HERE WE ARE AGAIN - Happy as can be!!

YES INDEED! 2011 has finally dawned, and we truly send to you all our very sincere and Loving Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ, for a VERY Blessed New Year. Most of the children in the four Homes were up until Midnight playing board games. THEN, as the hour struck they all poured out of the houses shouting and jumping, laughing and singing, and hugging each other and their parents as they Greeted the New Year. A few fireworks going off from the neighbours, and hooters and sirens sounding in the Town. Traditionally, after this exuberance, everyone takes down the Christmas Decorations. Nothing of the Old Year must be left. As everything is slowly and carefully packed away, some left over nuts, crisps and perhaps even a little cake is shared out with juice to drink. About 1. a.m. all is done and all repair to their beds. Esther and I did the same last night, and then sat down to chat a little about the year gone by and the prospects that the New Year offered.

In ENGLAND the Country of my birth, a hundred years ago, a new King was waiting to be crowned. This was George V, son of Edward Vll, son of Queen Victoria. Edward died in 1910, and George V was proclaimed King Emperor and crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1911, George was to reign until 1936 when he was 71. He was King during the 1st World War. He died just four years before I was born. His image was still circulating on stamps and coinage. As a man he was often out of step with society around him, a quiet man, disliking change and the growing dissolution of the old institutions of the Victorian Age. Yet he himself was not always polite or well mannered, and smoked heavily, the latter being the general cause of long illness ending in his death. He was also our present Queen's grandfather, not too distant from us; not too much beyond us historically. I have always liked to feel in touch with the past, both the immediate past, and also the distant past. To be without any knowledge of it at all leaves us without a foundation or tradition to base the present upon . It is said in the Bible that there came a 'generation in Egypt that did not know Joseph'.

They did not remember him, and were not influenced or socially affected by his life and example any longer due to their lack of interest. This generation is a similar generation, for it seems totally disinterested and without concern for all that has gone before. And thus perhaps our world society is in danger of slipping backward into the forest and the jungle. We lose touch with our past at our peril.

YESTERDAY Esther and I attended a House Blessing! A member of our staff from the 80's (Nicholas Mwangi ) and his wife invited us to their home to Bless it. They live about three kilometres from us, on the outskirts of town, on the way to Kapsabet. During the political trouble of 2007 they were invaded in their homestead by those of another tribe to their own, but also neighbours of many years. Their house was set on fire, and they, hiding in the bushes, watched it burn to the ground, their belongings and livestock burnt as well. They left Eldoret for a while, but as Christians did not feel it was right to run away. They returned. Nicholas to his small Electrical Business, and his wife to Nursing in one of the biggest Hospitals in town. They are Kikuyu. After three years they managed to scrape together with God's help enough money to rebuild their house. And yesterday they felt was the Day to Dedicate it. We were not the only ones to attend, but interestingly at least four others were from the Testimony Family. We prayed, shared light refreshments, and then shared the Word of God together before formally Dedicating the House and Family to God's Service in the Community where they live. It was a very moving occasion. They believe strongly that by returning and re-building God will demonstrate his love to those that previously sought their destruction. I shared very briefly from Isaiah 61v1-4 and Ezekiel 36,36 FIRST to the fact that when any of us give our life to God HE will empower us to be His Witness in demonstrating His ability to rescue us from all our troubles. He does this in order that we might then be called (known) as Trees of Righteousness, planted, empowered, by the Lord that He might be glorified. And the Scripture says

''And they shall rebuild the old ruins!

They shall raise up the former desolations

Everlasting JOY shall be their's

THEN

shall the tribes which are left all around them

know that I the LORD

have rebuilt the ruined places

and planted what was desolate.

I the Lord have spoken it.

The house is strongly build, not pretentious, but a simple statement of confidence and faith.

It was good to be there with them, and together manifest that faith to each other, and to the neighbourhood who had watched the first house burn. Surely the glory of this ''latter'' house will be greater than the FIRST? After all

Men build houses.

God builds Men

GOD has the Greatest Honour in all of this.

UNLIKE my Christmas Blogs this will be SHORT. But each Saturday I will, God Willing, continue to add a little in thought and experience relative to the daily life and living within Testimony Faith Homes. God Bless you all, and carry you into this New Year with confidence and Assurance that He IS with you.

John and Esther