WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Well listening and viewing SKY-tv over the last week or so it would seem that these are a cross-section of British Youth! Instead of being limited to colour and ignorance it seems that all colours were represented, as well as all levels of education also.

WHY were they rioting? Why the looting, burning, and even killing? Initially I found it difficult to grasp how so many became so quickly involved without visible leadership or apparent reason. Was it just a 'tsunami' of discontent and material greed? According to those interviewing some of them, they were feeling angry because they were jobless, poor, denied the riches and affluence of others around them, discriminated against racially. They were just hitting out - hitting back at life and society around them. A kind of revenge spirit.

They all seemed lacking in any sense of regret, repentance or sorrow at the socially unacceptable behaviour they had been engaged in. Indeed many clearly did not see any real wrong in what they had done. A lack of conscience? A lack of 'awareness' of Right and Wrong. A lack of humanity!

Yesterday morning at our staff prayer meeting, at the beginning of the day, we found Romans 1v21-32 saying basically that all social breakdown in society is due to people leaving God out of their lives.

God is 'known' but HIS viewpoint made to yield to Man's viewpoint based on what he wants and desires for himself.

Verse 28 is especially focused -

Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,

God gave the over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.

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And thereafter gives the list of social evils that come upon society generally from an un-disciplined and ungodly lifestyle.

Interestingly I seemed not to hear much from the Church during this awful time in London. Politicians, sociologists, educationalists all had their opinions - but less than a handful of Christians had a word to say. Yet more and more the American and British societies have turned away from the Bible as the moral foundation and fibre of daily life. God has been pushed aside and, at times, trodden underfoot, and even totally discarded in matters relative to discipline, ethics, and morality - even justice!! More and more ignorance of the Christian Heritage and Teaching that stabilised our Countries now grip the average mind. The Mighty Hand that stayed us from the greater evils of our world is now thrust from us in impatient determination

to be FREE of every restriction in order for us to have and do what WE want, regardless of any

other consideration. or will it, in sweeping all before it, also obliterate everything for ever?

CAN such a 'tsunami' be turned away? We have seen such tides turned in the past, God sending Revival and Witness powerfully to the fore that the mind and hearts of a generation. Wesley and Whitefield saw it, as did Moody and Sankey. Can we expect such to rise up yet once more?

Certainly it cannot be wrong to pray and hope so. Yet as we observe the Age in which we now live, and hear once more the words Paul wrote in 2.Timothy 3 we may have little real hope.

If these are the Last Days of which Paul speaks then we may only expect what I have many times before also certified - a worsening, world wide, of our respective societies into godless chaos and inhuman behaviour. BUT individually none of us should give up and let the tide role over us. No, rather we now need to STAND tall and be SEEN and HEARD more than at any time bfore. Yes, we need to stand and SHINE out as lighthouses set as we are in great darkness amidst turbulent seas strewn with unseen rocks set to our wrecking.

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TOMORROW is the fortieth Wedding Anniversary of Me and Esther. All those years just gone in a flash. She is not here with me this week though. She is visiting an old girl frend who is also running a School in Nairobi. She will not be back till Monday. Will have been away five days, and I have really felt her absense. On Tuesday it is also her Birthday, so we may combine both occassions and have a small party to celebrate. Should be giving each other Rubies........but it is unlikely that we will! We have had a good marriage, full of adventure, and full of Joy. Not to say we also shed tears at times, and had dark days of doubt and even despair both of ourselves and others - BUT the One who brought us and kept us together brought us through all things until now. Thanks be to God. Where do we go from here...?

Well Moses had a long way to go still by the time he was 70 - so I guess one never knows -

it is as God Wills. The weather continues VERY wet and cold - not very celebratory at all! It would have been nice to have all the family in on the Occassion, but as usual this cannot be. Daryl and Carol and kids will be here with us, as also Manu. Tweety-pie will be working still in Nairobi; Steve, Anji and family will be in the Cape Verde Islands on holiday; Liz and Prem are still in Madras, India visiting Prem's parents, and Mike and Janet still in London, though a little distant from the riot areas.

The photo was taken in the UK earlier this year when we were staying with Steve and Anji. - mainly because of the Cherry Tree I think.

No more Agricultural photos this week. Work has continued apace but I think NEXT week will find new photos of the CHICKENS and also the progressive grown of the vegetables and so on. Our cows are doing well and have become friends as expectant mothers should. Things are going well.

SO, until next time, I shall once again pause, and turn to other matters. Thank you for your prayers and good wishes. All much appreciated. We have YOU all in our prayers also, and most encouraging of all HE has us held tightly in His hands. God Bless.....

John and Esther