before fleeing, some had seen relatives callously slaughtered. They couldn’t flick the channel or tune into another station or turn the page. The second by second hard reality persisted day after day.

Now they were strangers in a strange land. All they had in common with their new neighbors were the Swahili language and poverty. Unable to get work, they relied mostly on the good will of others and on small handouts from the United Nations. But they were anxious to start a church, initially in the shanty dwellings assigned to them.

Two men, John and Peter, had been associated with the WCG where they lived previously. They tried to get in touch with us, but failed. One day they discussed this with a Catholic priest who knew of us, and he put them in contact with our Nairobi office. Our churches assisted the group with food, blankets and clothing. To this day the refugees still cannot get work. They rely on charity for physical assistance.

Amazingly, this group has grown into a full-fledged congregation. More refugees and some Kenyans have joined them. The group embarked on an evangelism campaign. Most days teams were to knock on four doors and begin talking to people about God, and then invite them to church. The day I saw them, six were attending for the first time. From June to late August they have gone from 14 to 86 in attendance.

They sang and danced and praised God with emotion. Sometimes you could see a tear in a worshiper’s eye, perhaps in remembrance of a lost one, some unspoken pain.

What do you say to such a group? They have more to teach me about life than I them. Their faith has been tested beyond the limits of my endurance. All I could think of saying was that Jesus suffers with them, that through their experiences Jesus can touch others, that the kingdom of God is here now with them, that Jesus will return and rescue all of us from the evil around us; to proclaim the goodness of God in the midst of their suffering.

I felt a sense of shame. I can sit in my ceiled house and argue over nonessential things while the temple of God—the body of Jesus—suffers.

Have we lost the picture of the kingdom of God? The vision of our Lord as he ministered to the poor and healed the sick? We are so consumed with our own concerns, our own spiritual needs, that we have neglected love, mercy and justice.

Perhaps all of us have from time to time gone down this selfish spiritual route, turning a blind eye to the needy not just far away in places such as Africa and Asia but also in our community. May God forgive all of us.

If I, as a Westerner, had gone through such tribulations as our refugee brothers and sisters have experienced, I would probably now be in therapy or be seeking some space to recover. But they don’t have such luxuries. They just have Jesus. And each other. And us. They need our heartfelt prayers—please, please pray for them.

REFUGEE CHURCH—Members in Kangemi.

LEADERS—Kangemi leaders and their families. [Photos by James Henderson]

EVANGELISM—Newcomers in Kangemi Sept. 1.

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