THERE ARE TWO WAYS........!

THIS IS A PICTURE FROM THE PAST taken in 1978, thirty-three years ago! On the left is Moses Otunga with his wife, Elizabeth, and on the right is Daniel Koech with his first wife.

Daniel came to us when he was about 17. He was a Probationer that I had met up with at a Probation Case Committee Meeting. His parents had died in a ferry that sank in Lake Victoria when he was a very young child. He survived and was brought to Eldoret. His guardians at the time were not bothered about him, and he ended up on the street, becoming involved in crime. This led to him being on Probation. We offered him a place on our Mechanics Course, and later he also trained in electronics.

During his training he stayed with us in Testimony House; a period of about two years only. He worked for a while in town, and then later partnered with Nicholas Mwangi in a small electronics business in town. He was the practical and senior partner. Mwangi was the business head. Initially they did quite well. But as they prospered Daniel turned to drinking too much. Dan had never shown interest in Christianity or any religion. His was a godless life. He had purchased a small plot of land though and built a house on it. But little by little he was able to work less and less, and business went down. As his drunkenness increased his wife left him. Later he married again, and for a little while it seemed all was well. But then one Saturday people he owed money to accosted him and his wife in their house and killed them both before robbing them.

They also raped the wife before murdering her, and then threw her body headfirst into the water well in the garden. They left Danial sitting dead in his chair staring at the place where the TV had half an hour before been entertaining them. (NB - the salient facts related here are as they have been given to me. They may not be quite accurate, but regretfully generally events would seem to be very similar if not exactly the same as I have written. My apologies to any who may know better or more than I do in this matter.) A very bad end, no matter what. And nothing left to show for a life lived hard and for the most part unhappily.

MOSES also came to us when he was also quite old - 15, in 1971. Instead of joining Secondary School after completing Primary, Moses went to Nairobi and studied Painting & Signwriting at the Christian Industrial Training Centre, and went on to work as an Instructor in various Polytechnics. He made a very definite decision for Christ, and later he later founded his own Church denomination, Children's Home and Industrial Training Centre in Korongocho slums in Nairobi. Recently he wrote to me saying - .

'I want to thank our heavenly Father for making Testimony what it is to us today. I thank God for the way He used our time in Testimony to transform our lives for his own GLORY. Do you still remember when we used to have a family devotion, and you used to beat (out a rhythm) on a drum. I can remember you now singing -

It's coming down! It's coming down!

The Glory of the Lord is coming down!

When the saints begin to pray

the the Lord will have His way;

So the Glory of the Lord is coming down

.

I can testify now how the Glory of the Lord DID come down and it transformed our lives into what they are today. AMEN! Thank God for Testimony Faith Homes. It has been God's divine purpose to use it to bring transformation in our lives - and in return He has and will use some of us to transform the lives of many other children in our local communities where He calls us to serve. I am called to serve in the slums of Korogocho.

I never experienced such a loving and caring family as was given to me in Testimony Faith Homes. The Love I learned there helped me to bring up my own children and support them all, so that they were enabled to complete their High School Education - even though I never managed to do so myself. The LORD even provided friends that helped them go to university. This is God. I never went to a formal Bible School, yet God has helped me to complete my Master's Degree in Theology. Who could have thought a Primary Class 7 boy, dropping out of school, could have managed such a thing. Who could have imagined that he would build a school and employ university graduate teachers to teach in it?

This has taught me never to ignore the potential there is in every child we see around us. God is no respector of persons - we just need HIM to BE in our lives. May the Grace of God God be with you always - Your son in Christ, Moses Otunga; and Elizabeth sends her Greetings.

TWO BOYS, teenagers! Both with difficult childhoods, and both with so much potential. One makes shipwreck and dies ignominiously. The other reaching out for the Hand of God grows

And all that DO make the right choice do so by the GRACE of God, and He alone receives the Praise and the Glory for it.steadily from strength to strength, on the way imparting strength to others in God's Name, the Name of Jesus. They are typical of all the children that pass through our hands. And it has been a wonder and privilege to see the hand of God on so many, and a heart breaking disappoint-ment to see others turn to the venial things of this world and so being deceived by them fail and sink, cut off from God. Truly there ARE two WAYS. One will lead to DEATH and everlasting sorrow. The other will lead to LIFE and eternal happiness. For us brought here to be carers and encouragers, it sometimes is a hard thing and humbling to realise how little we can actually do for another. Everyone makes their own 'furrow', their own choice, their own. We long that ALL would make the RIGHT one, but they cannot be forced to do so. Testimony Faith Homes and those of us that have been Carers there cannot say ALL that have come left transformed - though some were later, and perhaps are yet to be - in retrospect. Some left unaltered, and some maybe, even worse. What each of us does with life we go through it remains very much what we choose to make it.

Last Sunday I asked one of our High School leavers from the Homes what he desired for his future. He had at 17 recently given his heart to Jesus, witnessing immediately in the Sunday Service. He looked at me, and said - 'I would like to serve God. Rather than go to university or College, I would like to enter Bible College and prepare myself.' Born into great poverty and neglect, with both feet facing back to front, he had little initial hope of anything. Now tall, and his feet having surgically been turned to face the right way; an indefatigable footballer; and a playful nuisance to his teachers, SUDDENLY the heavens have opened, and LIGHT has shone and CHANGED everything - whilst we all stand back in amazed joy and happiness. God IS good and He IS Faithful, and WILL answer our prayers for HE IS ABLE to do what we cannot.

If a 'butterflies wings' gently folding and unfolding can affect the weather on the other side of the globe WHAT can the simple prayer of one believing heart achieve for others, however far away?

ALICE, our second cow, has been ill this week with a bout of Milk Fever. The vet came and she was fine again a day later. The vet was a bit cross with us for not knowing a newly delivered 'mother' cow needed special diet as her body was trying to adjust to her new state. Well we were very sorry to be found ignorant but glad that we have been in time to learn, and that we will not let it happen again. She is very proud of her new son,

who is a handsome youngster and the darling of all the children.

One of our old boys, Richard Ochieng who is in Business in Eldoret and has a small farm of his own, has just donated the maize stalks from his five acre harvested field to help feed Alice and her 'sisters'. We are glad and thankful to Jesus for sons and daughters that remember us, and provide us with encouragement even in the midst of their own challenges and needs. Hallelujah.

THIS WEEK the old and ailing mother of a boy we used to sponsor arrived in my office. Her son had long ago been Head Boy in our Primary School, very bright, but from a VERY poor and needy family. He completed his Secondary Education and got a place in Nairobi Polytechnic as a aeronautical engineering student. He was due to graduate in two weeks time. His mother came to tell us that he had died two weeks ago in Nairobi in the bomb blast that had blow up a small cafe - initiated by All Shabaab terrorists. A great shock to us. But his mother was more shocked that the cafe in reality was a bar, and that they boy had turned to drink. Another 'choice' perhaps - we had not heard from him for some months and had begun to consider contacting him to find out why.

The Primary Finalists completed their exams on Thursday and now have all gone home.

The Secondary Finalists will complete on Monday morning. The rest of the classes will continue on for one week doing their normal term end exams, and then the school will shut down for the 'summer' holiday until January. A quiet few days thereafter...........maybe!

Thank you for your prayers. God BLESS you, each and everyone!

John and Esther