My own first ten years on earth were very stringent times, and I remember my mother had two rhymes she was fond of quoting to underline such times to me. One was 'Old Mother Hubbard'.....
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
to get her poor dog a bone.
when she came there
the cupboard was bare
and so the poor dog had none
It conjured up to my child's eye a house totally devoid of every comfort, bare and emptied of its contents in order to pay the Rent! Scary!
The other was perhaps even worse since with the picture of poverty and the anxiety, and worry attending it, came a harassed and irritable grandmotherly figure unable to love or comfort.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe!
She had so many children she didn't know what to do!
She gave them some brother without any bread;
then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.
I must say that my mother only ONCE put ME to bed under such circumstances, and perhaps most of us in times of peril or serious worry might be so preoccupied with our problem that we may have little time or patience with others demanding attention around us. HOW WONDERFUL, therefore to discover that we do not have to worry! We do not have to be overwrought with dread and apprehension since we are not alone - GOD is with us, and will not let us go under - He WILL sustain and save us from all our fears and tribulations. He saves US.
The Lord is so good to us, and he calls on people from all walks of life and faith to do His Bidding, and to supply our needs. This time it was the Parents and Staff of the Aga Khan Nursery School here in Eldoret. The Children (in the photo) actually obscure most of what was brought to us, but it has salvaged us from immediate hunger!! Everyone was VERY excited to see this very visible proof once more of HIS LOVE to us all. It is also a challenge to our own Christian love and charity to see help coming to us through Muslim and Hindu people who God has moved to bless us.Blessed be the Name of the LORD. A BIG 'Thank You' to all He uses to rescue us from need.
The weather in Eldoret just now is COLD! Supposed to be warm and sunny! It is still raining every day, and it looks as if this will now affect the wheat and maize harvests; once more hinting of a famine in the New Year. God knows. But still the children laugh and play and enjoy being out of School and away from books, and more books. It is good to hear the vocal happiness enjoying the lawns and swings, and freedom.
GREAT to have CHILDREN around one. These days, though, they seem to grow up and out of childhood too quickly. All little adults from the cradle! And with the advent of this 'Techno Age' there seems a mad scramble to be 'grown up' and worldly wise as soon as they they are 12. They run before they can wisely walk, live as if there was no life or history before their birth. Blooms that never budded, and fruit that never blossomed. Man is evolving ................Already much is altering in his nature and mind. Perhaps 'childhood' will disappear altogether, and with it much of enriching and knowledge of innocence and family life.
Perhaps underlining this are thoughts by a TV Presenter printed in the British Press this last week. She MARIELLA FROSTRUP writes--
'One of the saddest things for me
is looking at children of my daughter's generation
already trying to look sexy
even though they're only eight or nine years old'
Mariella, soon to be 50, is married with an eight year old daughter and six year old son. She is on record as saying that she 'believes the abundance of overtly sexual imagery in today's society makes it hard for parents to protect their children's innocence. Children grow up too soon.
Concurrently with these comments comes a Letter from 200 teachers, academics, authors, charity leaders and other experts all calling for a drive to 'interrupt the erosion of childhood.' In part, this Letter is quoted in the media as saying -
'We call on all organisations and individuals concerned
about the erosion of childhood to come together to achieve the following:
Public campaigns about children's developing needs;
What constitutes Quality Care,
and the dangers of consumerist screen-based life style;
The establishment of a genuinely play-based curriculum in nurseries
and primary schools up to the age of six, free from downward pressures
of formal learning, tests and targets.
The Letter concludes with ---
IT IS EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY
to challenge policy making and cultural developments
that entice children into rowing up too quickly
and to protect their right to be healthy and joyful natural learners.
IT IS COMFORTING - even encouraging - to hear voices making themselves to be heard in our failing world society. We need more of them, but whether or not they can turn the tide of the insidious iniquity that is rushing in upon is is doubtful. The enemy of Man's Soul, and very humanity, has come upon us all suddenly and overwhelmingly. Those born after the sixties have no criteria other than what they found on arrival, and what has since changed the face of our world. The Techno Revolution has been much worse and more powerful than the Industrial Revolution of 200 hundred years ago. It has swept, and is sweeping, away almost everything previously known and leaned. It perverts, twists and suspects the past, whilst opening up a 'pandora's box' of permissiveness to do whatever we may without any reference points for or against.
Dangerous waters, frightening prospects, desperate times. And all the more 'desperate' because for the majority they are unrecognised!
PRAY FOR US!
With our much Love always, and sincere Thankfulness for your care of us.
John and Esther & Daryl and Carol
AND All the Children in our Care
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