My colleague Pastor Gatera and I begin our journey back to Kakuma today. This will be an especially poignant trip for Pastor Gatera as it will be his first since resettling from Kakuma to the USA seven years ago.

Pastor Gatera spent nealy 20 years in the camp before being resettled. He became a believer while there. He became a pastor there. He met his wife and raised their three children there. He is well known among many refugees as he was a leader of leaders there.

The church he pastored while there is having a 2 day celebration upon his return. Among other things, they've asked him to do some leadership training while with them this coming weekend.

He and I will also participate in a three day conference of our refugee partner organization - URHC. It is a network of over 160 churches in the camp and from the surrounding local community. This will be their first conference since Covid, so an important time of relaunching the network.

The conference will be held on the KISOM campus that IAFR financed over the past several years. KISOM is a refugee church initiated and led school that trains pastors, teachers, and church planters in Kakuma. This is important as it is the churches that work to keep hope alive in this forgotten place.

The photo is of the KISOM kitchen that is being built as I write. It won't have plumbing, but it will offer a clean and safe space to store and prepare food on the campus. Until now, the cooks have prepared food outside of a makeshift shelter over a hot fire under the hot semi desert sun.

Stay tuned for further updates as we travel.