An Amazing Story of God’s Wisdom and Grace

There is hardly any way of sharing this story in its entirety as I have had to leave out so many of the details. Yet, what happened was truly amazing. It is a little longer than our regular post but well worth the reading.

It begins with a young nineteen-year-old man named Sammy, drowning last week in the flooded area of Lake Nakuru within sight of our home. As plans were made for his burial, there were already signs of trouble. This young man was a leader of multiple gangs in Nakuru. While meeting with the family to discuss the burial, one of those gangs from our local area (consisting of about thirty young men) showed up in the front of his mother’s house. They began shouting and telling everyone that they would do the funeral and no one had better get in their way. They had already tried to take the body when it was first discovered in the lake, but they were stopped by the police.

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Four of our church leaders were present to assist the family to coordinate the burial. The mother was a member of our …. church. The brothers were Robert from our Barut churches, James, from Ponda Mali churches, Njeroge from Miti Mingi churches, and Joshua from our Piave Njoro churches. Cynthia and I couldn’t attend as we were still recovering from Covid. The tension was high, and the brothers prayed for wisdom and grace.

As our men went out to deal with the situation, they would spend the next hour compassionately talking and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom to these troubled young men. In the end, they asked these young men if they would like to be saved. The result was thirty of them raised their hands. The peace of God flooded the compound. This completely shocked the family. That was the first miracle.

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Two days later, expecting around one hundred people to attend the burial, three hundred showed up. Then … the gangs came, creating chaos, shouting obscenities and threats. One from the Flamingo area, another from Pangani, and then the Lakeview men. Over forty riding double on motorcycles, the others using various public transportation. There were over one hundred from the three gangs now present. The anxiety level exploded. All expected a riot, even with four policemen being present. The tension was rising, and the police were worried as this had happened before. Three months ago something similar happenings at a burial and the gangs forcibly removed the pastors and family out of the graveyard.

Each gang demanded to carry the coffin to the gravesite. Fistfights almost broke out.

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Yet, again our four brothers stepped into the middle and asked to meet with the leaders of the three gangs. The brothers began to speak calmly and compassionately telling them they were all welcome to be there but asked for all of them to be respectful of the family and especially the dead man’s mother. Again, the peace of God fell. They complied and were allowed to express their grief. The burial went on peacefully to its completion. That was the second miracle.

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We have been praying for outreach to the young people. We feel that perhaps this is the beginning. We are fully aware that full salvation will come in the follow-up. Please pray for us as we meet this week with the first group of young men that indicated their desire to be saved.

StoneHouse