HOLDING THINGS TOGETHER!!?

REPAIR AND MAIN-TENANCE has commenced on Drakeley Cottage.    To the right you can see the beginning of work to expose the problem under and above the damp course.    Basically it seems that two previous attempts to compact the infilling of the foundation at this end of the house failed.   This produced various troubles, from forcing the wall outwards, to also interfering with plumbing.     The Municipal Engineer has instructed us to put in three steel reinforced vertical columns  keyed into the wall together with a horizontal reinforced beam just above the damp course, about a metre from the ground level..   You can see in this photo on the right how this end of the house has really begun to bulge and move outwards.
It is SO SAD that a man with a Christian Testimony such as the contractor that built this house, could have been so willing to cut corners and even evade structural issues in order to make money out of his brethren.  Faults with the flooring throughout the house, general fittings and plumbing as well as many other matters have, during the four years of it's existence, necessitated continued and repeated expense in keeping it up and workable.         Yes Drakeley Cottage was completed in 2008 and has needed more help to remain in good shape than we have spent on Testimony House - an old (circa2010) MUD brick house - in 40 years.
I guess it is the same with human beings as well.     Some age faster than others - but we all age, and need constant maintenance!!!

(I am 71+ and overweight.     I have always been heavier than I should, but my heart seems in good shape.     Yet this year, suddenly my Blood Pressure has shot up and my Blood Sugar as well.     I have Diabetes 2 and I have not watched my diet as I should - BUT really I am well ,,,,,,,     But I now am aware that I have to take myself in hand.    In many respects I resemble the stressed stonework in the picture above.     My doc says not to worry, but not to be complacent.     For this month he has been changing my drugs almost every week with no apparent change in my situation.    Start a new cocktail of more drugs today!  - and oddly every new drug to try seems to cost more than the last one.........BUT my Bunyan is completely better, and I am walking more.     NO I am not physically discomforted, and I thank God that the GREAT Physician watches over me, maintaining me, and not just patching me up along the way, but healing me.      He provides and maintains the physical side of TFH and I know He will maintain and keep me in good repair and health.  Hallelujah!)   'IN HIM all things consist (cohere, are held together'  - Colossians 1v17

 To the left is another view of the ongoing work on the exterior of Drakeley Cottage.    We have dug down well below the damp course and foundation, and you can see the iron skeleton columns waiting to be fixed - one at each corner and another in the middle.     Already the worse  affected part of the wall - far lower right - has been repaired and straightened, and you can make out the recess being made for the horizontal retaining beam at the lower part of the wall.    
This this should all be completed this week together with the plumbing and drainage repairs and replacements.

THEN we shall go INSIDE and repair internal matters.     Immediately behind the wall shown above and starting from the near end is a bedroom for 8 girls, a toilet and shower, and then a Guest Room for 4 plus en-suit toilet/shower.      Internal walls have been slowly cracking due to a drop in the floor level.    At the right is a view of one of the shower rooms with a serious structural crack caused by faulty plumbing leaking water into the wall.  

The Kitchen also needs attention in respect of the flooring and work tops, and also three Shower/Toilets.       We expect that ALL of this work will cost around £1,000, and as I told you before these funds are already to hand as well as £2,000 more which we hope to use in further needed restorations in two other of our children's Homes.      Many of these material repairs have been pending some time, and it is truly a great joy to at last see them getting attention.      There IS a time for everything.
THE FAMILY PHOTO is of Francis and Eunice LAHOL and their two children.    Francis and Eunice are Mum and Dad in Drakeley Cottage now.    Mum and Dad are both trained Chefs in fact, and Francis actually grew up in Testimony House whilst Esther and I were Mum and Dad there (1984-98).    He was only 10 when he was admitted.   They are a happy family, and are proving themselves to be with big enough hearts to be parents to the 30 other children  that share the Home with them.    

On the 1st February, next week, we shall be welcoming Mike and Dani Potter's son Ben with five friends for a ten day stay with us.      They will come to lend a hand the Homes together, just a they and other have done before when their School - Tyndale Christian School - has also come to do the same.    It will be really great to have them here.    ALSO hoping to have Ian and Diana HOGLEY our friend from Huddersfield here again toward the middle/end of February.     A good beginning to the year altogether.

Esther is well and fine, and we both send our Love with Thanksgiving to you all

John and Esther

PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES

THIS IS A PHOTO OF Harvey and Marion my most recent nephew and niece!!     The are having a brief refreshment whilst shopping in the heat and tumult of Eldoret's rush hour streets.  They caught the sun - just a little - and may well already have lost it again since returning to freezing Scotland on Wednesday this week.  They also caught Testimonyitis and may never be free of it!   The children loved them as if they had known them for ever, and they had very good times together.      We are always delighted when folk come and want to take an interest in the children.     It is very rewarding to all concerned, and we just love to see them happy.
Almost every day of their two week stay they were followed everywhere by laughing and happy kids.     They are now very definitely Aunt and Uncle to all.
THANK you both for opening up YOUR hearts to our children and becoming immediately part and parcel of THEIR family as well as ours!    
Whilst here they did a lot of exploring for themselves, took a lot of photos and videos.     Also tried their hand at cooking, sport, and Marion even joined Internal Security and did a turn at the Main Entrance Gate!!       They were willing workers, outgoing and friendly to all.

NOW THEY HAVE GONE,  leaving their Mum, my SISTER, still with us for about another three weeks.     She seems fully of spunk and a 'ready for anything' attitude to our Mad Compound.       She is often left on her own, however, since both Esther and I both have time when we must be away, and about the compound.     But we still spend a lot of time and fellowship with each other and we hope her time here will be more and more enjoyable as days go by - perhaps she won't want to go home!!?

Just to divide this letter here are a few views of the School.     The first on the left shows the double storey tuition block at the end of which, in front of the tree, will be the 4 new classrooms joined on. On the right is where the new Boarding Hostel will be built.

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MANY YEARS AGO, in 1969 I was just beginning this ministry in rented property in MASENO, Western Kenya.     During that time I met a Norwegian Lady who was also working temporarily in Kenya.   Her name was, and still remains,  GRETA RIMINGTION.      We got to know each other quite well and then she returned to Norway.      We lost touch for many years but later she sent me a book that she had written and put together with illustrations of some of her Artwork.     GRETA is in fact a gifted creative artist.  She paints a lot, but she especially felt God leading her into ecclesiastical artwork.    This found an outlook in producing priestly stoles and vestments, and also altar clothes and fronts.       Reading her book and for the first time also getting to know something more about her Christian Testimony, as well as SEEING God's Spirit at work through her fingers was a very moving and wonderful thing for me.     It is remarkable and wonderful, the people God brings into our lives to leave a mark or memory that will in fact add to the sum result of who we ourselves individually are.   This photo was taken circa 2004.
I am going to share a little of her story here as it was printed in 2004 when she was 70.

FROM HER STUDIO in Son, Greta Rimington looks out on a calm and cold Oslo Fjord.   In front of her easel she is working intensely on a new motive "Shooting Stars".  It is the first in a series entitled "The Universe".   Whilst painting she finds that she is one moment in the present, and the next she is a small girl looking at stars with her father Claude Rimington.  At the age of 70 the artist is ready to tell her story, looking for the golden thread and the hand that has drawn the patterns in the tapestry of her life.   She strives to find a harmony that was once, but that then disintegrated early on in here life. 

Greta was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 13th February 1933.    Her father Claude Rimington was an English scientist, and her mother Soffi was Norwegian.    After a few years the family moved back to Europe, settling after the war in England.   Greta attended St. Helen's School for Girls in Northwood in North London.     On finishing she went on to attend The Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London.     On finishing, instead of pursuing Art, she decided to enter the Teaching profession.     She explored the possibility of teaching in Africa, but eventually took up opportunities to teach Art in Norway.

Her story is an alternating one of joy and pain.   Early on she appeared to be mature beyond  her years.   As she grew older she gave the impression of being an independent and adventurous woman.  Yet the ice that encased her heart as a child had created a shell preventing her from really experiencing joy to the full.

Only later in life does the cold heart start to thaw.   Her mother Soffi, died in 1982.   After her death Greta took the dramatic step of becoming a full time artist.  With the constant support of her father an ever widening circle of friends she moved into the most creative period of her life -painting, designing and decorating church interiors.   It was also at this time that she moved from an intellectual commitment to God, to a warmer embrace of Jesus Christ.   Her belief is in Christ as a warm and close life-giving force.  In her art she wants to give a positive indication of this.

At 70 Greta is flowering both as an artist and as a person.She is more productive than ever. Her inner journey has given hr more insight and answers.   She is no longer tied and bound by her past.   With a childlike inquisitiveness she is still on a voyage of discovery in art and faith.     

Greta is an inspiration to us all to keep on going on.     Especially those of us who have passed death to life, we need to enter into the never ending aspect of our Life, and cease looking for our physical death as at best an interruption.      We have every reason to look and to plan ahead.!

Much Love to you all.    I shall be giving the Word of God once more tomorrow morning and will value your prayers.     The last in the Series it will be of course Thou Shalt Not COVET..

Sincerely


John and Esther

 

 

 

 

 

SUNNY DAYS IN ELDORET

LIFE GOES ON HERE.         And this last week has reminded me of the early 70's when the January days were  filled with brilliant sunlight under clear azure skies, a gentle breeze helping to mitigate with the heat and the dryness.     In the midst of it all plans for School Development have been progressing, our teenagers sent off to College, trips to the dentist AND the doctor, School open and busy, and my sister, son and daughter in law all basking in the warmth, the altitude and the adventure of slowly getting to know US, and the 150 children that live here with us.       I think they have enjoyed themselves, though all have had their own physical 'high's and 'lows'.      Generally good health has prevailed against the threat of sickness.   Mainly it has been a case of adjustment to the difference in climate between here and Scotland.    
My sister, Pat, will be staying on with us till the first week of February.   But Harvey and Marion are beginning their trek home to Scotland on Monday morning, when they will be flying from Eldoret to Nairobi on the first leg.      We shall miss them.    They have made a lot of friends as well amongst the children, and I know that in a short time friendships have been made across generations, colour, and race.      Hearts have been won, and a lot of memories and happiness trapped on film, both still and moving.
The two little girls in our first photo have discovered a warm and happy friendship for each other.  The one on the left is the five year old  daughter of one of our staff, and the other is from Testimony House.   The one with loving parents and a stable home, and the other abandoned and without home or parents until she came to us.
Not sure if it was Marion or Harvey that took the picture - they have been taking so many - but it surely is a winner.       And also the one below it.     The little boy is also a son of a staff member, the brother of the one above.     Again in living here it is almost impossible to see any difference in the 'orphan' cared for and the children of stable families living with and amongst them.    I am always happy to see it, and these photos just underline it.
We are hoping that this short exposure to our happy, loving kids will entice Harvey and Marion back to us again soon.......??

The NEXT photo this week is one of building under construction in the centre of Eldoret.      I think it was taken to emphasise the way buildings actually go up here.    Not quite the ideal expected in the UK.     This building is being erected behind Eldoret Town Hall.  It towers above it totally spoiling the old sky line, and also the entire aspect of the main high street.
The Town Hall had been set well back behind lawns, and still is a fairly unassuming yet respectable civic structure pleasant to the eye.       From the Mayor's Parlour on the 1st floor you can look down the main high street, (Kenyatta Street) witch is one of the main shopping  and banking areas of the town, sloping quite steeply down to the river valley.    From the opposite end one could look up and see the Town Hall  as the centre piece of good town planning.        Not any longer though with this awkward, ill designed and sited edifice towering lopsidedly behind it.      Whoever allowed the plans to be passed, and the Civic Centre to be humbled beneath it should be fired.   URgh!!


Just a little glimpse of ELDORET the town - a town once spacious and airy but now crammed tight with traffic, humanity and restlessness.     No longer a quiet country town, but a growing County Metropolis, somehow taken by surprise.     It is now too fast and too crowded for me.      And soon it will catch up with me since where once Testimony was at the extreme edge, and verging on open fields, we are now almost surrounded by building estates, with hardly an open field to see anywhere.     How time changes things, and how LIFE DOES GO ON irresistibly and progressively.    

WE ARE GLAD to report that the funds promised to us toward building repairs and maintenance have just arrived, and that work on the sinking foundation of Drakeley Cottage will probably now be able to commence next week.    It will throw the 'Home' into a little confusion for a while, but there is no doubt that we shall now be able to save the house, and this is a great thrill to all concerned - including the children who are every excited about it all.

We are also going ahead with School Expansion, and hope to get Plans past soon to erect a further 4 classrooms in order to put in a second Stream of Secondary School classes.     The photo shows part of the area where development will be taking place.  For those who know the compound intimately the Basket Ball Court is sited in front of the photo.
As you know the School pays for itself from incoming School Fees paid by those parents from around Eldoret whose children attend the School.      These fees pay for the Teachers, consumable materials, and everything else needed to run the School.     Additionally the School - through these same fees - provided FREE places for each and every Orphan in the Children's homes.       Otherwise nothing else is diverted to the help of the Homes.   Thus the Homes stand apart and alone, dependant on God only.      Since Daryl has taken on the job of Chief Executive he has also made it his business to consider the School, and he has been given the job of watching over the building project.  

We have just had a word from AENON Trust, and we do thank all those who have recently send help to us through their kind assistance.      Spot on timing, as usual.   Quite amazing that it is so, month after month.
Yet we never get used to His Provision, and can never KNOW exactly what He will do or HOW.   We only know that He remains utterly FAITHFUL in answering the prayers of so many on our behalf.

Much Love from us all

John and Esther  

LOVE AND MARRIAGE ?

FROM SCOTLAND TO KENYA!    At last united with my Sister Pat, and with Harvey her son and daughter in law - Marion.     SUCH a joy to actually have them WITH US.  
Daryl went up to Nairobi as planned to meet them with Carol his wife and their eldest son, Jesse.   From there to Ngong about 40 kilometres away to the home of Esther's sister Mary where they spent most of that day (4th January) and the night.     There they met Mary's husband Joe, and their children and their families!!   Quite an overwhelming introduction to our side - the Kenya side - of the family of GREEN.    Then on the morning of the 5th they all made their way to ELDORET, arriving about 5p.m. in the afternoon.    Since THEN we have been enjoying each others company.


YESTERDAY, 6th January was Steven and Anji's 16th Wedding Anniversary.    The photo here was taken in our grounds on their Wedding Day.    We were able to get together with them last night via SKYPE. It was great.  

 My sister Pat had been married to her husband Donald almost 50 years before he sadly died.   Esther and I have been married 40 years.     So many people have evinced their astonishment that anyone can stay together for such a lengthy period in Marriage!   - MANY tell me quite seriously that these days the majority of marriages do not last even three years, and admittedly we hear of those that end within a year!
Are those that stick together for longer to be considered foolish?  

MARRIAGE is intended to demonstrate a permanent and enduring relationship; the relationship that there OUGHT to be between every man and woman - and GOD.     A relationship that will not be altered or upset by changing circumstances or events, but one that will be willing to endure with long-suffering the faults and failings in both parties, as well as to enjoy the admirable and loving qualities found in each other.
MARRIAGE - more than the incoming idea of 'partnership' (or 'Come we Stay' theology found here in Kenya and increasingly all over the world) - is meant to be seen NOT as a RISK, but as a considered and sincere COMMITMENT of a Man to a Woman, or a Woman to a Man.     (Gay Relationships are not found acceptable in either the Bible or the Koran.)
NO ONE should sensibly enter into MARRIAGE unless they mean to remain together for life, come what may!     I make no apology for presenting the Christian view of Marriage.       It has been around a long time, and prior to this wayward and sexually orientated generation, worked very well.    It rests on an Ideal that if followed through must affect all of Creation, and the Security of the Universe.
MARRIAGE, as it is set out by the Church of Christ, is more than a mere Contract, it is a serious Agreement made seriously in front of God, each of the two involved  vowing to the other that they will remain constant and faithful to each other for all of their respective lives - for better or for worse...........!  
THIS is something that a Home and Family can be built upon; it provides ongoing SECURITY and ASSURANCE that such home and family will always be there.     A reliable Point of Reference.  
The Faith that GOD existed, and was a Binding Witness to the Promises made between the Man and the Woman gave REASON for couples to persevere, endure and even suffer if necessary whatever might come to disturb or challenge the Marriage.        One could not, surely, walk out on God - breaking the promises made in His hearing?         It was not the EASY 'come or go' attitude found in so many unhallowed relationships of our current world.

HERE IN TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES we have tried to uphold the idea of Home and Family built on a Marriage in Church in front of God, and witnessed by family and friends.      We have endeavoured to proclaim to children who have been the victims of broken promises and careless relationships that there IS a safe foundation to built their own home and family upon, providing for their children what so many of them were deprived of, or just never had in the first place.     Oh yes!   We do readily admit that many have not readily followed our example.     Some HAVE entered into uncommitted and even loosely tied together relationships AND suffered the consequences - though some later brought themselves either to church or to the local administrative government to finally commit themselves to each other.    The had failed to find peace in a relationship that lacked trust and faith.

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones writes - 'What right have we to expect nations to stand by their promises and keep their vows to each other, if men and women do not do it even in this most solemn and sacred union of marriage?   We must start with ourselves, we must start at the Beginning.   We must observe the Law of God (NOT Moses) in our personal and individual lives.'


Good, Seriously entered into, enduring Marriage is the mainstay of our humanity.    If we are to rescue our own Generation and provide against the security of the next we must determine to uphold MARRIAGE, and thereby SAVE our home and family from a sure anarchy and repudiation of all human morality.        And remember nothing is gained without sacrifice.   We enter into Marriage determining to lay down our life for the other - indefinitely, for ever.   Your children will see it and feel it, and rejoice in the knowledge of your true love for each other, learning from it.

I believe that my sister Pat and I, having both to some extent been victims of a broken marriage and selfish parents, have been greatly helped in holding our own marriages, and thereby our family members in the home, together, realising how it felt to be without the security and warmth generated by a persevering, forgiving and loving father and mother that remained faithful to each other through all the ups and downs of life and also the let downs and disappointments experienced in each other.      We were indeed inspired NOT to be as they were, but to aspire and reach for something more lasting and certain.

We have both lived 70+ years without knowing anything about each other, and now meet, having lived very different lives in very different situations yet in marriages that endured well enough, to progressively deepen the friendship and loving bond that joined us and continues to join us together with the one we promised to live with till death parts us.

GOD BLESS you all, and if are celebrating this Year,   Rejoice for each year successfully spent bearing each others shortcomings in Love and discovering the growth of your own bond of love for each other.

John and Esther