| Kenya - Street Justice
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It was now 1715 hour of the day as Fanwell drove us to a camera
shop in the heart of downtown Nairobi. Fanwell was concerned
about our security, so he advised us to walk quickly and close
together. The streets where so crowded with traffic and people
and it was not safe to travel alone. After a 30 minute wait,
the camera was ready and we were on our way to the hotel.
All of a sudden, Fanwell slammed on the brakes, yelled something,
grabbed his keys from the ignition, jumped out the door and
started running. My colleague, Keith Johnston, sitting in
the second seat, and I froze. We quickly locked all doors
and closed the windows. It was then that Keith realized that
he had been robbed, his arm had been resting on the open window
of the truck and some street child had grabbed his watch and
was running away. It happened so fast that none of us knew
what had happened except Fanwell.
A few minutes later, Fanwell returned to the pickup that
now was blocking traffic on the main street of Nairobi. Smiling,
he held up the watch and said, “I got your watch
back!” We were amazed. He had recovered a $19.00
watch from a 13 or a 14-year-old street child. “It
really wasn’t worth that much,” Keith said.
As Fanwell started up the truck and put it in gear, he told
us about the importance to have a police whistle. As Fanwell
was chasing the boy, he was also blowing the whistle and yelling
at the crowd to “stop”. Finally, the boy stopped
running and the watch was retrieved. Fanwell explained that
if he had not told the crowd that “everything was OK”,
they would have killed the boy on the spot and that would
have been street justice. Hearing the police whistle, the
young boy knew that he would be safe in police hands, as they
would have let him go. The crowd would have killed the boy
because he was a shame and embarrassment to the people of
Kenya, and their justice would have been served.
When the hounds of hell try their best to destroy our lives,
we are safe in the hands of Jesus.
Dennis Ford
Africa Trip – March 2000
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