PUPPIES and EGGS!!

THIS WEEK our hens are producing!! One egg a day from our 26 first layers. Great excitement as each of our Homes shares out the first round of eggs to be laid! A further 27 layers out of our 100 hundred chicks are growing apace and will soon be joining those already laying AND already a further 100 layers chicks coming up behind. There will be EGGS galore in the not too distant future. We are very happy, although we still need to add more nesting boxes and perch sites. Little by little things are progressing, and finally we know we shall have a good little poultry unit really assisting in our little economy.

On the same side of the road - the Jacaranda

Cottage side - the Allotment is also doing well. The entire plot is now under cultivation. In front of the Poultry Unit seed beds are giving way to individual growing areas, and then over towards Drakeley Cottage the maize is coming on well, as also the potatoes. All this development since July this year is changing the general look of the compounds a great deal - all for the better. A real face lift, which as well as improving us is also tidying us up, and making us more self supporting. All this activity has also attracted quite a lot of local attention and many wander in to have a look at how we are managing the land and the livestock.

ADDITIONAL BLESSING has come to us during this month with the advent of a litter of puppies. Now some weeks old, our FIVE little 'bears' are quite a handful, and Mummy is finding their inordinate appetite for food rather tedious and tiring. They will soon go over to more solid food and thus give her some relief. We shall be selling some and keeping some. All are pure German Shepherd.

THE PAST WEEK has been quiet - and wet! Yes we are told these are the 'Short Rains' though they usually occur mid-November rather than this early. Good for our gardens, but oddly they have ushered in a season of influenza probably due to the sudden drop in temperature. The Laholls, in Drakeley, the Yegos in Tyndale, and the Mulli's in Testimony are all having a dose! Also our Pastor who has handed over his Sunday morning Sermon to me, in order to give his throat a rest. Hallelujah. Good to be a 'back up' which really is what I am more and more becoming. Slowly I now begin to see the wisdom in taking a step back and away from the front row of Management. Daryl is going ahead well, and as he finds his feet as a CEO it is very interesting to see other key players in running the work learning to come to terms with a quite different personallity at the Top. It looks good! Thank you Lord.

TODAY the Primary Standard 1 Interviews have been taking place. Some 70 kids attended to do the Interview, accompanied by their parents. We have 70 places in Primary Class 1 (two Classes of 36 student places each) This has been a good turn out - and there will still be others trying to get in later. Each child is interviewed and also is required to tackle a short though comprehensive Test to assess their basic knowledge in the three Rs. At least half of these children will have been attending our own Nursery School previously, probably since they were about 3 years old. Those competing for a place in Class 1 Primary today will be between five and a half and six years old.

ELDORET remains crowded, busy and PEACEFUL. Bomb blasts in Nairobi and the shadow of the Somali Terrorist Groups such as Al Shabaab continue to be in the news, and in one sense this does bring some apprehension. But we are not currently anywhere near the real theatre of 'war' or even terrorist activity. This so far is limited to the Nairobi/Mombasa and North Eastern corner of the Country. The School children, nationally, are all in School, and the National Examinations are all either in progress or about to begin. Life is proceeding normally though still with stringent economies and privations in many areas and communities.

AND FINALLY THIS WEEK, an old Harry Furnis Cartoon drawn for PEARS SOAP in 1889

Apart from finding it amusing, I include it here because a few weeks ago I happened to find some Pears Soap on sale in Eldoret in our Supermarket. It has hardly changed in appearance from the day it was first made in England in the seventeen hundreds. BUT the ingredients have changed a little in recent years. I bought a cake of it, and have been using it. I have been quite amazed to find that it appears to have arrested a 'dandruff' problem that I have been suffering from for some years. I have tried practically every kind of remedy including some well known modern shampoos. No luck - until now...... SO I went back to get some more today only to find the whole stock has been removed from the shelves - no reason given. Ah well, I still have a little left of that experimental cake. After that is gone, perhaps I also will use 'no other'!!

God Bless you all, and keep you safe and witnessing.

John and Esther

ANOTHER WEEK - ANOTHER FUNERAL!!

THIS IS PAUL NGUI, aged 40.

Paul was brought to Esther and me in July of 1974. He was then just three and a half years old. Neighbours had alerted the Child Welfare Office in Eldoret that a child seemed to have been abandoned in a house nearby. On investigation the Welfare Officer had indeed found Paul alone and weak, lying in a locked hut. His Mother had apparently died and his Father had taken the body to the parent's home for burial more than three hundred kilometres away. He had not returned. AND SO Paul was scooped up and brought to us.

He could not stand or walk. His hair a sandy yellow from malnutrition. His eyes also looked as if they were infected, swollen and sore from untreated Measles, and it was obvious he had

difficulty seeing. His ankles, knees, wrists - and even his facial features also seemed somehow distorted. He weighed 28 lbs and measured 35 and a half inches from head to toe! As he sat, propped up, in one of our lounge chairs whilst the Welfare Lady chatted to Esther, he deposited six round worms as think as a man's finger and about six inches long in the chair. I had never in my life seen such things come out of a human

being - I was still, even in 1974 - as green as green could be!!

SO THERE HE was a helpless child. Could we really take him on? We had 50 children in the Home already. Could Esther cope?

"It's just for a few days till we sort things out" pleaded the lady from Welfare. But in the end he stayed until the Lord took him to his Eternal Home early Tuesday morning of this week. And as the months went by he responded to regular meals and good food and put on weight and learnt to stand and even walk. Steven and Michael used to make a wobbly threesome with him walking around the garden. He was intelligent, humorous and friendly from the beginning to the end of his life. But physically life seemed against him.

In 1976 Paul attended Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi. They attempted to improve his sight by surgery, but although this did improve his vision a little, the improvement was not to last, and eventually he became totally blind.

In 1981, when he was 11 Paul was admitted to The Salvation Army Blind School in Thika, just beyond Nairobi. He did not like it there, though coped well with learning. In 1982 we transferred him to another Salvation Army School near Kisumu. He initially got on well there, coming always 1st or 2nd in his Primary Class. But his physical state was deteriorating. We had met a Doctor who was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, and he was immediately interested in Paul's condition, and after a lot of tests and research discovered that he had Hurler's Syndrome, a metabolic sickness passed on through the female line. Only ONE in every 10,000, incidents are recorded off such a sickness. It attacks the blood cells and collects them at the joints, eventually affecting the skeleton causing progressive paralysis. Finally it attacks the brain leaving the victim a vegetable. The prognosis given to us was very daunting, ad especially as we could SEE Paul's condition worsening all the time in front of us. But his brain remained quite unimpaired, and continued alert and competent to the very end.

His facial features became very distorted about this time, and partially sighted students and even staff in his school began to speak about him as 'the monster'. He became VERY distressed and as he also had to be aided more and more in everything he did, so that our home doctor felt - (baring in

mind that he might die at any time) - that we should bring him home to Testimony House. Paul was happy with this. He knew all about his sickness. We offered him the chance to continue education in Testimony School, but he refused, saying he would learn privately. Thus we purchased a Braille typewriter and braille books, and he applied himself in earnest to learning what he could. He was 17. He had left regular schooling at the end of Standard V Primary. And now he needed a wheel chair, just to get around.

By 1988 his fingers could not provide enough pressure to use the typewriter. Eventually his fingers could not even feel the raised braille symbols that had to be read. He relied more and more on RADIO, and especially enjoyed NEWS and SPORTS world wide. He also loved all Christian programmes having himself discovered his own Faith in Jesus when he was 15.

Paul's Father eventually, after about two years turned up. He had been a drunkard, and after taking his wife to be buried had not hurried home. But then he himself found Christ, and his life changed for the better morally, though regretfully he contracted cancer. He had married again, and there were two step brothers and a sister all younger than Paul. BUT the family was living in poor circumstances, and it was increasingly impossible for them to be in a position to properly care for Paul. His Father also died in 1993. They visited. Many of them attended the funeral on Thursday of this week. There was no bitterness in Paul against God or man, for his physical ill health or confinement to a Children's Home; no jealousy against his brother who went to University and prospered into a respected Administrator and Christian. Only happiness and joy at having a family - and one much larger than he could ever have normally enjoyed.

Esther and I were Mum and Dad to Paul from 1974 to 1998 when we moved out of Testimony House to Green Cottage just fifty metres away. We continued to be his Mum and Dad until the last. On Saturday last week he was diagnosed with Pneumonia and admitted to hospital. Mr and Mrs. Muli, current houseparents in Testimony House in which Paul still resided, together with ourselves and many of his past and present Faith Homes brothers and sister, his own younger brother, and other blood relatives were constantly at his bedside.

On Monday he succumbed to coma and early on Tuesday morning Paul passed away. We laid his body to rest on Thursday morning with more than 150 of his brothers and sisters from Testimony Homes, and others from his own blood family attending and Thanking God for his exceptional example and life.

From the day of his birth Paul was doomed. He had a life expectancy of only TEN years.

YET he was to live for FORTY. During all this time of progressive debility, deprived of sight and freedom of movement, he never complained or moaned about his condition. He once said that he did not want anyone to take him to Prayer Meetings to be prayed for; he said that Jesus could and would heal him in His own good time, and that He could heal him just where he was if He wanted to - and it he wasn't healed then it was because JESUS had a good reason and purpose behind it, and he was content. And this was exactly how he lived. As he grew up in adulthood Paul advanced as a friend and councillor to all. He loved people, and he loved all those that surrounded him in the Homes. He showed no sign of feeling different to anyone because of his varied conditions in body and health. He hated people to comment on his ailments or frailties. He did not pity himself, and hated others to do so - he was happy and content - and God was his Friend in whom he trusted. He was also an ardent fan of Manchester United, and although he could not SEE a match on TV, would non the less 'watch' it avidly, commenting and enjoying it to the full.

Now he is with Jesus. He is walking and talking with HIM, looking into His face, and SEEING Him - yes and seeing ALL the beauty and glory that he missed on earth, multiplied and expanded all around him. I am so personally grateful to the Lord that he did indeed take him before his mind gave in to the sickness that pursued him throughout his life. He was full of fun and humour; full of delight and interest in life around him. Full of the Word of God which he constantly dispensed fluently in three languages to whoever came near to him. He is missed already, but we shall ever REMEMBER him who knew him.

For Esther and me the funeral was a real blessing. As I shared above so many of our old boys and girls were there from way back, as well as the recent past. As years have gone by and so many grew up and left, there were often times when WE wondered how much of a 'family' had in fact been built. On this day we were SO moved to see the family ties that still bound so many together into a fellowship spanning lifetimes. And WE were still Mum and Dad to so many of them, and they as our own sons and daughters even though so often our time and affection was so thinly spread.

AND it is still raining in Kenya - in Eldoret even! AND the sun shines in a blue sky!!

Kenya is a Miracle Country, full of beauty and Adventure. And a Nation noticed by God AND the Enemy also. Pray for Kenya, for our PEACE, for as much as you might pray for the Peace of Jerusalem. Kenya is a place of pivotal importance relative to the Gospel, and to the Witness of JESUS.

God Bless you, and our heartfelt and very sincere thanks for all of you who have written in or otherwise expressed you sympathy at our loss over this week.

John and Esther

AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE?

WE ARE EXPANDING! This week the Lord granted the safe birth of our FIRST calf, a bull calf, and the son of Cow number Two - (we have named her ALICE). She was I am SURE very delighted to feel lighter, and to see her load of

many months delivered of her. She was immediately busy cleaning him up. How amazing to see the 'Mother Instinct' so instantly

demonstrated for her first calf! An immediate bond between them; immediate care and concern from mother to child. Rosie, our FIRST cow, will be NEXT , and then the latest, the THIRD of our cows, DAISY. She arrived on Thursday of this week, and she is only three months into her pregnancy. SO quite an increase in this last week on the Dairy side of things.

THIS IS DAISY on the left now. She is supposed to be a Jersey cow, but we have our doubts!

She has not been well cared for, and came HUNGRY three months pregnant. She is settling in a bit now, but on arrival she just made for the Hay and shoved the other two cows to one side - she was SO hungry!! More satisfied now, she has made friends! So now we have THREE cows; ONE bull calf, and a goat (picture next week), So fortunate that we have found a good man to take care of them all.

WITH THE CHICKEN PROJECT

we have suffered an initial loss, and a complete 'wipe out'

of the first 100 day old layers - they were in their 7th week. Very

sad, but on Monday they were replaced with another 100, and at least this time we have clear idea of whatto do and when to do it. Our hopes are high that this time we will be successful. The older Layers that we also initially began with have now begun to lay - all 28 of the them! GREAT JOY and interest especially from the children. SO we see things going on with the EGG side of the program so that NOW we can resume having EGGS as part of the weekly diet.

When we began we also had 100 day old chicks that would become Broilers. These, in their 8th week are now ready to be eaten!

We have learnt a lot in the first two months, and now, on Monday, we hope to be joined by a Poultry Man who will oversee There day will probably be today. A further 100 day olds will replace them, and this w the continuing and repetitive program. This will certainly ensure that we shall have something to eat at Christmas time.

ON THE LAND crops continue to thrive and grow and each week more is able to been harvested and eaten. Already we can say that almost a 50% reduction in cost to us has been achieved in the provision of vegetable needs for everyone living here. We Praise and thank the Lord We have purchased the 'Drip Feed' piping and are in process of having it laid down. We had taken a little longer than planned to do this, but the Lord has helped us by providing a few extra days of gentle rain for our gardens. He watches over us. Once the 'drip feed' is in place we hope to double the space currently in use for crops. If all goes well we may be able to even SELL some of what we grow to our neighbours. THEN, in January, we may initiated our first FISH pond. Looking ahead we seem to have healthy strategic plan for the next year!!

TESTIMONY SCHOOL

is gearing up and getting the Top Classes in Primary and Secondary ready to commence this

year's National Examination. Form IV Secondary students will begin their Practical examinations and the rest as from 23rd October (equivalent of UK's GCE O'Level) this coming week. Primary Class 8 students will begin their examinations equivalent of our old 11+ ) in early November.

Discussing the School's future recently with the School Principal, Anthony Ndungu, and the three Heads working with him, it was felt the time had come to consider a serious expansion. Last year the Secondary School especially had done well, and it was expected to continue and do even better this year. This would almost certainly mean that more parents would want their children to attend the School. So far there has been only ONE stream of four classes in this part of the School, and financially it has been hard to maintain it. ANOTHER stream would make the school pay for itself, and might even assist the Homes more. CAN we build another FOUR classrooms? Do we have space?

YES, the answer is YES. It would mean a little re-planning of what we already have, but we feel it is more than possible. It would establish the School financially. It is still owned and Managed by Testimony Faith Homes, but it stands financially alone, with its own Bank Account. It runs from the Fees of parents that use the School from the locality. From the Fee structure the School provides FREE tuition to all the children in the Homes from Nursery to Form IV. It also gives 20 free places to academically bright children from the poorest families in Eldoret. It is registered as a Non-Profit Making Private Christian School. Please do make time to pray for the current plans under consideration - we do not want to go ahead of God, any more than to trail behind Him in catching His Vision.

AND LAST BUT NOT AT LEAST - What about the Children's Homes. Well, we do not want to expand exactly, We have room now for 150 children comfortably spread within FOUR fa

mily Homes. But we have had a change in mind for some years now. We still feel this change will come about, and this would be a good time to think of implementing it. JACARANDA Cottage has long been expensive and inconvenient to run as a children's home. It is also having ongoing and progressive problems structurally. We would like to pull it down and build a NEW home exactly opposite to the present site and between Drakeley and Tyndale Cottages. The Plans are drawn up for a house of the same design as the other two, but just a little larger, to take upto 45 children. Whilst being built, the old house would remain, then on completion of building the Jacaranda family would move into the NEW house.

THEN we would demolish the old house (apart from the breeze block end which has a slab roof. We would convert this area into a Central Laundry AND a Central Maintenance Store and Workshop for the four Homes.) We would clean up and level the rest of the site and turn it into a new Play area. We believe this would considerably reduce our running costs and contribute to our current aim of economising generally in the whole work.

This is the direction we are praying in for the future. DARYL is the one who will be praying these matters all through, and carrying the weight of being in the 'driving seat' with God by his side as the ministry of TFH moves forward. We believe that we have a Witness in this Town and area of Kenya. We believe the LORD will keep it bright and burning till He Comes. Bright in a dark place pressed by need to SEE that there is HOPE in trusting JESUS. Please remember us in your prayers, and let us together SEE the Answers come to prove the Reality of the Living God.

Our love to you all in His Great Name, and may He keep you confident and ready for anything, fearless, and without anxiety ever day.

John and Esther

WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED!!

DEATH SEEMS TO GO ON FOR EVER, as the eye surveys the sea of graves stretching almost as far as the eye can see in Kiplombe Cemetery, Eldoret. Burials continuing every day here. And today we in Testimony will be returning there for the third time already since Esther and I returned home from the UK in June this year.

Alice Muli's mother passed away last week due to heart attack and will be buried today. Graves here in Kiplombe seem to be dug just about wherever you choose, even randomly. It is a forlorn and very unhappy site, isolated and far from the town; with an almost abandoned, 'no man's land' feeling about it. But at least, for the present, there is still room for more!! This may not be the case for long. Land is at premium in Kenya, and less and less space seems to be allocated for the dead, when the living are so greedy to have some. Some cemeteries are already over-used. We recently heard of some that have bodies buried one on top of the other to within a foot of the surface in order to save space. So why not encourage Cremation? After all we have it written even in the Bible 'Dust to dust and ashes to ashes' - WELL NOT QUITE. This phrase is used often by churches in their funeral services, but in fact it is not found in the Bible at all!! THE BIBLE in fact mainly refers to humanity as being from the DUST, and that it will return to the dust. Just ONE verse in Genesis 18v27 records Abraham as having said of himself - '..which am but dust and ashes'. No explanation as to why he includes 'ashes' as a constituent ingredient of Man.

I personally like the idea of my body being buried in a quiet and undisturbed place where it might hope to remain till the Trumpet Sounds. BUT that boyhood appreciation of what a grave should be is not part of this present world's tumultuous experience. Few indeed stay long in this world's graves or 'hallowed ground' before being able to be legally ploughed up or just built upon!! Not a great deal of expected peace even for the dead these days!! Less and less expectancy of permanency in our world. Generally it is stated that are all made from dust, and to dust will return - Genesis 3v19. THUS it is hardly allowed in Christian Scripture that one should be cremated - but neither is it clearly forbidden.

SO what about being Cremated? More and more are choosing this method of disposing of their body after death. In this last year TWO friends of ours have been cremated here in Eldoret using the Hindu Crematorium! The second was cremated just this week in fact. BOTH were seen as somewhat extraordinary events by their friends and associates. In Kenya, so far, it is distinctly something that is just not done - a still very unusual occurrence. Recently a well known celebrity in Kenya, Professor Wangari Maathai, was also, upon her death, cremated at her own request. Many were quite shocked, even dismayed, by this action on her part, but I cannot see clearly that it is a sin to be cremated. I can see that in today's over-crowded

world it may even become a necessity in order to conserve space and hygiene. BUT............

My Esther firmly feels that this is not her 'cup of tea' as she puts it. She wants a regular burial in a 'safe' spot for her remains; to let them rest till the Trumpet sounds, and the dead shall arise! Bible language somehow makes little allowance for seeing a cloud of 'ashes' locked up in Urns or sprinkled over land or sea, actually 'arising' from open graves in recognisable human

form. But who knows? Whatever the case may be, the dead IN CHRIST shall rise ......!!!! Even so come Lord Jesus

Well this week seems to be DOWN! Nearly all our three week old chicks (the layers) that had seemingly escaped disease and death, have now suddenly been struck with sickness and DIED. Quite distressing for all of us but especially for Beatrice Rop who has been a real 'Mother Hen' looking after them. It seems that one necessary injection had been given too late - and all was lost. BUT the 28 eight week old layers are flourishing still, and on Thursday ONE of them laid her FIRST (ours too) EGG. Marvellous. We also imported a further 100 more layers (day old chicks). We have also now employed a full time experienced poultry-man to be responsible for them all.

On Thursday of this week Daryl and I visited a Dairy Unit right in the midst of town. They have 15 cows happily providing MILK three times a day in an enclosure about the same size as the one we have for our TWO. They make their own feed and look after each cow as it it is a member of the family! They seem VERY fat and contented, not a least disconcerted by our visit as we moved amongst them. Their accommodation was scrupulously clean, and the atmosphere further improved by the provision of piped Christian music all day which seems to truly almost hypnotise the cows!!! We spent almost three hours talking and seeing, and came away with a whole lot of new and good ideas.

Friday we went to purchase the 'DRIP FEED' piping for the Allotments. We should begin to lay them out and set them to work by Monday of this coming week. SO we continue to advance.

NB - Sorry about the cartoon - it IS a little in bad taste I suppose - but could not resist it.

Love you all

John and Esther

OUR LONG TIME FRIENDS Ian and Diana HOGLEY are here again! Also David Brook, also from Huddersfield, (did not manage to get a snap-shot of him this time round) has been with us for part of the week gone by.

Always good to see them, and this time to also show off the new progress, and

changes, that have been continuing here.

Last year about this time we were with them at the opening of another Orphanage in Nakuru - RIZIKI CHILDREN'S HOME, Blog for 2nd October 2010. It is still progressing and growing well, and also working hard to be see how self supporting they can be, just as we also are. It is SO good to be able to enter into the lives of other 'Family Members' in Christ, and to be able to pray and love them for who and what they are.

ESTHER and I have been reading Hebrews recently each night.

but I had independently found myself earlier reading the 13th chapter. In a way this made me think of 1. Corinthians 13........How

interesting that they should in a way be so similar.
I was reading in the Amplified Bible. There is an underlying aspect of 'caring' in God's Love that is affected by nothing, except death. The World's love is affected by anything that interferes with its own pleasure and selfish covetousness in a general sense, and can be cut off by a word, a look, even an accidental hurt!

JESUS SAID ' Love each other ( in the Christian Brotherhood) just as I have loved YOU.'

He said ' BY THIS shall all men know that you are My disciples - that you love one another - if you keep on showing love among yourselves!'

I have been wondering about myself in this respect; how do people see me? How do they recognise that God's Spirit lives in me? Is it by the way I love my 'Christian' brothers and sisters over and above all others. Are WE Christians demonstrating the exceptional and saving Love of our God amongst ourselves in such a way that those outside our fellowship are attracted to it, and hungry for it themselves? Perhaps most of us will feel that we are doing alright - but I wonder. We rarely, I think, are really conscious of how we sound, what we say, and even how we look at each other!

Hebrews 13v1

LET LOVE FOR YOUR FELLOW BELIEVERS

continue, and be a fixed practice with you;

NEVER let it fail.

Never let anything bring it to an end .

Love never takes account of the evil done to it;

pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It is ever ready to believe the best of every person;

it's hopes are fadeless under all circumstances,

and it endures everything without weakening.

Love never fails.

It never fades out or becomes obsolete,

or comes to end. (1. Cor. 13v7-8)

Comparatively the slightest hurt felt or done to one of us immediately reduces our good will and even kindness towards the one offending us. When we are robbed, attacked, taken advantage of, we immediately want to justify, revenge and in so many ways somehow redress the hurt against the one acting in such unfriendly ways toward us. We will not turn the other cheek will not let go of our possessions willingly, will not go out of our selfish way to do the bidding of another. We want self justification for the 'wrong' done or imagined against us. We will even go to Court before unholy unbelievers and there try to force an issue against another - one that Paul suggests is another brother or sister in Christ. BUT surely those saying they are 'Christian' would never be guilty of a wrong against ME? Oh yes they could! Remember we are purchased just as we are from Satan, but we are STILL sinners under the 'covering' of Christ's Blood - still able to follow a selfish desire, lust - still able to BE unrighteous. YES! And if there have to be offences that we are guilty of toward other members of the 'Family' we should know how to deal with them IN THE LOVE OF GOD. - 1. Corinthians 6v1-20 in the Amplified Translation if possible.

AND the Love of God that Saves, Forgives and Cleanses US can so easily be forgotten in our dealings even with our fellow Christian, himself forgiven and cleansed by the SAME God that did if for me!!

HOW MUCH DO WE CHRISTIANS FORGIVE EACH OTHER?

How much to we CARE for each other, even when we see one of our number sin and fall from the WAY? Are we ready to really DIE to our human rights for each other? Are we ready to crucify ourselves upon the Cross with Jesus - for the sake of one another? Think about it.

How much of our Christianity is still coloured by our OLD NATURE and understanding so unlike the nature and character of God Himself.

It is great to find a FRIEND like Jesus, in another brother or sister. What a treasure that is, no matter how still spoilt that treasure may still be until the final Trumpet sounds and we are ALL finally changed and the last vestige of sin in us falls away for eternity! I have been wondering how good a friend I am and have been since I came to know God's unconditional love for me. And I am troubled to see how critical and judgmental I still am, how set in my Christian views and how easily I can turn away from others that do not agree with my opinion, viewpoint, feelings on a matter - even another Christian! Woe is me, I am undone - I have been found out. FORGIVE me Father in Jesus Name, and never let me forget that only JESUS in me can produce anything worthy. Less of ME is yet STILL needed, and MORE of you instead.

How truly deceitful and sick SIN is in us all. Even so come quickly Lord Jesus.

THE WEATHER has been slowly changing, and now is quite pleasant - not over hot, but sunny most days, with still a little rain at times, but progressively moving on toward summer time.

Our gardens have continued to prosper and have begun more and more to abundantly supply so that we are all eating every day something harvested. Our cows continue to be well, the one so heavy and READY to give birth that she can barely stand for long, and there still giving milk but also herself heavier and wearier. But happy and contented. Our chicks also growing healthily, and next week we shall be bring in a further 100 broiler chicks. All goes well.

ALICE MULLI, Mother of Testimony House was away on Thursday to attend the Graduation of one of the sons of the House (Edwin Ngovia) who was receiving B.Com Degree at a University about 200 kilometres away. Onthe way back by bus last night she was told by phone that her 62 year old Mother had suddenly passed away at her family home here in Eldoret. A GREAT shock and LOSS for Alice who went straight there without returning to the HOME. Esther and I plus our friends went round to the family home this morning to share in the grief. She and her mother were VERY close, and it will be hard for a while for her. Her father is also unwell; he suffers with his legs and feet, and although he has an elder daughter at home looking after him, he also will be VERY sad, since he and his wife have always done everything together all the days of their long marriage. BUT the Lord is with ALL the family - each of them knowing Him, and thus He will find ways and means to comfort them and to fill the gap. But please spare a little prayer for Alice at this time.

LASTLY this week we are now on SKYPE, and Steve our son in UK has just connected with me for the first time - really AND to see the place he was speaking from AND all the family members there with him - WHAT a great privilege and thrill. WOW!

God Bless and be with you all

John and Esther