UPDATE

SATURDAY 20th SEPTEMBER 2008

NO PICTURES this week -  just some remembrances and Thanksgiving.     For some weeks now we have been studying together in our Fellowship Bible Study the Book of Malachi and had reached, this Friday, to Chapter 3v7-18 which talked mainly of tithing.     It was not a particularly encouraging chapter to consider as we had all together been in a financially deteriorating situation, day by day; seeing things get worse and worse.     As we talked and shared some raised the question of WHY God at times seemes to ignore our prayers and even His promises, letting the need or trial continue without relief.       Most of those in the Study were from the Homes, and all knew of the need, and the majority had been bringing the needs to the Lord daily.      It had started (as a test of faith) some months back, but by the commencement of September we found ourselves  falling behind in what daily expenditure needed to be found.     Bills began to go unpaid, and by Friday (yesterday) we had come to rock bottom.    No cash in hand, nothing in the Bank, and a stack of bills waiting to be paid.    What to do?    Go on praying and Waiting on God.

As we shared many brought up all kinds of situations where it seemed that God had left us to perish - like His friends on the lake in the storm, battling against the wind and waves in their frail fishing boat.....'LORD!   Don't you CARE that we perish?'    He seems to WANT us to come to the end of all our own resources.....again and again.

 

NOW PEOPLE I hope you won't get nervous and feel I am trying to encourage finance from you.   The last time I shared a little of how we were feeling here in Kenya relative to the work of Testimony Faith Homes, I had quite a few brethren writing back suggesting we needed more faith.      Well I don't deny that this is true.     I have never said any of us have the Gift of Faith, only that we BELIEVE God wants US to trust Him for our needs.      We have endeavoured to live in such a way that He CAN do this for us - we are not saying we are perfect and that we are always found to be at ease with this commitment.     But we have Agreed with God to live pinning our confidence on Him and Him alone.     Well now, I feel that we need to SHARE honestly how it is sometimes.       NOT because we are trying in a sly or deceitful way to increase your own material interest in us, but so that you know we are human like you, and often needy EVEN THOUGH God is our Provider - and to know this without in any way taking away from God our trust and confidence, or imputing any disquiet about Him.      I find it often frustrating NOT to be able to tell you when things are difficult, and when our own small faith is being attacked and challenged.   And this partly because I am sure that YOUR OWN faith is challenged often, and you might also need the encouragement of knowing that WE go through it with you, AND still LIVE!       At least AFTER a trial we feel freer to share, since it is too late fr our sharing to contribute to our deliverance!

We are challenged often, and since we began this work in 1969 the Lord has continually let us go through often overwhelming experiences.

Deuteronomy 8 tells us that God let the Children of Israel wander 40 years in the desert in order to find out what was in their mind - about Him.     How did their respect and trust stand up under pressure - not too well.      It was something God did again and again - kind of taking a 'Rain-check' on spiritual temperature.

 

In June 1995 I wrote ' We seem to be close to ROCK BOTTOM!  No Cash to hand, day after day......'      So even thirteen years back this was happening to us.      I can bring excerpts from my diaries that go right back to 1970....     AND, in 1995 I had quoted an extract from a Daily Reading I was using at that very time, right in the midst of the trial.    It read -

 

"He delivers magnificently, and showeth lovingkindness."

Psalm 18v50 (French Translation)

SOME one who knew what it was to trust God, once said;

"During the last two years, though I have said little about them,

I have had many a crevasse open up before me.

The ice has seemed to split asunder,

and I have looked down into the blue depths

IT IS A GLORIOUS THING

to have a big trouble, a great Atlantic wave,

 that takes you off your feet and sweeps you right out to sea,

and lets you sink down into the depths, into the ocean's lowest caverns,

till you get to the foundations of the mountains, and there see God,

and then come up again to tell what a Great God He is,

and how graciously He delivers His people.

 

AT THAT TIME WE HAD BEEN ENDURING debt for some weeks.   At the time it did not FEEL quite so romantically 'wonderful' to us to be 'swept off our feet'!    Can you be in DEBT and still say God Provides?      Could we even afford to suggest we had unpaid bills?   Some would then say God had departed from us.     If God was really providing then we should not have debts.     Well WE have, from time to time, HAD to go into DEBT whilst we were WAITING on God to provide - and He always HAS provided.     But in June that year we were once more ROCK BOTTOM, and it was not easy to WAIT.       After TEN days of being there - waiting - we received a phone call to say that £16,oooo had been sent direct to our account.     BEFORE we had shared our situation with anyone outside of our own small community of workers, God spoke to a few brethren thousands of miles removed from us and burdened them to pray for us,    When they got off their knees they had decided we needed immediate help - they were sure.      They went to their church, took up and offering and send it by telex.

Our DEBT was taken care of and the ministry secured for a month ahead.     SURELY God provided - even against the debt.

 

But that is living a little dangerously.     Living on a knife edge?   Perhaps, like the widow and her 'mite'- Jesus said it represented ALL that she had.  COULD she really afford to do that?    Was she being responsible, and sensible   She let go of it and walked away - with her LIFE.     Did she die?  Did she fall into penury?    NO, I feel SURE she didn't - she walked away with her LIFE.       She needed nothing but GOD with her.    Neither do we, but we are not always prepared to see it that way.      We let the material, physical reality limit our LIFE and LIVING, and affect our peace and security.      

In 1969 the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said

"Expose yourself to the storms of life - and I will sustain you"

 

I willingly grasped the challenge but I can assure you that there have been many times when a cry of Apprehension - sometimes of despair -  escaped from me as I was confronted with overwhelming odds, and suddenly wondered where God was...........and sometimes not just for a moment either!

 

Please do not hang all that I am saying on financial wellbeing.     What I am saying has to do with our individual expectations at all levels, finance, health, comfort, happiness, material well-being.       It has to do with losing our life in order to find REAL LIFE, the kind that never ends, and never wears out.        I believe it is written into Isaiah 58v7 onwards where the Prophets says -

THIS IS THE FAST, the going without, THAT I WANT

    It is for YOU to divide YOUR bread with the hungry,

and to bring the homeless poor into YOUR house -

when you seek the naked that YOU cover him,

and that you hide not yourself from the needs of your own flesh and blood.

 

THEN (8)

shall your light break forth like the morning,

and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily;

your righteousness (your rightness, justice, and your right relationship with God

shall go before you (conducting you to peace and prosperity,

and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

 

THEN (v9)

you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am.

IF YOU TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR MIDST

yokes of oppression (wherever you find them),

the finger pointed in scorn (toward the oppressed or the godly),

and every form of false harsh, unjust, and wicked speaking.

 

AND (10)

IF YOU POUR OUT THAT WITH WHICH YOU SUSTAIN YOUR OWN LIFE

for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted

THEN

shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom be come

like the noonday

The Lord shall guide you.

He will satisfy your soul in drought and  in dry places.

He will make your bones strong.

you shall be like a watered garden and a spring of water that never fails.

 

IMMEDIATELY after our Bible study the Bank rang to say that they had received a substantial gift of money for the Homes on the 8th September.    They apologised for not letting us know earlier.      ALL the time we had thought there was nothing FUNDS were already lying quietly in the bank.     Whilst we prepared to go under if necessary, The LORD OUR GOD, our Provider had already secured us, and made sure we would not go under.       The donor that had been so used to rescue us and whose gift was so quietly given is now in his forties and a family man..       More than 30+ years ago when he was a very young child, and I was the guest of his parents, I had cause to beat him - just a little!      Hope I won't be arrested for such an admission.    He was not encouraged to love me very much for it.       NOW suddenly here he is rescuing me and all those with me from sudden death - at least it seemed like it!

Are not the ways of the Lord VERY mysterious.

 

AND SO we are Praising HIM, for His never failing FAITHFULNESS.     WE can entrust ourselves to HIM;  we who are here, otherwise alone and vulnerable, and each and every one of YOU too.       We may be tested at times.    The comfortableness of life might suddenly be interrupted and fall apart - security, peace and well being may be taken away.    The sun ceases to shine, the day is grey and gloomy - hope dwindles..........yet all the time His Everlasting Arms are underneath us.     He will hang on to us, and bring us through.    We need not to fear or be anxious.        No matter what is happening around me, no matter how BAD the scene becomes HE IS WITH ME.      Stripped of everything that I might count necessary to life and wellbeing, I will not DIE if HE is with me.     No I shall live.    LIFE is not in material things only.     REAL LIFE is what IS left, after everything else that we have made humanly synonimlous with lit has been done away with.

140 Children,  44 staff, and all that it takes to support, provide, and sustain them is continually being provided moment by moment on an unguaranteed promise of 12% of the total cost.        NOT a very secure situation from a purely normal point of view.   NO, but it is a WONDERFUL and GLORIOUS proof of the FACT of GOD.

 

WELL now perhaps I have laboured too long on this.      I have really been stirred up.

We are not too heavenly minded in reality.      We have no haloes, no wings sprouting at our shoulders.    Just very ordinary folk needing more and more Grace, and Faith.    Pray for us.

On Thursday the School Office was broken into and £250 stolen from the safe.    Looks like an inside job, and may need two of our staff to leave us.    Not a happy occurrence, but yet once more we seek His Guidance in it all, and must not lean only to our own inclination in judgment.     Pray for us as a new week dawns.       We have visitors next week, and we hope to enjoy their fellowship for some weeks to come - in-between the daily chores and duties both of us are still very much embroiled with.

 

Much love to you all in Jesus

 

John and Esther

 

PS  -   If anyone might be interested, or knows of someone who could be interested, to come out to us for three to months or so to re-organise and take in hand our Accounts it might be of great assistance to us.