“We are coming!” The threatening report circulated around the ranch on the edge of Kenya’s Rift Valley on January 29, 2008. A group of Kikuyu youth were on the way to attack the post-election Luo refugees housed in the AIC church just outside the ranch.
The ranch owners called the police in two locations to report the threat. The police promised to increase the number of officers patrolling the surrounding area. The ranch owners knew this might not be enough. The ranch workers and guards, along with the ranch manager, organized themselves to patrol through the night. Some of the ranch workers from the Luhya tribe felt their families were also at risk. A Kikuyu domestic worker living in a small house near the main ranch buildings, offered her home to the wives and children who felt afraid.
The Luhya workers patrolled until midnight. Then a group of Maasai from the area, along with some off duty ranch guards appeared with spears and knives ready to guard their church’s guests through the rest of the night. The ranch manager spent the night riding his motorcycle around the farm and touching base with the various patrols.
After Kenya’s elections on December 27, 2007, a fierce dispute erupted between the two political parties. Supporters of the losing party, many of them Luo, attacked members of the president’s Kikuyu tribe who lived in Western Kenya. Other fighting broke out in Eldoret with Kalenjin people turning on Kikuyu farmers in the area. Several slum areas of Nairobi also flared up with clashes between Kikuyu and Luo.
In the town of Limuru, a group of young Luo men worked with a youth project. They organized environmental programs like planting trees. Others coached soccer teams for the youth in Limuru.
As the post-election period became more tense, several Luo people in Limuru town were killed in retaliation for the attacks on Kikuyu people in Western Kenya and Nairobi. Feeling nervous, the young men with the youth project ran away from Limuru. Fearful of entering public transport because Kikuyu youth would stop the vehicles and ask for IDs or ask passengers to speak so they could determine their tribal origins, the Luo hiked through a forest and dropped down the escarpment of the Rift Valley to the ranch. They knew about the ranch because a few years before they had assisted with a tree nursery project and had brought some of the youth from Limuru to help construct the church.
Other non-Kikuyu refugees showed up at the church and Pastor Philip and his church members welcomed the refugees with open arms, housing them in a small building next to the church. Pastor Philip, a Kikuyu himself, and the church members, mostly Maasai, provided food and worked with the ranch manager to obtain further food and supplies from a fund organized by nearby AIM missionaries.
At one point the church housed about 30 people who had come for protection. When the church heard there would be a bus carrying people to western Kenya from Limuru under police escort, they helped arrange for some of the refugees to get on the bus. Later another group of twelve were carried to Kisumu in a vehicle driven by some Catholic Sisters in the area.
At the time of the night threat, only five young men remained in the church center.
At dawn on January 30, 2007, the men who had patrolled through the night were tired but happy. No raiders had come. The five men who had run to the church for refuge were safe.
The future for these five men is uncertain. As they wait through this tense time, they have planted almost 500 trees as part of a reforestation project. One young man spoke proudly of his cousin who coaches the Kenya national seven-a-side rugby team, which had just flown to New Zealand for a tournament. Another young man said his father was the Anglican Bishop of Kisumu. Both men, despite the threats, continue to stand firm in their faith in Jesus Christ. And until the future becomes clear, Pastor Philip and his church on the floor of the Rift Valley continue to provide food and security for those in need.
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