This is mostly a review of our last few days incase some of you haven’t kept up with us in the last eleven days.  We had returned back to Tz on Oct 24th becasue we hadn’t asked for a longer visa for Kenya and we were out of medication and some personal supplies.  Harry and Domenic had been joking around about going back to-Kenya right away becasue it was so hot in M’Takooja,  ninty-six outside and ninty-one in our house.  We just have three fans and they don’t do much more than blowing around hot air.  As it turned out we did deceide to go back and do some more teaching in the schools there before ending our time for this year.

What we had totally forgotten was the Tanzania Election that was to be on Tuesday, Oct 29th.  Everyone was expecting that things would not go well.  So we decided we should leave Tuesday morning early, go out east through Moshi and north to the eastern immigration point into Kenya again.  Looking back on the whole thing, this was totally the Lord’s working to get us out to safety before everything went so terribly wrong with the election. 

On Wednesday, a primary school was burned very close to the border crossing we had passed through the day before.  The rioting, fires, and destruction have been severe, and in some places, like the Kilimanjaro Airport, they marched on two different days.  We saw videos of the large passenger planes surrounded by the mobs.  So many have died.  We still don’t know the extent of the damage, but the airports in Tanzania are closed.  Actually, all the border crossings are closed, and no one is going in or getting out.  There is a national curfew, no gas, no power, no internet, and no phone service.  We haven’t heard anything about the food supplies.  

We have had very sporadic communication with Domenic’s son, Jerrod, who runs everything on our compound when Domenic isn’t there.  We know things continue to be GOOD for all of those we left behind.  They have plenty of food and are far enough in the frontier that the rioters don’t know they are out there.

We had spent two nights at Oli’Talk,Talk but it was at game park prices.  So we moved down through the Game Park, intending to stay at Ol’Gulululie for two days.  However, the extremely heavy rain had flooded our roads and entered our compound.  So we drove on into Namonga, the Kenya side of the border, only to learn that the rioters were on the TZ side of the Namonga border.  There was lots of gunfire, fires, and a very bad situation.  So many have died.  We then went back to the place we had stayed at two weeks before, on the far side of Namonga, and it was very safe there.  Kenya seemed to be oblivious to the whole situation; it was life as normal there.

Because no one could use the border crossing either way into TZ, and the rioting was still raging, the heavy rains were causing flooding and mudslides, so we couldn’t get to any of the villages we had intended to go to.  We had only brought limited meds, supplies, and clothes because we thought we would be right back in TZ.  So now we felt the Lord was saying to go home.  Which we have done.  We were driven to Nairobi on Monday and flew out at midnight.  We have arrived home tonight, Tuesday at 6:30 pm (losing a day in travel).  We hated to leave but felt it was the right thing to do under all the circumstances.  Parting is always hard for us, and Domenic and Esther, especially since we had over three weeks left of our planned time this year.

We have lots of catching up to do on updates and book work.  We also need to travel right away for a personal issue. We are in total peace moving forward.

Seeking the Lord for  His guidence for the next few days,  

Harry & Kathy