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