"When Kenya sneezes...

Uganda catches a cold." This quote was from an article in the New Vision, one of Uganda's newspapers. As many of you know, I am assuming, around 300 people have been brutally killed in and around Kenya's capital city of Nairobi as presidential election results were called into question. Who really won is a mystery, and we may never know, but we are praying those who are causing senseless violence will stop.

What does this "cold" look like for Uganda? It looks like a shortage of many goods, especially fuel, that are imported through the Kenyan border that has been closed due to the violence. We left Adjumani on the morning of December 30th to come to Jinja (1 hr east of Kampala) for World Venture meetings. Just before walking out the door, we realized we were totally out of water. Our water tank was bone dry, meaning the city water had not come for days prior. Needless to say, it was a good time to leave.

Now we are faced with the issue of finding diesel for our truck to return home to Adjumani. Where diesel can be found, it has doubled, tripled & even quadrupled in price. The bigger problem, perhaps, is that if Adjumani cannot get fuel, we will continue to be without water there; for our water comes from the city which pumps it out of a well powered by a generator which uses fuel.

All of this to say, the situation is yet another brutal reminder of the fragility of life here. It is eye-opening to be living in a place where things like this can happen in a blink of an eye. Violence in Kenya erupted overnight and everyday we read about how many more people were killed. Fortunately, the only impact we have here in Uganda is our shortage of fuel and not of violence spreading across the border.

We are planning to return back to Adjumani (with a guest for 4 months, Esther Miller) on the 10th or 11th. Things have improved a bit, so we are hoping by then we should be set to return to our home up north.

Thank you all for your continued prayers & encouragement. We will keep you posted on things here. We hope and pray your new year is off to a blessed start!