Let them eat RATS - again!!

KENYAN BASIC FOODS can be seen here in this photo of a basic meal, Rice, Beans, Chapati, and soup.     Daily diet is not flamboyant or even very interesting to Westerners.   On the other hand it can be very tasty and enjoyable.     MEAT is not often able to be eaten by the average man in the street since the cost has gone steadily upwards and out of reach.   Indeed food generally is now becoming out of reach to the average family stricken as it is by unemployment and high costs.
More than 60% of the population is unemployed; often whole families without income and living in extreme poverty and need.
IN TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES, the children and the staff that make up it's daily population of some 150 in the Children's Homes and more than 600 in the School, are also finding food more difficult to budget for.     We ourselves are now depending mainly on Rice, Maize, and Beans, though with our Garden Project we are well off in Green Vegetables.      We can also have eggs twice a week.    
BUT last week we were shocked to read in the Daily Nation a truly amazing headline -

'NEW BILL TO PUSH UP PRICES

OF MILK, FLOUR.....'

'Prices of maize flour, bread, wheat flour, milk and other basic commodities will shoot up by 16% if M.P.s approve plans to impose VAT on them.     Also lined up for additional taxation are agricultural inputs, which could also push up food prices even further.'

These measures were being proposed by the Kenya Finance Minister Njeru Githae.     It met with immediate opposition.      One M.P. Charles Kilonzo from YATTA, asked -

'What kind of government,

which has all along been saying it is pro-poor, comes up with such a Bill?

We are asking President Kibaki to intervene. 

We in Parliament will not accept it.

On 31st JULY it was announced -

Finance Minister Robinson Gitahe has bowed to pressure and withdrawn the much criticised VAT Bill from being debated in Parliament.   

Robinson Githae

INDEED, it would have been sheer madness to proceed with it; it would have produced an immediate outcry from the masses - and the ground of 'revolution'.      The French Revolution began for the lack of BREAD!     How could the Minister dream up such an idea?     It was the SAME man that suggested Kenyans might need to eat RATS if they wanted to avoid starving - and THEN he puts up a plan to help them starve more quickly and utterly!   Extraordinary.

It suggests that the Government itself is under pressure to cough up its debt payment to the G.8.   But if payment of the national debt is urgent enough to enforce the starvation and death of its citizens, then the situation must indeed be more than desperate.       Kenya needs much prayer at this time.   A beautiful and potentially prosperous Country, yet one at risk.      The National Election had been originally scheduled for August this year, then shifted to December, and now MARCH 2013.    Could this delay in rescuing the Country from very present economic fears and anxieties be due to external, more than internal blackmail.

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LAST SATURDAY, was the 43rd Anniversary of the Founding of Testimony Faith Homes, and also the 31st Anniversary of the commencement of the School.      It was a good day, well attended and enjoyed by more than 500 visitors.       The weather was good to us as well, the expected rain holding off.     We all ended the day happy and content for all the hard work and effort that had gone into it.

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TESTIMONY COWS are all well and doing well.      The last one to come has now calved and given birth to a pretty brown and white heifer.     She is not with her mother, in the photo, but with one of the other three 'aunties'.     We are so very thankful to God for the advent of our little 'Herd' and especially that, through them, we are able to be totally provided for milk-wise.     They were quite a star attraction on Founder's Day last Saturday, with they were admired by many.
Visitors also visited the Bakery as well, and tasted our bread, and it looks as if we may soon be able to launch out into the deep as local bread suppliers.         Wonderful that WE also will be able to have bread back on the Menu - we had to discontinue it for the most part as it had become just too expensive to buy.

Our Father in Heaven Bless and be with you all, each one.   CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR US ALL.
Today is a Day of Prayer and Fasting here in the TFH.    Starting at 9a.m and going on to 4p.m. staff, friends and even students can join a nucleus in the School Hall to pray for ongoing needs and PRAISE God for His Wonderful care of us all.    We now press on into the School Holiday month of August - always a busy but happy month.

Our Love always, in Jesus

John and Esther