UNRAVELLING A MYSTERY

THIS IS MY SISTER, my long lost sister! I still find it hard to actually take in!

It is not quite as clear as it might be but those who have seen it here all think she looks like me, poor dear! This is Joyce Patricia (PAT) and it seems she has lived almost all her life in Scotland - a land that strangely always drew ME, and occupied my thoughts. She sadly lost her husband last year, but is blessed with a loving son and daughter in law not too far from her, near Aberdeen, and a loving daughter in Christchurch, New Zealand. Letters are flying too and fro between us all, and it may be I shall hear her voice before this day is over. Well of course we must meet. Esther and I would already be on the way but things here in Testimony are not too well just now, and we feel the Lord would not have us leave Daryl with unsupported help and encouragement. BUt......you never know ........!!!!

PAT never knew of my existence until just recently. We have a good 70 years to catch up on.

SO MANY questions to ask and experiences to share - and even after that there may still be many gaps in what either of us actually KNOW about our parents. I will keep you posted and hopefully we may have more news and pictures soon. I am in quite a turmoil of mind and heart myself. So many years of my life feeling without anyone to tie my life into or with. I often felt worse than a refugee, stateless, homeless, family less. My adopted Mum was a good mother, don't mistake what I am trying to say. But even before I KNEW I was adopted I often felt a sense of not belonging, and not understood. Once I came to know at 18 that I had been adopted it helped a bit, but on the other hand did not reduce that sense of being a complete stranger to myself. And NOW....! Wow I would get and up and try the Highland Fling - if I wasn't overweight and afraid of hurting myself.

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THIS WEEK IT HAS BEEN DRY!!! Not a SIGN of rain. The Sky a CLOUDLESS blue; a gentle breeze stirring the trees around us, and a comfortable 75f. to laze around in. But I have been VERY busy - in the Office with administration as well - or else I would have been taking time off to enjoy the great outside and to read a book or two. Read a beautiful promise in the Word of God this week during on of our morning fellowships.

Psalm 91v14-16

BECAUSE he (the believer) has set his love upon Me (God)

therefore I will deliver him;

I will set him on high, because he has known My name.

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long live I will satisfy him

and shall show him, My Salvation.

Truly the Words of God - God's Words to us - are forever a marvellous comfort and strength to us. The Homes have been battling with an all embracing 'storm' for many months now, stretching back into 2010. Materially and humanly tested to the point we have felt likely to be overwhelmed and overturned - much like the disciples on the lake in their own storm. JESUS was with them, and of course He is with us. But I guess to the disciples that time it just did not 'feel' as if He was there! Well it has been like that for us many a time recently. We also have been little better than those blessed men in the boat with Jesus - ready to cry out 'LORD,

don't you care that we perish?' But perhaps we haven't quite got to that point yet. WE are still wrestling and grappling with the 'sail and the rigging'. And thus perhaps we also have been lacking in faith!! As I read this verse in Palms 91 I felt ashamed that we had let ourselves be terrified by the enemy. SURELY, the Lord IS with us, and He will not let go of us.

AT THE SAME time we discovered one of our senior trusted staff had himself come short of faith, and in a moment of financial need had taken advantage of trust put in him and diverted cash to be paid into the Bank into his own personal account. Not a great amount of money, but still a great shock to us. He has repaid it! Two of our Houseparent couples have also been attacked by the enemy. One couple almost coming to blows with each other, and the other rejecting medical advice and treatment put themselves in danger of being unable to properly care for the children in their house. ALL these things came to a head THIS week, and truly we felt the 'seas' in danger of washing us all away.

Psalm 124

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, let Israel now say

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side...

.....THEN the waters would have overwhelmed.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD

Our help is in the name of the Lord

who made heaven and earth.

Once when I was visiting UK some decades ago now, a pastor we were hoping to visit, said to me 'Brother, I trust you will share a victorious testimony with us. We have enough problems of our own and would not like to be burdened with yours as well.!' Surely he had forgotten that we need to 'weep with those that weep' as well as to rejoice at their good news. WE needed to share the burdens of that church, just as much as they needed to share ours. But for a long time after to said these words to us we felt shy to share - or even to admit - that WE had troubles and disappointments.

We are still HERE, and we are still STANDING, and we SHALL overcome! We shall NOT be moved. But, YES, you do need to pray with and for us all, and we continue always to do this for YOU as well. And the MORE SO, as the Great and 'Terrible' Day of the Lord comes nearer.

This is the time for all those who have faith to stick and stand together, and to gain courage and strength from one another.

LAST WEEK I encouraged everyone to keep awake and watching. Keeping my own watch on unfolding events in the Arab World and even further afield, I feel even more that we are all being swept along irresistibly to a final conclusion. I hope we will be prepared for it. We may be taken away out of it! But if we find ourselves abiding IN IT let us trust we shall be KEPT safe just as the Jews were kept safe from the worst in Pharaohs day! If the latter should be our future we shall all need fortitude, courage, and FAITH. Thus we also thank God for times of testing, for we know it is His method of 'preparing' His People. God IS good.

YESTERDAY the School was visited by a group of 32 boys and girls (teenagers) from a Christian School in DENMARK. They came to Witness to the Love and Faithfulness of Jesus to the younger children in our school - 6 to 14s. They had a marvellous time all together. I will only put one photo here, but if you are able to get to me on Face Book you will find a lot more.

We love you all, and thank you for walking with us in this ministry and Witness. We hope that as we also remember you with Thanksgiving to our Lord, that you also will be Blessed and Kept by HIS Power.

John and Esther

METEOROLOGISTS ?

IT IS A MYSTERY to me as to why, generally speaking, Meteorologists are usually wrong!

Bad news or good news; sunshine or rain, their varied presentations invariably turn out to the contrary. They all have a kind of irresponsible bonhomie; their well rehearsed choreography and gesticulations gaily and excitedly assisting to help them lead us all up the garden path! Whatever happens they will still be there, and apparently quite unaware that their predictions became altogether unpredictable!!

JESUS said in Luke 12v 54 -

'When you see a cloud rise out of the west,

straightway you say There comes a shower!

and so it is.

and when you see the south wind blow, you say

There will be heat, and so it is!

Jesus seemed to think quite highly of the average man's ability to predict the weather just from watching the sky and the direction of the wind! SO, what's with the Meteorologist with a University Degree behind him (or her) and the added aid of every modern technical and scientific sophistication. Has our human technology and educational progress blinded us to simple and observable truth?

The Meteorologist may have been tempted to place his trust in science and technology rather than common sense, but now the entire population has also placed their faith in the Meteorologist, being too lazy themselves to KNOW for themselves what is readily available to discover. How sad! How Dangerous!!

The Bible says - 'It is not in a man (any man) even a man at his best - to know where he is going.' He cannot successfully direct his own steps (life) without help. Whose help? GOD's help. And today, in this progressively godless and spiritually derisive generation there are few indeed who will look to GOD. God is dead! God is Myth! God is a figment of Man's imagination.

Man is not looking for God - and is not expecting to SEE God either now or later! Man today is looking to himself alone.

JESUS continuing to speak in Luke 12v56 said to the supposed People of God in His day -

'You pretenders (you unbelievers)

you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth;

but how is it that you do not discern this Time?

Yes, and why can you not of your own selves

judge what is right?

OUR GENERATION is not nearly as competent to discern or judge the Time. We have forgotten so much, and sold so much of our spiritual heritage down the river.

A generation that knows not GOD. A generation that no longer believes or expects that an End of all things is coming. Even a CHURCH that has missed its way and gone astray after other gods. Yes a generation AND a church that not only cannot READ the signs of their Time, but in for the most part ignorant of those signs. OF COURSE this is not 'entirely' true; their are still a few 'light-houses'; a FEW centres where the Gospel is still preached, and where people are still Watching and Praying......... But (for all the TV publicity and Sensational stuff of the media) they are getting fewer - Darkness (spiritual Darkness) is spreading like a blanket over the whole earth. We have become blind and deaf! Oh that we might ALL hear the call to WAKE up.

JESUS SAID in Luke 21v25 - speaking about the last Days - the last Generation -

........upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity;

the sea and the waves roaring;

men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things

which are coming on the earth........

What are we living with NOW on this planet? I was born at the commencement of World War 2. We had already begun the Beginning of Sorrows that leads up to the END of all things as we know them. Wars and rumours of war have only continued and increased since then. World wide famines, plagues and pestilences, economic collapse, and natural sensational disasters all mixed in with political and civil unrest and revolution has bread UNCERTAINLY, fear and even panic. More and more of humankind are plagued with mental and psychiatric problems as there seems less and less stability and even hope of it to be found.

The Media majors in all of this, and adds futuristic predictions of fatalistic and unavoidable cocktails of disasters which make sure that whatever we may escape now, we will pay for later.

You would think this scenario would sober us all up - even the most unimaginative and spiritually ignorant amongst us. But NO. It feeds despair and unbelief.

LAST WEEK I also talked about weathermen. I shared that they were predicting NO rain NOW, and a greatly REDUCED Rain during the expected Rainy Season scheduled for March/May. I, and many others here, have been praying

for rain. January/February is especially the DRY Season, and the hottest. Before I finished writing up the Blog it began to rain - just a drizzle. Day by day

since then it has rained more, until last night it poured down from the heavens. More than six hours of heavy rain........ Fantastic! Marvellous to feel it on your face and hands. Glorious to savour its aroma all around you! Awesome to HEAR it pounding on the roof, and refreshing the earth.....WOW. How about that. Will the Meteorologist change his song today? Doubtful. Will it continue to rain? Don't know! But I know God is there, and I know He answers prayer. How about you? Are you looking UP - not just for rain, but are you looking up? The KING is coming soon. This IS the generation, and the signs have been hung out for years, and more and more can be seen daily. Don't be caught out. Don't be left behind. Don't listen to and rely on wrong reports and opinions. Don't lean to your own understanding either. TURN to the BIBLE and READ it.

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The School here is on Half Term. The year is running away fast again.

Catherine Senge is much more rested this week, and we thank God for answered prayer for her. Junior is due about 20th March.

AND GUESS WHAT! The lady the Salvation Army suggested MIGHT be my blood sister, actually replied to Elisabeth's letter AND it looks as if she might be glad to have a baby brother of 71. Quite breath-taking. Quite Wonderful to me. Don't know why it has had to take so long to find each other - BUT that will not diminish the joy of having done so. Keep praying for us. May have to flap my wings and take a brief flight to Scotland to actually give her a hug! AND looks like I will also have to hug a niece and a nephew as well. Esther is so excited about it all you would think it was HER long lost sister that's been found - guess it IS really!

We love you all. We need your prayers at this time very much generally, and know you will say a few words to Father on our behalf and all the children. Bless you.

John and Esther

WILL THE RAINS COME THIS YEAR?

ANOTHER VIEW of Eldoret. This shows that Eldoret is not altogether a town where all have the same amenities. There ARE places on its interior perimeter that can only be described as slums. Areas without sanitation, water or even electricity. Hundreds of thousands live in such areas, and many of the children that find their way to Charitable Homes like ours originate from such city slums. The Town Centre looks well enough, but the people do not actually live in the Town Centre. Many see photos like this one and judge the African to be not only poor but illiterate and sociably ignorant. But this is not altogether true since many DO make it to school at least. And just because they are forced to live in such unpalatable circumstances does not reduce their humanity, or remove their ability to be human. The real problem is the continental problem of employment for the average person; a person NOT highly educated in a general sense. More than 60% are probably unemployed in this Town. Their ability to actually live and make ends meet are often almost nil. The actual hardship of life, poverty and despair cannot be imagined unless it has been actually experienced. Sickness, disease, and crime all on the increase.
This year, in the slums, water will be a problem. It is already on the verge of being rationed in those areas where it is on tap. But in the slums there are few taps and more often just a roughly dug well, a stream or river - all now virtually dried up.
Wells, Pit latrines usually lie not too distant from each other, and at times pose a threat to each other due to seepage one to the other in alternate seasons. THIS year the Weather Men are forecasting a minimal Rainy Season - expected sometime in March - May. Here, for the last three years, rain has held off until May. If it does that THIS year we may face MORE than a severe water shortage. AND if the Rains do come then the wells and rivers will fill up and overflow into the pit latrines and bring up the sewerage ..... a no win situation. Thirst, Disease or Both!
Of course we have been told for years that annually the Sahara moves South and it now begins to be seen that it is reaching seriously into Kenya, the desert and semi arid regions extending further and further until now, perhaps, even Eldoret will be fingered by them. Not a happy or comfortable prospect, and not a lot of thought going into how things may soon be. It was 80f in our bedroom last night, and even now it is almost that temperature outside. The sky IS a beautiful blue, but the grass is not green - it soon will not even be brown - just dust. A cow, poor beast, has just passed our gate so thin that you can count every rib and bone - nothing to eat. YES, come to beautiful Kenya, and experience NEED. There IS great need here, and it is not all material need. There is as huge ecological need which increases yearly whilst nothing appears to be being done to divert it - and the threat to millions of people multiplies under the azure sky. Last week in the Nation it was reported that hundreds of species of birds were dying off in Nakuru National Park due to the continuing drought and 'heat wave'. Well, animals and even humans are dying off in other places in Kenya from the same cause. Kenya cries for help, BUT what is being done by Kenya to help itself, and her own people?
LAST WEEK electric power began to be rationed due to the weather - not enough water to turn the turbines!~ Eldoret has begun by turning power off from 7 to 9 p.m. daily. This will no doubt increase as the days go by. In previous years it has been turned of days at a time from 8a.m. to 7p.m. due to the delay of the Rainy Season. And of course many other things will continue to fall apart. Life is set to be more and more difficult. Did I tell you that Power & Lighting are also increasing their charges? ~ for using LESS power!

And the whole world worries about such things. The whole world worries about what they will eat and drink, what they will wear, and how they will cope with the rising cost of living and cost of facilities they cannot do without. A world that We are responsible for, and a world WE have spoiled, corroded and brought to the brink of ruin by our own fallen nature.

But the REAL goal is to see JESUS reclaiming lost souls; lost souls that are so busy trying to make and get the most out of what Man has deceived himself into thinking is LIFE! Oh my! Truly Satan has made blind and deaf, the people of this generation. BUT Jesus Christ, by His Spirit IS ABLE still to open the eyes of the blind, and to unstop deaf ears. AND THIS MORNING, as I have been typing, one of our High School boys from Testimony School came into my office. He is starting Form 1. All his life (he is from the Homes) he has been of a most difficult character and in and out of trouble almost daily. He has grown tall and looks smart in his new school uniform. He spent the early years of his life (he is now 14) in one of Eldoret's slums. "I have come to ask you to pray with me and for me', he began. ' I do not want to go on with my life the way it is, and I want to be saved; I want Jesus to come into my life and to straighten it out, and walk with me.. Will you pray for me?'
Of course I did. We prayed and read a little Scripture and he has gone gladly and joyfully away back to his Class. GREAT! A little LIGHT from Heaven. But last night one came in the night to rob and steal. He has not seen the Light yet, preferring darkness. There is much to do in our world. And it is not an earthly or worldly labour; it demands all our time, all our patience, all our faith in the unseen, and all our life. It has it's moments of Glory ~ and it has many more of pain and anguish. Thank you Lord for trusting US to do it in your Name.

Some of you may remember that I am myself an orphan. My birth mother put me up for adoption in 1940 when just a few months old. I have never even seen a photo of her, and know nothing of my father. Elizabeth our daughter has always been anxious to find out more about my family, and recently asked the Salvation Army to help her track it down! Well it seems they not only agreed but now think they have discovered my 'sister'. We had already found out that a baby girl had been born to my birth mum a year before me but we had drawn a blank thereafter. SO, now the SA will contact her to see if she wants to get in contact - it is likely she has no idea I exist. Quite exciting though. Pray along with me about it.

PLEASE also pray for Catherine Senge - Mum in Tyndale Cottage - as you know she is expecting her 2nd child in March, and has been quite unwell up to now. Doctors are at a loss to know what her problem really is.

Our continuing Love to you all as ever, in His Precious Name
.
John and Esther

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

SIR THOMAS MOORE (1478-1535), Lord Chancellor to King Henry the Vlll of England , later beheaded by that same King for his determination not to purger his conscience is a Man to be Remembered. Indeed he IS a man for all seasons (the Film of that Title made in 1966 still worth seeing) for his words still endure into our present age. An incorruptible man, who counted his own integrity more valuable than anything this world could give him. Reading recently some of the many comments he made in his day, and considering the state of 'education' in our present world my eye was caught by the following quote -

'One of the greatest problems of our times

is that many are schooled, but few are educated!'

INDEED, this truly is a comment that sums up our own performance. Even here in Kenya where the emphasis has been for ALL children to go to school and LEARN and which has for decades been pursued, we find ourselves with less and less real education. Our children more and more in school being schooled in the three 'R's plus a whole universe of other matters, yet not in fact 'knowing' or being able to properly converse with understanding - in many matters; still totally ignorant and without LEARNING. They have no depth, having only been lightly varnished with a thin veneer by men and women themselves themselves unlearned in the issues of world history, the arts, and philosophy. More and more TIME is given to this pursuit; more and more 'facts and figures' squeezed into lives allowed less and less leisure to read, play, or otherwise come to know the world around them. And at the end knowledge without the foundation, without the love and spirit of true learning. NO - I am not trying to downsize the intelligence or intellectual ability of our children either here in Kenya or anywhere - but it is a fact that we are not producing intellectuals of great depth or worth. In another quote we find Moore saying -

'Education is not the piling on of learning,

information, data, facts, skills or abilities -

that's training or instruction -

But is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed.'

To achieve this is not so easy for it needs to be fostered by those who themselves have been awoken within themselves, and discovered ways and means to be led on into deeper understanding and appreciation of the world around them in relation to it's history, development, and spiritual awareness. In another place Moor refers to the fact that in his day a knowledge of Latin and Greek had given place to REMEDIAL English. In other words where there had once been a deeper knowledge and awareness there was now LESS - even spoken and written English had depreciated........ A diluted and even fraudulent education.

Both in England and America parents are moving away - where they can afford to - from government to privately run schools ! WHY? Are they seeking for what they perceive is being left out, lost, ignored in the 'government sectors'.

WE, in Testimony Faith Homes, also run a School. We start in Nursery and currently conclude at Secondary Form 4 level. BUT although we have sought to make changes and even innovate we are still hampered by the need to cling to the Government Syllabus for Education currently in use - the 8-4-4 System. That is 8 years in Primary, Four in Secondary or High School, and 4 in University. The ultimate goal of government seems to be to see everyone go to University. Unfortunately in the end perhaps everyone will go, but not with the hope of them all leaving with a meaningful Degree!! As paper certificates and diplomas proliferate, the quality of education reduces. It is a challenge. And perhaps the end is not one we can ultimately win. BUT we must try and do our best to ensure that at least some of our children will indeed have ability and character drawn out of them in a way that will set fire to knowledge given to them.

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LAST WEEK, my mind was a blank and I could find nothing of any worth to put up on line. We had visitors from UK staying with us, work was routinely going on hum-drumly as it so usually does, and there were no available funds. The month of January had been difficult for us. Funds had been held up, and we were somehow stranded and under siege. A long four weeks when daily life went on, the children went to school, we all partook of common fare and looked to God to deliver us. Like a sailing ship of old, sailing 'in irons' before the wind, unable to steer or guide our course, we rode inexorably the seas ...... Then on almost the LAST day we were set free.

Times like these I often look back and read the Diaries of our life here, and find encouragement. Often we feel things have never been so bad - yet in truth the have, and we survived and will survive. I had taken up a Diary written from 2001 - 2005. On January '01 i had written

'During the month of January there was a serious reduction in our necessary provision.

The situation has continued to steadily worsen, which is the more surprising to us since during the same period we have become more and more involved and enlarged in many areas. BUT our hope and expectation remain firmly centred upon the Lord our god, and we know that however long the trial may continue HE will sustain and bring us all through to the end with JOY.'

THEN, in February I wrote -

'The Siege is broken. A Gift has come providing enough for the entire week ahead. Thank you Lord. It has been hard to endure these past days without sharing. Well of course we have shared with you Lord! But the desire to share with others has been a temptation. YET now, in the past 48 hours, all the outstanding debts of the month gone by have been wiped away once more. Not in one great donation but in the sudden profusion of many all sent and received at once............'

TEN years ago, and we WE still experiencing what we just recently thought was the worst time in our 'history'. But NO, again and again we have gone through this kind of situation, and HE who walk with us, proved his ongoing ability to save us. Hallelujah. Nothing changes! He IS the same, yesterday, today and forever.

THE TAX men are STILL with us sorting through three years of income and expenditure for the whole work. They have so far said nothing, and asked nothing. So we continue on in prayer.

IT RAINED all night last Tuesday - a welcome dampening of the dust. It has not continued!!

EVERYONE in good health, and continuing busy day by day. Thank YOU for also praying for and with us day by day. It is our Strength. We love you all

John and Esther.