Tis The Season

We are off in just a bit to northern Missouri to get Emily! We will have her for three weeks! Ironically, even though we spent the last three Christmases in Africa, the first Christmas we will experience without all three of our children will be here in America. Our oldest has grown up and has responsibilities now and has to work. So we are taking Christmas to him tonight and celebrating a bit early!

I had sad news in my email box this morning. A year ago, I wrote about "Operation Clean Kinshasa" in THIS POST. The police are at it again. As you can see in the photo above, there are many vendors all over Kinshasa who set up tables and sell whatever they can to get by; fruits and vegetables, bread, phone cards, etc. Police are cleaning up the city by clearing out the vendors, and they are doing it in cruel fashion - by assaulting people, destroying and burning their tables and inventory, etc.

In Kinshasa most people live hand to mouth, using each days meager wages to feed their families for that day. To have to begin again with no inventory and no money is devastating and frightening. As in the U.S., shoppers generally spend more this time of year. Expats are buying extra food and goodies for the holidays and this could have been a good time of year for the vendors, but as long as this clean up operation continues, it is not safe for the vendors to even attempt to restart their businesses. Instead of a season of extra earnings, more food in the kids' bellies, and good cheer, Kinshasa vendors are having a season of violence, loss, and fear.

Please pray for those affected by this, the vendors and their families, the police who are being ordered to do this, and the working people who are now having a difficult time finding affordable wares. Satan would have this serve him as a way to distract people from the real meaning of Christmas - that God loved us and sent His Son to save us from our sins. Pray that instead, people will look to God to be their salvation, their refuge, and their provider.