NAIROBI, KENYA — Speaking just after her Oct. 9 return from the funeral of 9-year-old John Ian Maina, Sally Gatei was in a reflective mood.
Gatei was in the room when a grenade exploded at about 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 30 at St. Polycarp’s Anglican Church in Kenya. The explosion killed the boy and injured eight other children.
“Many Christians, including myself, thought that something might happen. Every week we’d wonder ‘What if it’s this Sunday?’ But we’d still go to church,” Gatei said.
On Sept. 30 an explosive device was hurled at the Sunday School building. Six boys and one girl between the ages of 6 and 10 were rushed to the hospital. Two of them were taken in for immediate surgery while one was admitted to the intensive-care unit.
Church leaders were quick to appeal for nonretaliation.
“This is a cruel provocation, but I appeal to Christians not to feed violence with violence, either in word or deed, because we are called to overcome evil with good,” said Archbishop Wabukala of the Anglican Church of Kenya.
“The life of an innocent child has been taken and others have been cruelly injured and traumatized in what should be the safest of places,” Wabukala said. “The sanctity of life has been heartlessly breached in a sanctified place. Such acts seem to be designed to spark civil unrest and intimidate the Christian Church. In the face of such an outrage we ask, with the prophet Habakkuk, ‘O Lord, how long?’ … Let us trust that God in His mercy will bring justice and relief as we cry out to Him.”
The assailants escaped on foot via a nearby path. Three men were later arrested by the police and released after a few hours.
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