And now for Kenya ...

NAIROBI, Kenya — Twin explosions hit a market area in downtown Nairobi on Friday afternoon, killing 10 people and injuring 76 others, officials said, adding to a series of deadly attacks in the country in recent months.

The blasts came after a number of Western embassies had issued advisories against travel to Kenya because of fears of such attacks. British authorities were in the process of evacuating hundreds of tourists from the costal town of Mombasa even before the explosions in Nairobi took place on Friday.

The authorities said that two explosive devices went off at 2:30 p.m., one in a minibus, and the other in the market nearby. Two suspects have been arrested and are being investigated, officials said. No group has claimed responsibility, but the authorities have attributed other attacks in recent months to a Somali extremist group, the Shabab. This is a militant Islamist group associated with al-Qaeda.

My former religious community has several monasteries in Kenya, including one just outside of Nairobi. Back in 1995, I was asked to be one of the founding friars there. I even started studying Kiswahili, but I never was sent to Kenya. A few years later, when I was on the Provincial Council, I recommended that we send Fr. Steven Payne, my best friend in the Carmelites, to be a member of the formation team in the seminary. Although Steve found it to be a challenge, he loved Kenya from the beginning. Today he is Principal (President) of a Catholic college there.

Please keep him, the community and all the people of Kenya in your prayers and thoughts.