TYNDALE WEEK is here again! 38 Teachers and Students (including Mike Potter and his wife Danni) arrived on Thursday from Tyndale Christian School South Australia. The LINK between them and us has grown stronger by the year, and what began as a bi-annual event, has now increased to an ANNUAL one. The WEATHER could not have been worse on their arrival. Heavy COLD rain!! But it has perked up just a little today, and the sun is shining at least intermittently.
The Children here are ecstatic to see the Team again even though only a few have been here personally before. It is always a wonderful time of interaction and enjoyment and hard work.
THIS year the Team are planning to relay and contain the rough driveway leading to Jacaranda Cottage - just rocks and dust since we bought the place in 1975. They will lay curb stones, level and lay down a surface of three-quarter inch ballast on some 70 feet of drive. This will wonderfully improve access and cut down dust and mud. Some will also be doing interior painting in, and perhaps even providing extra cooking facilities for Drakeley and Tyndale Cottages. Every year they prove themselves indefatigable workers, with a real zeal for hard labour, as well as a zest for play and fellowship with the children.
They have gifted us with many projects over the years including provision of a Basket Ball Court, a School Dispensary, a Poultry House, to name a few, and lent many hands painting inside and outside of the four Homes, laying concrete paths, building retaining walls, clearing hedges, and putting up fences, The proof of their efforts remain to be admired and appreciated, and most of all the human encouragement they have brought to our children in all four of the Homes have truly left a mark of health and happiness on so many.
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| Poultry House at Jacaranda |
AND ALL THIS began when Mike and Danni were introduced to us and the work of TFH whilst staying at Nairobi Pentecostal Bible College for a few days on their initial arrival to Kenya in 1988. They visited us that same year, and from then on it was as if we had become family. Mike was then Deputy Headmaster of a private school (Cavina School) in Nairobi, and Danni also taught there. We watched these newly weds as the Lord prospered them with their own children, and later with those they adopted. When the time time for them all to return to Australia in 2000 we all wondered how we would suffer the loss of so many family members all at once......we had grown so used to them spending time and fellowship with us. BUT Mike and Danni did not forget us, and were soon sharing all about us and their time in Kenya. When Mike took the Headship of Tyndale School he soon began sharing with them too, and the result was the idea of bringing a group of students to have a Kenya Experience - and of course WE became part of the 'experience' with ever expanding results.
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| Ben Potter & Team - Feb 2012 |
THIS YEAR we will celebrate TEN years of this ongoing adventure. Mike has planned to mark this Anniversary by inviting Daryl and Carol from TFH, and also Joshua and Miriam Mbithi from Neema Childrens Home to fly to Australia on 23rd September to be part and parcel of the Celebrations. My health has not been so good, mainly with my diabetic problem, and Esther and I together with my doc felt that it would be better for me not to travel so far at this time .....SO, this time at least, we felt it best for Daryl who has in any case embarked on his Leadership of the work here, and his wife Carol to go in our stead. We know they will be a blessing. And of course Joshua and Miriam were nineteen years with us before leaving to initiate their own God inspired ministry amongst HIV/AIDS children in 2003. As well as helping US, the Tyndale Teams also reached out to children at Neema, and whenever they come to us, they also share their strength, love and aid with Joshua and Miriam, who in so many ways are still part of the FAMILY. And so the four of them hope to fly out on 23rd September for a three week trip.
We all feel that we have been given so much without having been able to give anything back! But Mike has often assured us that the time spent with us all has often been more than a blessing to students and staff alike.
Well we pray God that it might be so, for we can never be able to calculate all THEY have done for us has meant to the ongoing prospects of us all here. OH, but I almost forgot that there IS one thing we have been able to give ...... we let one of our most valued and loved labourers together with us, CALVIN Ochieng be captured by one of Tyndale's teachers and carted off to Australia. That was quite unexpected, and quite a valuable loss to us all. So I guess we are even more linked to Australia as one of our own is there, and we all loved Christy whom Calvin married, and all adore their little boy that God has given them.
Blessing upon blessing.
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| Christy and Calvin with Baby Ochieng. |
NOW THIS MUST BE ALL FOR THIS WEEK. Not the last you will here of Tyndale Team as they will be ministering to us all through the week to come. More photos no doubt.. I thought it good to share this with you for this week since it is something that touches all of us, children and carers alike. It is always an exciting and exhilarating time of encouragement and togetherness. Also a time of sharing and understanding between cultures. God is Glorified.
We pray for all those in the United Kingdom that have suffered the severe and injurious weather conditions of the last days. We see the ravages endured on the TV and truly our hearts go out to the many who have been affected. Our own 'torrential downpours' seem small compared since they have damaged us little. The water rushes downhill away from us, and does not hang about, but nevertheless we have shared in the general 'depression' that always accompanies constant rain and grey skies..........BUT the sun WILL come out again, the clouds will and DO lift, and we will be relieved. Thank God we are never alone, even in such distress and coolness of spirit.
God Bless and Encourage you all, every one
John and Esther
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