BEST WISHES FOR A BLESSED 2009

TRULY we wish you all an especially memorable NEW YEAR. Here in Kenya at this time last year we were in the midst of the beginning of insurrection, riot and terror. Fire and smoke hung over our town as people fled for their lives from their burning homes, and from the keen edge of pangas and machetes wielded in the hands of those bent on killing, rape and pillage. It was a horrible and most frightening time for us all. HOW GLAD to come to the end of the same year in Peace and safety. The harassing scenes included here still remembered but now unseen in our streets and suburbs all now back to normal life. Hardly any physical sign of what happened, and everyone engaged once more in an almost nonchalant life in the sun! BUT this is not to say that problems still remain in our society, and that there are still those who have not recovered all that they lost at that time. There are STILL displaced people and families camping out in the Town Show Ground, now sheltered only by the shredded tatters of the UN and RED CROSS tents handed out to them a year ago. 1500 or so children of school age amongst them. Not a pretty or happy sight. Those who lost their homes to fire still without restoration or even reparation. Many more that lost their jobs as well remain unemployed. So the 'shadow' of the early part of 2008 has still not entirely been dispelled, and the sorrow, hurt and fear engendered still lingers in many hearts and homes.
CHRISTMAS found the Town a little subdued of Christmas Spirit. No lights, decorations, or in fact ANYTHING outwardly declaring the Season of Goodwill. Shops and streets crowded with shoppers though, and traffic so vast a problem that it was dangerous to even cross a road on foot. WE were holding our breath and drawing in our belts since we were still suffering constraint from a shortfall in funds carried over from September/October, and so we were intent on at least making sure we ate without trying to spend more. The sun shone, the sky was blue, but the situation remained arid. However on Christmas Eve we were to Praise the Lord as two Gifts arrived to deliver us from want. These provided all that we in the Homes needed as well as in sharing something with the less fortunate living around us. We always try to give even as we ourselves are given, not wanting to have or teach a selfish spirit.
On Christmas Eve quite a large party went out amongst our neighbours singing Carols. They started at about 2p.m. and arrived back about 7.30p.m. when they also joined the rest of us in our School Hall for Family Prayer and Carols together - all the staff and children, untill about 9p.m.
Christmas Morning we were again all together for a Service commencing at 9a.m. and ending about 12 noon. I shared a Message on 'The Fullness of Time'. Then all to our various homes for lunch. In Testimony we have our Christmas Dinner in the evening, and this was achieved in each Home separately. The houses all had their own tree and decorations - we all share the Christmas Cards sent to us, and we make sure that there are plenty of balloons to hand out.
Board Games, footballs and other items that can be shared and enjoyed together also made available - and we DO thank those who especially sent for this kind of provision. It made the Day so much more enjoyable as a Family Day.
The weather remained HOT and enjoyable as Boxing Day dawned, and ALL the Homes again joined together for the purpose of a Pic-nic held at a local school that permits us to use their grounds and Swimming Pool for the whole day. We have the sole use of it for that day, and the proprietor is very glad and happy to reserve it just for us. The children, and staff, all finally arrived back home in the evening around 7p.m. quite worn out with exercise - they also were able to play football in an adjoining field.
I was unable to send the BLOG on Saturday this time as our Server had gone down with some technical problem and I could not get to the Site, and if I had I would still not have been able to get out as everything was DOWN. Hope you will forgive me. We have been busy still in the days since Christmas, and today the National Primary School Examination Results are being announced as we run up to the opening of School Term on the 12th January. We shall be having an evening of Prayer and Thanksgiving tomorrow - New Year's Eve - but otherwise no special program. School Uniform has yet to be bought, and it will be a case of all hands on deck getting the children sorted out and ready for School.

I feel this New Year will be one of great challenge and change. We all need each other's prayer from the word go, and I am confident that AS WE GO forward in His Name, He will go with us, and indeed also in front of us, to secure us and prove His Presence with us. Our sincere love to you all in His Name, with a deep appreciation of your being with us in our own Walk here in Eldoret, Kenya.

John and Esther

ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS

ESTHER AND I, standing outside our Academic Centre dining room LAST Saturday with all our houseparents and helpers both in the School and the Homes. Seventy one of them altogether plus a few visitors. We had just enjoyed our Christmas Luncheon together, and had a wonderful time of good fellowship, prayer and encouragement. A real 'Family'. As I mentioned a few weeks back it marked not merely an END of an important chapter in the story of Testimony Faith Homes, but also proclaimed the beginning of a NEW period in that story. A platform and foundation has been laid down, but there is still room for so much more to built upon it, should the Lord tarry.

THIS SATURDAY, our youngest son James MANUbhai Green Graduated with a Bsc. in Science & Technology. He obtained a 2nd Class Honours Upper Division. He enjoyed himself with 4000 other graduands plus all their friends and relatives. The day was hot, dusty and very CROWDED. Esther and Daryl plus Steven Stuma from Drakely Cottage, attended. Manu roasted in his gown, but otherwise seemed supremely happy to be ENDING this period of his life. After Christmas a NEW beginning in Nairobi will commence as he seeks employment in the wide world. Not going to be easy either with climbing unemployment.
Manu is 24, and looking forward to the next big step in his life. He is third from the left in this photo - minus his mortarboard! - not sure who the young lady is ...?
Next year we should see three of the Homes' boys also graduating from University as well. AND of course one or two more joining having completed their High School this year. Education just goes on and on year by year, and the cost of it escalates with the numbers involved. We also have one or two that do not go on to College, but instead need to seek some kind of trade training. This may sound a little sad, but on the whole those that learn a trade end up being as materially successful as anyone else - quite often!

The WEATHER is fine; clear sky, brilliant sunshine, and plenty of warmth. Not like last year, and so we hope that we shall be able to have many of our activities outside instead of couped up in the houses. Certainly all are expecting to SWIM on Boxing Day as we all join together in a neighbouring school which is letting us have the exclusive use of their pool for the best part of the day. THEN a week of hard work getting everyone ready for school once again.

The BLOG is almost a year old, with more than 2oo pages of events and comment on the life of Testimony Faith Homes, and the ongoing tale of a missionary in Kenya. Enough material for another book! We shall see. Still no definite news of the REPRINT of the old book so far, but will not forget to alert you all when something needs to be said. I would quite like to write at least one more book, but it is time to do it! I just seem to be more and more caught up in things. But I am not overburdened. I have also been thinking of a trip away from TFH to visit friends and churches. It is some time since I have done this with any intensity. In 2003 and 06 I was in the UK briefly and visited only a very few of our friends. I have not visited ALL our contacts since 1994. AND, of course I was invited to visit Australia recently! George Muller managed to spend his later years travelling the world with the message of God's Faithfulness and Providence. Well if it is not me, I may think of sending someone else, as it is really high time that we made face to face contact with many, and perhaps extended the knowledge of what the Lord has done here, and continues to do, to His Praise and Glory.

By NEXT Saturday Christmas Day will have passed. I will hope to fill you all in on how we spent our days here together, and perhaps also include a few telling photos. Until then we send you all our Love and Best Wishes in the Joy of God's Wonderful Gift - even JESUS our Life and Salvation. May He be the more revealed and experienced in all our homes and hearts this year, as we look forward to His Second Coming.

John and Esther

GRADUATION DAY

GRADUATION DAY ! The colour of the caps and gowns will NOT be orange but BLACK of course! It will be held NEXT Friday, 19th December, at MOI UNIVERSITY, which is our nearest University some 40 kilometers away from Eldoret. Thousands of parents, friends and other well wishers will gather at the Main Campus to witness the 2008 Graduation. It will be quite a CRUSH, and without much shade, if it will be a sunny day, making it a VERY HOT experience for those having to for the most part STAND and watch. Esther and Daryl will be there, and probably most of the rest of our two families here in Eldoret - apart from me. I just would not manage either the heat or the crush these days. So I will be home whilst the rest suffer. But WHO is Graduating? Why, it is our youngest son, James Manubhai Green of course! At 24 he is very glad and happy to have completed the Course, (a Batchelors in Information Sciences) and so are we! Indeed we feel very releived that he can now apply his endless energy and high spirits to earning a living, and finally getting to serious grips with actually making his own way in the world. Since he came to be ours - just a few hours after his birth - we have watched him grow up and we can say that in those early and formative years until he joined Secondary School Manu, as he has come to be affectionately known, gave us both so much pleasure and happiness. Once in Secondary School things changed and he seemed to determine to make himself, instead of being made in the hand of God. He became very independant, unruly and self opinionated. YET, at the same time, a generous, compassionate nature still shone through, and we have had to trust the Lord to harness the good that is in him and believe that finally the good SEED that was sown into his life will eventually spring to life - even if it may need FIRE to make it happen. We remain very fond of him, and he himself sees himself very much 'family' with all his brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins in the Green Family. Friday the 19th will be a special day in his life. We hope to be together (all the Eldoret part of his famly) for a family celebratory supper. He will spend Christmas with us, and then off to Nairobi to seek employment. We would ask you to remember to pray for him. He is a lover of the world around him.

AS A BOY I used to be fascinated by illustrations of old wooden ships. The fascination took me to literature as well as pictures, and as I grew up they remained something that ever stirred my imagination. Here is a picture of the 'Victory' on the high seas. Nelson's Flagship. How stately and proud she seems there in the midst of the sea. My mother always used to say, when trying to impress a friend of a generous intention, 'When my ship comes home' you will see.....! Well I don't think the ship she had in mind ever did reach her. She waited and looked in vain.......BUT in fact her ship, the one sent out to seek and search for her DID arrive, and brought to her a full and free Salvation in Christ Jesus. In 1983 when I was on a rare visit to the UK I actually was able with Esther, Michael, and Elisabeth, to visit the Victory in dry dock at Porstmouth. But she was quite dead - like Lenin in his glass sarcophagus; like a stuffed bird in a glass box without air or breath or wind to stirr her into life. It was good to walk upon her decks and to consider her strength and power, but I missed the sound of the wind in her sails, and the song of the sea around her.

TOMORROW we remember my arrival 40 years ago. I talked of it last week. In all that time I have only spent one Christmas in England. In so many ways I have felt often 'marooned' in Kenya, far from the sea, and far from all I grew up with, and more recently even my family. When we had been in our house here in Eldoret just a few months we were visited by a family of German missionaries. Their children still live nearby and are still engaged in mission, though very differently to their parents. I remember asking the wife how many years she and her husband had served the Lord in Kenya - when she told me FORTY years I felt quite astounded! How could anyone stay in one place for 40 years? NOW I guess I know the answer! What is to come next........What has God got in store for us? We shall sit down with 50 odd co workers and friends tomorrow about 12.30p.m. Kenya time. Pray for Testimony Faith Homes, The Fabric, The People, The Children. We need your prayers.

Love you all...........

John & Esther

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS ICONS of 'Father Christmas'. NOT a picture of some plump, jovial, grandfather in a Scandinavian track suit scattering presents from his Sleigh in the Sky, but of a more real man; a man of God caring for others. It is said that Nicholas Klaus was in fact a Bishop in one of the poorest areas of Europe in the middle ages. And not so much a bishop fond of regalia and pomp either, but rather one who having his own roots in poverty, constantly remembered the discomfort and need of the poor. A man who gave, and a man who saved. A man who especially at the Season remembering his Lord's Birth in the manger that night in Bethlehem, set himself to visit the poorest homes and shelters in his diocese in order to encourage, uplift and provide for those who had nothing. They say he disguised himself, and as much as possible left gifts without letting those he gave to know he had visited them. And often in his provision was something for a child so that his name became especially loved by children who were touched by his affection. Children who knew what it was to need affection; children who did not already have too much, and who often shared the tears and distress of their parents unable to provide for themselves. This aspect is emphasised yet again in the illustration opposite and taken from a German children's book printed in the early nineteenth century. The aged, kindly child loving Bishop. Yet in truth this man was self effacing, and did all his good works secretly and without any ostentation. His real mission in life was to show by his own life the compassion, love and mercy of Christ who was his Master and his Lord. Truly a man of God seeking nothing for himself, not even a name. I think he would be disappointed to see how much attention he is given in our world, and how little credit and recognition has gone to God. A God who still loves little children, and still loves the poorest sinner.
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LAST WEEK I left off writing to comb my hair and rush out to a function to settle a 'Bride Price' - amongst other things. I had envisaged myself in for a somewhat lengthy afternoon of semi boredom! All for a good cause of course - since I was there to promote - rather remotely - the cause of my son Michael in securing his chosen bride! Esther was of course with me, Daryl, Manu and Helen, also, AND a supporting cast of some 15 other friends of the family. It was a beautiful day weather wise, warm with clear skies and a light breeze. Michael was in UK wondering what would be happening! He survived the ordeal!

We arrived at the Bride's parent's house about 1p.m. The ladies in our party traditionally had to sing outside the house before we were ceremoniously let in! They also jigged around a bit as they sang - quite joyously. The doors finally opened and our entire party welcomed into the garden of the house by the bride's family and friends - more than three times as many as ourselves. Awnings had been put in place in the garden and chairs arranged, and a buffet meal also set out and arranged for all. There were speeches and prayers and presentations. Much laughter and halfway through a few of our party separated ourselves together with a few of the Bride's family to discuss the important issue of what the Bridegroom would offer for his intended bride - and whether it could be enough! Well it is not for me to share the intimate details of all that took place, but surfice to say that it only too fifteen minutes to settle everything with much happiness and satisfaction on both sides. Janet - Michael's fiancee - WAS not at this very private discussion, but she was THERE and at the gathering and was asked publicly if she really did love our son Michael enough to really want to marry him - which she affirmed with demure shyness. Lastly it should have been that the Couple should be prayed for by the parents and pastors present. However since Michael wasn't there it had to be a little different, and so Janet had to stand with our younger son Manu as Michael's 'Stand In'. THEN the hands were laid and prayers were said, and the Presence and Blessing of God was very real. It was 6.30pm. It had been a wonderful occasion, and a time when two families began to be ONE. Now the final arrangements for the Wedding can go ahead. Nothing definite at this time, but when we know officially and finally I will of cause let you all know.

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On the 12th December 1968 I flew out of Gatwick Airport on my way to Kenya. It was the first time I had ever been in an aircraft. Later I was to write "It was dark and wet the night I flew from Gatwick. It was 10p.m., and I had left my sixty year old Mother crying in the airport Lounge. I was not to see her again until March 1972, and in all the years that were ahead until her death in 1988, I would only be able to spend a total of three months with her. I had no idea what a sacrifice that would be to her until much later, when I also had become a parent. I was aware that she would miss me (as her only child) of course, but I also knew that she was not alone, and would be well cared for. For the rest I had to leave it to the Lord. Some of my friends felt that I was being selfish, and just pleasing myself by flying off on some hair-brained stunt to Africa, and said so in no uncertain words. But there was nothing I could do but trust the Lord even in this. It was hard.
The VC10 taxied down the runway and lifted off into the star studded night sky. I was leaving twenty-eight years of my life behind, but I hardly thought about it. I had never flown before, and was a little apprehensive as well as simple minded about the whole thing. Where WAS the parachute..? I had not heard a word of the Cabin Announcements being made as we took off.
Then - "This is your Captain speaking! We have just attained our cruising altitude of forty two thousand feet...."
"Excuse me!" I hailed a passing stewardess. "Can you tell me please, where is the parachute stowed?" She looked a me a little oddly, and said with a smile "There are no parachutes on this Flight sir, but should you have any problem there is a brown paper bag in the seat pouch just in front of you..~" She passed quickly on with a widening grin! I sat staring at the paper bag; it conjured up quite a picture! I turned to my Bible and opened at Isaiah 42v5-7

'Thus saith God the Lord.....
I the Lord have called you in righteousness, and I will hold your hand;
I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people...'

(Words that talked of the Messiah of course, but to me they spoke to my own life)

A little later, as supper was being served, I reached chapter 43v21 -

'This people I have formed for myself;
they shall shew forth my praise.'

I felt assured and confirmed in my faith. Surely God had called me to preach, and to be an Evangelist to the people of Kenya. I would definitely get there - with or without a parachute! I saw my name floating on Banners across the streets of Nairobi...wow! How vain glorious and ignorant I was. Truly His Ways are not ours, and His Thoughts far from our own. We know nothing as we ought. The night sped by, and I awoke to find we were nearing Entebbe, Uganda, where I and a few others were to get off. I had to change to a local Flight to get to Kenya my final destination.
As I walked down the steps of the BV10 Jet that had flown me the four thousand odd miles from England non stop to Entebee, Uganda, a soft warm rain was falling. Yet the rain that was filling my eyes was not from above, but from within, where a spiritual dam just seemed to burst. There standing on the shiny runway outside the toy-like Airport Building, were African people; all with smiling faces; Officials and Air Hostesses running forward with huge umbrellas. And suddenly I had 'come home'. These were my people, and it just didn't matter that they came from Uganda and not Kenya my ultimate destination. Africans were my people, and standing there in that warm friendly rain, I knew it as surely as if God Himself had said it to me out-loud.
It was Friday, 13th December 1968" (A Cry From the Street by John A. Green)

I arrived that day at Kisumu Airport, Kenya with only an English sixpence in my pocket and the promise of nothing from anybody for my future support. I was met by the Director of the small faith mission I had come to join knowing that nothing would come from him either! My hope was in God alone. I had no return ticket to the UK - my bridges were all well and truly burnt..... FORTY YEARS PASSED.

A SPAN OF 40 YEARS is somehow special.
It is somehow Complete in itself, like a chapter of a book or an era of history. it has a Beginning and it has an Ending. Moses had his first 40 years in Egypt. He was a Prince for most of that time. Then he left Egypt and became a humble shepherd for the next 40 years until he was eighty! FINALLY he returned to Egypt as a prophet and led the People of Israel out of slavery into freedom for the last 40 years of his life. Three distinct parts to his life. Each part different but connected.
MY LIFE has not been divided up like Moses, but I do feel that when I started Testimony Faith Homes in August 1969 it was the Beginning of what is now here. And that beginning had ITS Beginning at my arrival at Kisumu Airport on the 13th December 1969, forty years ago.
Everything that God put upon my heart to do in 1969 has now come to pass. We have four family Homes, a School, and a Christian Fellowship. The years have passed, and 40 years has gone by. What now?
We shall be remembering my arrival at Kisumu next Saturday. Perhaps it will be the prelude to something NEW just as my arrival was the prelude to TFH being born in 1969. Perhaps in August 2009 Testimony Faith Homes will see something NEW begin! A new CHAPTER in its experience. I feel it coming over me, and I am quite excited about it. NO, I do not think I am going to live another 40 years! But I just feel something IS ending, and that something NEW is about to commence....... WOW! How wonderful to still be a child in His hands; waiting to be astonished anew at what He has in store.

Have a great week. God Loves you and wants you to KNOW it!

John and Esther