"His Excellency,
The US Ambassador to Kenya

The Rev Dr Robert Edgar
General Secretary
National Council of Churches

We received with profound shock the news of the terrorist attacks in your nation, the United States of America, which took place last Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On behalf of Churches in Africa and on my own, I wish to offer our condolences to the President, the Government and people of the United States of America for the loss of thousands of innocent lives.

We wish to join the people of America in mourning and in prayers, as you seek to come to terms with this great loss of lives of innocent Children of God. It is our hope that any retaliatory action that moments like this can encourage should not be driven by hunger for revenge but by sober coolness of heart. It is our prayer that America being a nation founded on Christian values will seek God's guidance as they come to terms with this tragedy with the rest of the world.

The attacks being the first since the Pearl Harbour invasion was indeed shocking for a nation that for long has not come face to face with such evil. We in Africa have lost millions of human lives mostly caused by global human greed. We therefore know too well that the hard lesson learnt is for all of us in the world to join hands in building genuine human relationships and in striving for global peace.

What happened in New York and Washington DC should not be seen as an American problem but a global concern. The same forces of evil struck Africa's cities of Nairobi and Dar-es-salam in similar co-ordinated strikes in August 1998 from which we are yet to recover.

We pray that God will give the people of America the grace needed to endure.

Yours sincerely,

Rev. Canon Clement H. Janda
General Secretary"

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