BLOG #3: Maybe, Maybe Not...

Dear Friends,

All of my excitement seems to be riding on a roller coaster right now. On Tuesday, we spoke on speakerphone to the Pastor who will be watching over us while in Nairobi, and he is someone the church has worked with during the past 5 years. We really trust him and he definitely looks out for our team... his assessment is that the election on August 4th will not pose a threat to our team, and that we should continue planning for our trip.

However, as of today, all of a sudden it looks uncertain whether we're going to be going or not. One of our members has a friend who is part of WorldVision, and he just arrived in Kenya today. This is his email to our team...

Jambo from Nairobi!

The referendum voting will take place August 1-9 and by the end of July curfews and travel restrictions will start taking effect.

When I asked my colleagues about your visit, they didn't wait for me to finish my sentence: "Don't come."

They said it's best to wait until the result of the referendum is made public and see how people react. There will surely be winners and losers, and how the losers will ultimately respond is a large and dangerous uncertainty.

Within World Vision, our own staff will not be traveling within that period of time. Suffice it to say, there is a lot of anxiety surrounding the referendum.

I'm not sure where you are at with your decision, but that's the word from our office in Nairobi.

Hope that's helpful. If you'd like for me to make any other inquiries, let me know.

We're not sure what to do. Do we continue planning? Do we consider changing the dates that we're going? I'm still hopeful that this trip is meant to be and will happen. But safety is super important too. This obstacle is definitely a downer and hopefully is one we can overcome! I'll keep you posted...

grace