UPDATE

SATURDAY, 29TH MARCH 2008

 

It is a WET and VERY COLD day at the commencement of the Rainy Season.  The usually azure sky is grey and dull.   It is quite amazing how the withdrawing of the SUN and blue sky change the very tone and character of the day.     The warmth and uplifting joy of the LIGHT has been removed and we are left with a coldness and drabness that is comfortless.       Is this how the still hundreds of thousands of our people in Kenya feel at this time - away from their homes, strangers in their own land, and almost despised.       Smiles have gone from faces that habitually were given to laughter,  and a jaunty and confident demeanor replaced by a furtive dejectedness.

The RAINS have certainly helped to compound the discomfort and despair of the many still in Camps and Detention Centres.     Eldoret's numbers have reduced from within the Show Ground.     It is said that less then 12,000 are there now  -   those who crammed its confines a week ago have been relocated in smaller camps, nearer the localities from which they were originally evicted or chased, under the eye of the Police.     But it is not just those in the camps.    The majority of those forced to leave their homes are not camped in communal grounds but dossed down with distant relatives or friends with no way of restarting their lives, and often unwanted burdens to those they now live with.     In Nairobi the Dumb & Dee brigade continue to spend money on the pretence of government, unable to apparently decide the most simple matters necessary to putting in place a stable administration and economy.    Truly the SUN is obscured in Kenya.

 

Esther and I were invited to have supper in Drakeley Cottage - one of the four Children's Homes in TFH.      Steve Situma and his wife Emily are Dad and Mum in this Home.  Steve is an Old Boy and was in fact brought up in Testimony House from when he was ten years old.    He is 37 now.    He and Emily have one son of 4, and a larger family of six girls and 19 boys between the ages of 2 and 16 years.      On the dining room wall is a pictorial memorial of Caroline Martha Drakeley MBE and Matilda Dawkins who both in different ways contributed to the conception and building of this Home.

We had barely entered when we were both surrounded by the family all greeting 'Grandpa and Grandma' and wanting hugs and kisses.     Such a very happy and normal pack of kids, very much ' at home' and secure in and with their surroundings.     It was a special evening.     Two long trestle tables were set in the Dining room, and we all sat together for a satisfying supper of meat, vegetables and chapatti, with fruit salad to follow.     It is not possible to have individual Birthdays for each child on their individual days.   However, everyone IS remembered, and each month the Birthdays in that month are celebrated on one particular day.     Each one will have their cake, and candles lit, Happy Birthday sung, and the cake divided and enjoyed with the rest of the family.     Three were to celebrated that night.      It was a truly 'family' occasion and looking around me I suddenly felt such a thanksgiving for what the Lord has accomplished over the years in providing such safe havens for our children.

We stayed on until about 10am.    Most of the children had gone to bed - the majority are under 12 - and we were able to have a little time of fellowship with Steve and Emily.       There was a 'Peace' about the house, and about our being together.   It was something beautiful to contemplate and I remembered the words of Keats in Endymion

'A thing of beauty is joy for ever:

its loveliness increases:

it will never pass into nothingness......'

 

Truly it is not only that which is material which may be seen as something beautifull and able to bring a sense of joy and appreciation to the beholder.     There are those moments and spiritual apprehensions that also reveal beauty, the contemplation and remembrance of which also stir JOY in ones heart and mind.    Moments that will never pass completely away into nothingness.       Steve had remarked that evening that he had tried to make their home and family as ours had been together when he was growing up in Testimony House.     He had more than succeeded I think, and even emulated those memories in something perhaps even more beautiful.

 

BUT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL IS GOD!

Lord of all being, throned afar,

Thy glory flames from sun and star:

Centre and soul of every sphere,

Yet to each loving heart how near!

 

Sun of our life, they quickening ray

Sheds on our path the glow of day:

Star of our hope, thy softened light

cheers the long watches of the night.

 

Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn:

Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;

Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;

All, save the clouds of sin, are thine!

 

Lord of all life, below, above,

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love,

Before thy ever-blazing throne

We ask no lustre of our own.

 

Grant us thy truth to make us free,

And kindling hearts that burn for thee,

Till all thy loving altars claim

One holy light, one heavenly flame!

                                                     Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Our love to you all

 

John and Esther