Justice! and Planning for the Future...our April update

The crowd started to gather around 8:30am for the scheduled 9:00am court session. Friends and family of victims and those accused avoided the front row and settled into the benches in the small, cramped, largely open-air courtroom. Attorneys wandered about, meandering from the advocates’ tables to the front bench to the hallway outside, and chatting with other attorneys. Their nonchalance is a marked contrast to the anxious faces of the others. It is Wednesday, March 3rd, and this court in Nairobi, Kenya will start late, as is customary. At around 10:00am, the bailiff announces that all should rise. All do, and the magistrate judge walks importantly to his seat at the front of the courtroom.

The first cases called deal with traffic violations, and they are quickly disposed of with various fines. Next are the criminal cases. First to come before the judge are the “mentions,” in which someone who has been accused of a crime must appear before the court simply for the court to make sure that they have not fled the court’s jurisdiction. Finally, the reason for which most of the audience has gathered comes — hearings for those who have been accused of committing a crime. Sadly, the great bulk of these cases will be put on hold for another 2-3 months, through an “adjournment,” for various reasons (the prosecutor forgot or lost the case file, the defense attorney is not ready to proceed, a witness failed to show, etc.). Justice is not swift here.

However, justice will come to this small Kenyan courtroom today. The reason IJM staff are in the courtroom today is to hear the judge’s final ruling on a case of sexual assault in which  Laura*, a girl of 12, was abused by her soccer coach. My coworkers were on their seats awaiting the ruling, as this case had had a common, but significant, challenge in our work — conflicting medical reports (a hospital had diagnosed that the girl had been abused, but the police surgeon, as is all too common, had found no injuries). Nevertheless, we had hope of achieving a conviction, as the police prosecutor had pressed on with the case without even entering into evidence the police surgeon’s suspect report in spite of the judge’s clear desire to see the report.

As the case was called, it was as if time slowed. The judge looked over at the accused man, paused, and began to read his judgment. After laying out the facts, he gets to the meat of the verdict: Despite the prosecution’s failure to introduce evidence from the police prosecutor, the accused was guilty of abusing Laura and is sentenced to life in prison. Today, there is justice in Kenya.
* Laura is a pseudonym.

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It is now mid-April, and we apologize for the delay in this update. Life seems to be flying by here so quickly. As for other IJM news, a huge praise is that one of our clients decided to commit his life to Jesus a couple weeks ago (through Ann, a driver and administrator for IJM Kenya)! Here is a picture of some of the IJM Kenya staff after a morning devotional time.

If any of you have read the excellent business book “Good to Great,” you know how important it is for a team to be on the same page, pulling together toward individual and collective organization goals. On that note, for two weeks this past December IJM Kenya staffers gathered in our conference room to talk about two things: (1) developing “best practices” for our entire office, investigators, attorneys, social workers, and administration, so that we can all work efficiently and together as we pursue the second topic; (2) IJM Kenya’s 2010 goals and how to attain them. Each person, whether an attorney, investigator, or social worker brought into this discussion their education and experience fighting for justice for victims of sexual assault and illegal detention. We are excited about these organizational best practices and goals for 2010 and are striving daily to accomplish them. With regard to our child sexual assault cases, our office has goals for the number of arrests and convictions, and Laura’s case is the first of our convictions for 2010. We hope, pray, and believe there will be many more.

While we succeeded in gaining a conviction of Laura’s abuser, Laura’s case highlighted for me that God would not have us focus on just the end game of attaining convictions — Laura herself is not doing as well as we would have hoped. To this day, more than a year after the abuse, she talks about it as if it happened to someone else (one of our lawyers mentioned that she talks about the abuse she suffered as if she was describing a coke bottle she was holding). While it is not our aftercare staff’s goal for her to re-experience the trauma, it is their goal to have her heal, and it does not seem to them as if this has happened yet. Please pray for Laura, and for all of our clients who have had similar traumatic experiences.

Otherwise, the family is doing well. We really enjoyed time with some of Lane's family when his mom and sister visited a while ago. Here is a picture of Lane, his mom Betty, and Luke. 

Anna continues to enjoy and grow from her Bible Study Fellowship and relationships with friends we have here. Check out her recent post on the family blog titled "Why Did a Family of 5 Move from Texas to Kenya?" which has a great video about what we are doing with IJM and why justice is so close to God's heart. 

On April 12th, Caleb celebrated his 7th birthday with a ninja party. With my years of training in the martial arts and “ninja-ing,” I was able to pass on the deep knowledge of how one becomes a ninja. His friends’ lives were forever changed. Caleb also had his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby recently and his car came in second place in his den! His buddy Ethan got first place. (Caleb is pictured below with a Maasai tribesman.) 

Abigail is learning to swim, doing preschool at home, and playing often with her best friend, David (the two of them, both 4, announced a few weeks ago that they were going to marry each other when they get old enough). Luke is slowly learning to express himself with a handful of words, instead of just grunts and screams — thank goodness! (Abigail and Luke are pictured below).

As we’ve alluded to here and in other updates, Anna and I are in the midst of serious prayer and discussions about our next step after Kenya. The crux of the decision is whether we stay overseas longer in some capacity or return to Texas this summer and settle back into life there. We daily feel the weight of this decision, and ask for your prayers for us: for wisdom, unity, peace, and faith that God is with us no matter where we end up. We should have more specifics in our next update.

Finally, please also pray for Kenya and its leaders, including the current Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. The citizens of Kenya will vote on a new Constitution this July, and its approval could be a huge step for the country and the welfare of its people.

We love and miss you all and look forward to seeing you soon!

Lane, for the Kenya Mearskats