UPDATE

THE END OF THE MONTH is just a week away now. It has been a difficult and challenging month in every way, but it has also been a month of great events and happenings. To start with the month of October is usually a very pleasant month weather-wise! The rains have usually stopped and a season of mellow fruitfulness leading up to the high summer of December and hot drought of January/February is providing us with the enjoyment of brilliant, warm and pleasant days. But this year it has not been so. The Rains had been intermittent during July/August, and then seemingly unable to lift. Towards the end of September they increased, until through this month we have had heavy and torrential downpours. Hardly a sunny day, and the COLD on some days, especially the last week or so, enough to chill the marrow in your bones! Not cheerful weather; not uplifting weather. Not very 'equatorial'. It was a month that also dawned upon us when we had spent all that we had, and were wondering how we would actually survive the month. By the end of the first week we had received and spent what we could have reasonably have expected on the basis of monthly tithes - then still considering the 88% we still needed to get us to the end of the month. Of course life goes on - even when there is nothing in hand - and so we also stepped out in faith believing - and our friend and brother from St. Andrews Church, Ashburton, Devon, arrived to spend some weeks with us - and in his hand was a £1000 from the saints in his Church. Oh, how truly wonderful a day THAT was - so very unexpected and unlooked for yet again......AND so much on time and in answer to our need.
Yet it was soon swallowed up and GONE. THEN came a bout of sickness after drinking infected water on a visit to a rural Children's Home. Both Philip Dary and I were laid up for a week. And of course in between all these things the School Office had been robbed twice of more than £400 and there was the turmoil of getting to the bottom of what appeared to be an 'inside job', and the subsequent dismissal of some of our staff; the sorrow and disappointment this entailed, plus the daily apprehension of rising prices (bread WENT UP 20/- a loaf on Monday) and unforeseen expenses - such as the repair of our aging vehicles. YET there was laughter and a great deal of pleasure woven into all of it, and the Lord saw that we were indeed kept by His Power. Then this Monday we received yet a further Help from a neighbour who called in early at my Office to give the Homes £1000 in kenya shillings; he said that he and his friends had been in prayer and felt that TFH was in need, and so they had taken up an offering, and this was it. - and the week's housekeeping that we still had not got in hand, was suddenly right there! We still do not understand how it is that GOD communicates what WE have not even whispered outloud!
Today, the promise of the final needs of the month are also coming to hand. The amazing thing about THIS month is that we have been kept in the dark about how He would provide, and step by step He has brought our need to the door as well as from far afield, and for the most part this month from sources we could never have guessed or imagined - some from sources never before known. Finally - as far as at today's date - I was called from my bed at 11pm. on Thursday to be told that a gift of £10,000 was being sent to us in order to buy a NEW vehicle for the Homes! Our current minibus is about to give up the ghost entirely, and has been in and out of the garage for first aid (and last rights), for months. We have no real idea where this Gift is coming from ! it is STILL raining, and the skies are still leaden. but we find our hearts being lifted, and our faith increased........not by anything that we have done, but by His grace. THANK YOU ALL for your prayers, and for remembering us when you talk to the Lord, the Father of us all. This is something very much to be shared and to be rejoiced about TOGETHER.

THIS IS PHOTO OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. I have a feeling I will probably be writing some more about this man as time goes by. I came across his Autobiography 'Up from Slavery' only recently, and have found it both interesting and remarkable. Booker (1856-1915) was born into slavery in Virginia, USA. Teaching himself to read and write, he rose to be a most respected black educationalist, having the ear of Presidents and Statesmen alike. He died of High Blood Pressure when he was only 59, the son of a slave woman and unable to identify his father. His middle name was given him by his mother as 'Talaifero' which some will say is Portuguese for 'Free land', and thus might hint that his forebears may have come from a Portuguese Colony somewhere in Africa.
By the time he was nine years sold he was labouring in salt and coal mines, but all the time a growing longing to LEARN was taking hold of him, and finally, after the American Civil War was over and all slaves free, at the age of sixteen, he joined Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, and after only three years Graduated with Honours. Later he joined the Faculty of the Institute and few years later in 1875 he was asked to head up a new Teacher Training College for black teachers. This was still within a period soon after the Civil War when racial tensions were still running high. By 1915, when he died, Booker T. Washington had built and expanded what was in 1881 to be known as the Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute (now University) into a School of 107 buildings on two thousand acres of land with over 1500 students, and more than 200 teachers and professors.
In all this he maintained a high regard for God, testifying to the fact that he could have done nothing without His Guidance and Support in his life. He was accused of compromise and appeasement when it came to promoting Civil Rights for Black Americans because he chose a less aggressive way forward than some of his contemporaries. Nevertheless he is still a Role Model internationally since what he actually did and attained against all human and natural odds with the help of God was astounding.
On his Monument erected in the centre of the Tuskegee campus it is written -
"He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people,
and pointed the way to progress through education and industry."

Some quotes -
"I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

"We do not want the men of another colour for our brothers in law, but we do want them our brothers."

This man stands out from many others because of his attitude. I may have to return to him another time, when I have thought some things through, but at this stage I consider his life and example to be well worth looking into, and we may introduce the reading of his autobiography into our school.

Well today is what WE call Spiritual Emphasis Day, and we all, as a staff, join together for prayer and praise in the School Hall. This happens once a term. ALL the teachers, houseparents, cleaners, gardeners office staff and so on attend. It keeps us all together. Later today I have to attend a Board Meeting for another Children's Home running not too distant from us, and tomorrow I am sharing in a Seminar on Marital Relations...... and then it will be Monday again, and another week of uncharted as well as routine events will begin. Praise the Lord!

Our love to you all

John and Esther