Front Lines

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Missionaries in Guatemala and Uganda, Turkey and Togo, Irian Jaya and Italy.

Fighters on the front lines for our country and our kingdom.

But the ones on my heart today are those working in embassies around the world. I've got to admit, when we lived overseas, I thought embassy workers were a little spoiled with their food allowances, their trips home, their fancy houses. That was before they became a target.

My first awareness of their risk started when the Tanzania embassy was bombed. Other incidents through the years served as little reminders.

Last night I came undone. I kept the news on to see what was happening in Kenya. It breaks my heart to see people lashing out at each in other with machetes in Eldoret, the town that made me fall in love with Africa. I cringe at the comparisons being made to the genocide in Rwanda. Oh please, God, no. Not again. Not the Luo. Not the Kikuyu. I'm praying fervently but with little hope against the protests being called.

Following the Kenya story came a one line report, a tag-on, about a U.S. official being killed in the Sudan. U.S. official sounds so... official, so out of the realm of where I spend my days... so political. Only it wasn't. This official worked for USAID, the agency that spends its time trying to help undeveloped countries deal with the problems of AIDS, of disparity, of malaria.

It's the same agency that took one of my very dear friends to Africa where she sits wondering if her husband is in danger because of his job with USAID.

Now it's personal. More personal than the news about the shooting 2 miles from my house. More personal than the hit-and-run accident a couple miles south of me.

May God protect my friend and her children, her husband, his colleagues. May He stir the heart of Africa with a calm that soothes the anger, with a peace that passes explanation and understanding.