SONS & DAUGHTERS

This photo is taken from an Article headed 'HOW TO CRASH A KIKUYU DOWRY'. Apparently some young teenager with nothing to do one day in Nairobi decided to go along with a friend to a meeting to decide how much 'DOWRY' should be made for a young lady whose hand was sought in Marriage! In 'Old English' tradition it was the maiden who brought the dowry to the boy's family. In Africa it is the other way around. When I first came to Kenya in 1968 I observed a young girl being wooed by her prospective husband with a gift of 100 metal teapots, and a rather moth-eaten goat!
Well I am not about to gate crash such a meeting. No! Today Esther and I will be officially visiting our own son Michael's prospective In-laws to both introduce ourselves AND settle the whole matter of HOW MUCH he will be expected to GIVE for his Sweetheart's hand in Marriage! Well, well. Michael is not actually the LAST of our children to get married, but he HAS taken his time about it, and we had almost given up expecting him to actually find a wife. AND so today we go to present his Plight to the young lady's parents and family. The process of reaching final Agreement can be long. First WE have to visit them to introduce ourselves, then THEY visit us some weeks later. THEN we visit to agree what should be given in the way of Dowry. THEN again to decide the date and details of the actual Wedding.

BUT Mike is living in England, and so HE cannot be with us, and JANE MWANGI, his intended (living and working in Nairobi) would like to hurry things along a little as it is hard to be separated by so many miles and see so little of each other. They have known each other since teenage, and time is running by........ SO my wily wife, also a Kikuyu as are the prospective In-laws has managed to cut some of the cackle and agreed with them for us to meet today with them ONCE AND FOR ALL, for Introductions AND to settle all other matters. They will then visit us in a few weeks time reciprocally. Esther and I will be accompanied by a party of some 18 others - members of the family and friends from around. TWO of the eldest will speak for Michael and for us as his parents. All we will do is sit and listen (at least Esther will - for i will hear very little (knowing VERY little Swahili or Kikuyu in which most of the proceedings will be conducted in!) I am wishing I had learned knitting!! We are expected to be at the 'family home' at 12.30p.m. Kenya time, and will no doubt be there for the rest of the day! How much Money will they think Mike should pay...how many COWS - or teapots - will they demand in addition? We will not know till the sun sets probably! The Family of Janet will no doubt be assembled in some numbers to welcome us, and see what we will bring! As in the large photo it can be quite a crowded affair, and all kinds of gifts / donations / inducements to win a YES from the girl's family get spread out for all to see. Something for the Parents, something for the Grandparents, something for the Aunts and Uncles - and a multitude of others, plus a few odds and ends demanded by tradition! Michael will not doubt spend most of today biting his finger (if not also his toe) nails in apprehension - finance is getting tighter day by day! And of course there is also the prospect of the Wedding itself.......... hopefully to be held in July here in Eldoret next year. All this may sound a little wearisome, but in fact it is usually (at least with the Kikuyu) a happy time of fellowship rather than a serious and 'business' type of gathering. At the conclusion it is hoped that both sides will know, like, and rejoice in each other as part of what now will be ONE FAMILY.

The last few days of November are passing quickly by, and then December will be upon us. We have a small Children's Camp continuing at present - mainly for poor children from outside of the Homes who come in for a fortnight's fun, christian teaching and counselling. They use the School Boarding Facility and the School Hall. Also the teachers and our staff have been busy this week with a Refresher Course for First Aid. Then on Monday we have visitors from the UK for three or four days, and on the 8th open a Seminar for Social Workers involved in Children's Services on TRAUMA COUNSELLING which will continue until the 12th. On the 13th we will host our support Staff Christmas Luncheon before most of them go on holiday for a few weeks. This is not just about eating a meal together, but it is a real 'fellowship' time.
On that day in 1968 which was also a Friday (for those who like to consider inauspicious days) I arrived in Kisumu, Kenya for the first time. Forty years of life............ Time for a change, New Vision, New Challenge? I must say that I do have a sense of expectancy concerning the future - though not apprehension or anxiety. AND THEN it will almost be Christmas which means it will almost be NEW YEAR - and everything will begin again - this time we trust without FIRE and BULLETS. In Jesus Name!

ON THE 27th NOVEMBER Esther and I were invited to THANKSGIVING by some American missionary friends. I used to think American Thanksgiving was in remembrance of winning the War of Independence from the 'Tyranny of British Rule'. I had never been invited to such a Celebration and thought it probably no place for a Britisher like me - and a loyal Monarchist to whit! So it was real surprise to find myself invited with Esther, and a greater one to find out how misguided I had been all these years, for far from being some kind of national pride, Thanksgiving is all about being Thankful to God for His Providence and Mercy. More like our English Harvest Thanksgiving usually held around Michaelmas each year. Our friends are also members of the Missionary Fellowship - a group of more than a dozen different Christian Mission organisations and societies that meet each Sunday in each other's homes to fellowship and pray together. This year they had felt led to invite ALL of us to THEIR family Thanksgiving. We had a truly wonderful time together; more than a hundred - Americans, German, Dutch, Danish, English, and Kenyan.

We also received a donation of £10,000 to purchase a new (2nd hand) mini bus for the Homes.
Our current one is about to conk out utterly, and is currently moving under duress! A wonderful provision. Funny how donations of such a nature (ones that cannot be diverted to other needs) always seem to arrive when we have nothing to eat - I think the Enemy has a very twisted sense of the Word of God. We had not actually been praying for a vehicle urgently. We have been praying for more consumable daily needs. 'Oh Lord give us bread!' and along comes a million shillings of glass and steel. THANKS Lord! No I really am not trying to be facetious or cynical. We really DO Thank Him. And we know He has everything else in hand - The Vehicle is a BONUS thrown in from a very loving Father.

God Bless and be with you all - must go and comb my hair and so on before zero hour arrives!


John and Esther

GRAND CHILDREN

Esther and I have seven grandchildren at present. Some are near to us and some are far. In the photo we are with Eric and Tonia (left) and Becky (right.) Eric and Tonia are the children of Steven and his wife Anjie. Becky is Daryl and Carol's daughter. A rare get together! We really miss seeing the U.K. kids growing up even though we have Daryl's children here with us every day. Our children tell us that we love our grandchildren MORE than we loved them - at least this is what Daryl says. I guess we might be guilty of doting on the three that are closest to us more than we did their parents. Probably we would be doing exactly the same to the four living in UK if they were within reach. In fact we feel deprived of doting on them. But we are thrilled to see them all growing up in safe and loving families, with Jesus in the midst. THAT is a rich reward and joy.

I think all children are in a sense GRAND! We have so many here with us, but those between 1 and 11 give us a great deal of pleasure and pride as they grow up. And it just a month to Christmas again! Indeed it seems to be rushing upon us faster than ever before. It is the small children that seem to love Christmas the most, and perhaps identify with the wonder of it all. Carols are already being practiced, and the usual Concert being organised. But Christmas is also the time for us to join in things together and to see ourselves as one BIG Family instead of four small ones. This is fun, and it is also a blessing as we share meals together and enjoy each other's company. On the 13th December ALL the Homes Staff - houseparents, office workers, cleaners, gardeners, maintenance people, and cooks - about 70 will join together for a common meal and fellowship to mark the end of the year, and to remember that we are all, regardless of our position or duly, workers together with and for JESUS. Many will leave us for their own holiday with their own family afterwards, and we shall shrink in number and take on a little more work while they are away.
We are believing for a QUIET and uneventful Christmas this year without the tumult and terror that came upon us a year ago. Still raining on and off, but for the most part there has been a little more sunshine and warmth, and we are hopeful that all of us will be found yet once more together on Boxing Day, swimming and enjoying a pic-nic together at a neighboring school swimming pool.
BUT we shall also be preparing for the New Year and the New School Term. School uniform, books, and shoes all needed repair or replacement, and of course a another amount to find for School fees. Christmas is materially low key due to these annual necessities that insist that we take care not to be careless in our spending. Non the less the children always seem to have a most happy time together and do not miss the presents a large part of the world is so used to lavishing on their children.

The week has been quiet and rather uneventful. School finally shut down yesterday. The Homes all full and settled. The week to come is full of happenings and events and promises to be very busy indeed, and then November will have gone. The year began with a BANG! and since then ominous clouds have continued to hover around Kenya, and indeed around TFH. We are grateful for peace, but very much aware that the Enemy is still on the prowl around us all.
We need your prayers. God be with you -

John and Esther

PEACE AND QUIET ?

The School Term has all but ended. Classrooms being cleaned and tidied for the last time before the New Year dawns, text books collected, checked out and stored away. and the marking of the terminal examinations almost complete. It has been a busy week - a busy few weeks in fact - as both the Primary and Secondary National Examinations have been going on. Now both Graduating Classes have completed and departed to await the NEXT chapter in their lives; some to High School, some to College and University.
Within Eldoret Show Ground there is still a large crowd of Displaced Persons surviving! About four thousand adults, and maybe fifteen hundred children under 18. There is a School there too. All under canvas via the kindness of the Red Cross and the UN. But the canvas has aged - some of the canvas is plastic. Gaping holes, and the constant erosion of the weather make most tents look like dilapidated, flapping black and white crows in their death throws. Sometimes more than one family will huddle at night in these cheerless, cold and uncomfortable shelters. only to wake to hunger, boredom and hopelessness. I was there last Monday, and left with tears of distress just to see the state of forlornness and destitution. There seems no kind of security there, and rape and incest and all kinds of abomination continue unabated......... Meanwhile the Government continues to make statements of what it is going to do - without doing it - and a multitude of Committees with high sounding names and agendas pour forth torrents of words, advice and good intentions without actually achieving a great deal - though all spending an enormous amount of money doing it. It is all very deplorable.
I went to pray for the Primary Candidates for the National Primary Exam - some 227 boys and girls - holed up with their families in this unnatended corner of hell. They were excited to have got through their Primary education, but what next? Will they find Secondary School a possibility? Will they still have to live in degradation and poverty? And they are just a tiny fraction of the need. Daryl took a few photos, but they are not quite as clear as usual - a new camera he was not used to, and the settings were a little out. Still.......it gives a small view.

SO WHAT NOW as holidays loom? Some of our College students are already returning home for the vacation - and the new Guest House is now also beginning to be valued and appreciated.
We have two engaged in Teacher Training, both just arrived home - one from Testimony House, and one from Jacaranda Cottage. They are now in their second of three years training. The cost for each is £1,000 per annum. We have twenty more in College and University still, and next year that number will increase - thus a sizable amount of our expenditure has to be applied solely to education. Sadly although there are funds available for bursaries for the poor, they are never offered to Children's Homes - presumably because it is thought they are all well funded from, other sources overseas. Even the Government seems to have the same idea. On the whole this may be fair assessment except for the few like ourselves who are not beholden to regular and endowed sponsorship. God is Merciful but not always abundant when it comes to supply and demand. This statement might be unpopular in some areas, but it is OUR experience that God is not extravagant by nature, but careful in His accounting. We are usually glad not to have more than enough since the more can be a temptation and enticement to becoming unthankful and unappreciative.
The School is emptying but others may be coming in to use some of the facilities.
On the 23rd of this month until the 6th December we are expecting about 60 children to come in for a two week Seminar seeking to empower young people with life skills they need to make the transition from childhood to adulthood without falling victim to to challenges such as HIV infection, drug abuse, and lack of self esteem. It is being run by friends from the Anglican Church here in Eldoret in co-operation with MOI University. Also on the 23rd November for three days the St. John Ambulence will be running a Seminar on First Aid. Actually this is an Annual Refresher Course attended by our Teachers, Houseparents etcetera. Then in the 2nd week in December there will be another group coming in for a week's residential course on Child Abuse and Protection. WOW! And in between of course ALL the children will be HOME - but not ALONE!! Well we really do enjoy the long holiday as it is a good time to get alongside our kids and to bond the more with them.
BUT, as I shared last week, Jacaranda will have lost their parents. As if this was not enough to contemplate, we have heard additionally this week, that the Assistant Houseparent, Calvin Otieno is also leaving! He is leaving before Christmas to emigrate to Australia where he is to get married. We had known he was engaged, but had not thought of him leaving quite so quickly. We shall greatly miss him as he is also very much used generally amongst the Youth in our Fellowship. SO this is really quite an unlooked for situation of some magnitude, since a family of 37 cannot go uncared for. We have one young man we think will be able to take Calvin's place, but he is not with a lot of experience, and will still need the support of Houseparents. Still no one in sight - keep praying for us and for the Jacaranda Family.

I am typing this on the front veranda of Green Cottage waiting for a party of 15 of Esther's cousins to visit from Nakuru - they will have lunch and see around and also visit with Esther's mother who as you may remember is ill with Altziemers and staying with us. To-morrow we have a visiting Speaker at our Fellowship and I shall be leading the Meeting. Then the new week beings, and I shall begin to pay the Bills on my desk. £3,000 of them! they have slowly been accumulating, and on Wednesday we heard that EXACTLY that amount was being sent to us via AENON. Bless the Lord for every contribution, every loving heart, and every listening ear.
Much Love to you all

John and Esther

HONOUR YOUR PARENTS

FOR THE LAST SEVEN WEEKS I have been giving ten minute talks on the TEN COMMANDMENTS.
It is quite surprising that so many adults, quite apart from children, do not know them. Every Friday I attend the School Assembly and usually give a short address - so currently I am taking one Commandment at a time.
The biggest response so far came from the 5th - 'Honour thy father and thy mother.......' Many of the School children and a large number of the children in the Homes have experienced or are experiencing family divisions and splits. Many do not KNOW their origins! Many others are estranged or in other ways at odds with their parents. Not an easy Word to have to give with so much 'resentment', 'rebellion', and even disgust in so many hearts. Greater respect - at least superficially - seems to be given by those within the Islamic and Hindu communities.

I asked the question WHY? Why should we honour our parents? I only had ten minutes and I had to cover a lot of ground. I shared that I personally had never known my own parents; had not seen even a photo of them, heard their voice, or discovered anything about them. Was I also expected to honour my parents? After all neither were married to each other and neither had shown any interest in me - I had been given up for adoption when I was just two months old. I had little to admire about them. Why should I honour them? Probably I should honour my adopted parents, who took over the responsibility of bringing me up, more reasonably? WELL, my answer was that YES I did need to honour my true parents regardless of who they were, how they might be, or even how they treated me - just because God had chosen them to be the ones to bring me into the world, and to contribute to my actual 'being', personality and character. I am who I am because of them, and each of them is very much part of me. To hate, disrespect, dishonour, or wash my hands of them, would be to turn against myself, and disrespect and dishonour myself. At this point many of our older students and young people seemed very discomforted. Later I was to learn some had broken down - one had gone home to confess to her parents how she had had a wrong attitude toward them, asking their forgiveness! Amazing. We should be grateful for our parents whoever they are or were. Without them we could not be here, and could not be who we are. More importantly we could not have had the opportunity to KNOW God or SEE His Creation. Yes I cannot do less than honour my parents - not necessarily their lifestyle or even the kind of person they might be or have been - but just because God had ME in mind in bringing them together. Thank you God - for my parents. In a way this was easier than it was for me to honour my adopted parents. As I grew up with them I was to criticise, judge, and at times disrespect them for what I thought I knew about them. It was only AFTER I left home that I came to see them differently and to be grateful for what they endured in me - a stranger in their midst!

IT IS NOT ALWAYS AN EASY LABOUR OF LOVE to bring up and at times endure, children or have nothing of yourself in them. Our own three children Esther and I understood and bore with greater patience and understanding just because we could see ourselves in them! But children fostered or adopted were not so easy. Especially when we had not known anything at all about their true parents. Hard for us. Hard for them too since they were not able to look to us for help in any way to understand themselves. This is, of course, a daily situation that is lived with in each of our four Children's Homes. Each home tries to be a Family, and the couple running it try to be parents........but the shortcomings on both sides are obvious, and thus there are for the parents and the children times of distress and miss understanding. No all our houseparents find themselves able to cope indefinitely with this experience.
JACARANDA COTTAGE has seen more houseparents come and go than any other. FOUR couples have come and gone, and now the fifth are preparing to leave. Phillip and Roseline NZOME will be gone before Christmas this year. We knew they were not finding the going easy, and eventually they have felt that they cannot continue as parents any longer. They plan to farm, and hope to return to their home, east of Nairobi, and do just that. Their two young daughters and younger son will of course go with them. They have been Mum and Dad to the Jacaranda Family for just about 4 years. In August I commented about them, and wondered how long they would stay, hoping it would be many years into the future. It is not to be, and now we are seeking the Lord to discover another couple to offer themselves. Until they come along Calvin (the assistant Houseparent in Jacaranda) will carry on there. Please pray with us for this need to be soon attended to.

BARACK OBAMA has been elected President of the United States of America - and if you lived in Eldoret and perhaps the rest of the Country - then you would think he has also been made President of Kenya as well!! The whole Country had a fiesta and ate and drank themselves silly - we were even given a Day's National Holiday to enjoy it all. AMAZING. Have you ever heard of any other leader of any Country on earth including the USA, at any time in our past going so joyously mad about one man? Not even Kennedy enjoyed such popularity. The whole world has gone after Obama in a similarl way that it went after Princes Diana.
Almost he has been received as a God - or perhaps as a Saviour - and not just by those of the coloured races of the world. BUT IT IS STILL RAINING in Kenya! The World Economy is still affecting - progressively for the worse - Kenya's daily life. NOTHING has changed yet!
But the FIRST week of the month finds us yet again provided for; step by step, day by day, and week by week, we continue to walk with the Master at our side. AND more and more children claim our hearts, and clamour for our attention.............I think that if we had the £50,ooo still needed to build the NEW Jacaranda Cottage we might NOT knock the old one down but just FILL it again with MORE children. Sometimes we feel as Noah and his family must have felt safe in the Ark, whilst so many were drowning, and shut out, in the rising flood around them.

BUT we are glad to be alive and HERE. It is a special blessing. We are learning to Thank God more and more, for ALL THINGS.

John and Esther

FIFTY PLUS YEARS AGO!!

ON MAY 24th 1942 I was baptised and christened in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, in Knaresborough. It was Whitsunday. I tried to revisit it in 2003 but found it locked. A church has stood there for at least a thousand years. My adoptive mother and father, aunt and uncle were all there and made the usual promises to bring me up in the knowledge and way of the Word of God. None of them were churchgoers, or having any personal conviction concerning Christ.
On the 5th December 1954 I was Confirmed by the then Suffragan Bishop of Sherbourne in the Parish Church of St. Michael and All Angels, in Melksham, Wiltshire. My family were not present. My adoptive mother had left her husband in 1950 and was now living with another man. This had caused us to temporarily change our family name from Green to that of 'Richards', and so I was confirmed as a Christian under an illegal name, and when I was still ignorant of Salvation.
My mother had insisted I was confirmed as she said 'It's the thing to do!' But I seemed to have understood nothing about it at the time. Not until I was 17 and on the verge of committing suicide did I come to know that Christ had died for me to rescue me from sin and sadness. I was then working in Melksham, a rather gangly, bespectacled youth, rather introspective, and serious. I had gone immediately to the Vicarage of St. Michael's Church to share what had happened to me, and I found him in the midst of his lunch, but very able to welcome me into God's family and to give me good and clear council. Council that I needed, and which set me SAFELY on my way to discovering God's purpose for my life.
In 1955 I also finished my Secondary Education - not too well. I managed a further year of education in the Melksham College of Further Education, and then went to work sweeping floors and humping boxes in a Wholesale Grocery Firm, generally learning the trade from the warehouse floor to the Office when I became an accounts clerk. I was not very good at making friends, but during that period of my life 1955-58 I did make one friend. He was quite mad on films and we often visited the cinema to watch one that he was especially interested to see. Eventually we even began a Film Society in Melksham, and I remember one of the very first films we hired and screened was one of the funniest I had ever seen. It was french and entitled 'Les Vacancies le Monsieur Hulet.' with Jacques Tati. We also went to the extent of making a replica of the Tichfield Thunderbolt and parading through the streets of Melksham during an Annual Town Parade. The name of my friend was David Stratton, and he was the son of the Managing Director of the firm in which I worked - Stratton Sons & Mead Ltd. He was also with me at Melksham College.
Idly looking up names on the Internet recently I found myself typing in his name - DAVID STRATTON, and immediately discovered him to now be a renowned film critic living in Australia! I almost fell off my chair with surprise. He had left England in 1963 for Australia. I had left Melksham by then, and we had never met after I had left in 1958. I had later changed back to my family name of Green. But I never had forgotten David, and the good times we had enjoyed briefly in our teenage. Both of us have had very different lives - his perhaps more glamorous than mine - but no less interesting and adventurous. There is nine months between us in age. An Eternity between us and faith. Might God have something in me catching sight of David once again. Who knows. But it IS one more strange connection between Australia and Testimony Faith Homes. Life is full of surprises.
TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES, and all that find shelter and life with us are still walking through the wilderness. It has begun to stretch before us seemingly without end. Last week I shared with you how Father spread our table in the wilderness, and so proved that there is indeed NOTHING too hard for Him to do or achieve. Since then of course the days have continued, and we have continued also walking on. Today is the 1st day of a NEW month, and we can rejoice to say that in coming to this day, we are able to look back on a month fully provided for, and a month in which we have seen all our workers also provided for. Some good news also for us in Kenya. We are told that petrol is to come down by almost 10/- per litre, and today the Daily Nation has announced that the cost of Electric Power is also to come down by 35 percent which will be a great help - (a saving of about £290 per month for us).
TODAY the Primary School is holding its Entrance Examination for Class 1. The compound full of Pre.School children and their parents hoping to find places for the coming year. The School year is soon to end. Already the Secondary School is in the midst of the Final Government Examination (The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education), and soon the Primary Certificate will commence. Then the long school holiday. The weather remains uncertain. RAIN is still with us, and cloudy skies. POLITICALLY too things remain in many ways uncertain, with continued tensions and confrontations amongst our politicians. Outwardly stable, the inner state remains very volatile. Much prayer continues to be needed if we are to see peace continue without constraint or threat. BUT we are not fighting uncertainly ourselves, and we feel as before without anxiety. Underfoot the going is a bit gritty, and the diet a little limited, but otherwise we are not prevented from going forth unhindered toward the Promised Land.

Our Love to you all

John and Esther