TIME TO REMINISCE

Catherine & Sarah

THUNDER, RUMBLING AND GRUMBLING ALL AROUND the Homes as I type once more.  We had just a FEW days sunshine, though not very warm, and then the RAIN returned, always announced with   deep and heavy percussion from above.     So I am trapped inside Green Cottage again, with time to remember one and other of our large family.      No one swimming today!     The compound was full of our teaching staff in the morning hours though, as they came together to prepare for the Opening of the 3rd and last School Term of the year on Monday.    It was good to see them, and their happy excited voices indicated their joy as they viewed their return to work.
AND NOW the laughter has gone, and the brief sunbeams withdrawn as the stage is set for yet another rain-storm - and I remember days gone by.
YOU have seen the picture (right above) before, I am sure.  It is one of my favourites, though not very clear,  Two of our daughters - Catherine Senge on the left aged about 3 and her great friend Sarah Njeri on the right aged about 4.   They used to stick together like glue when they were little, and they have remained good friends down the years - and both have kept Jesus and TFH deep in their hearts.      Good to look back and see the beginnings of such an enduring friendship and family relationship, especially when each has her own individual origin and history.    They are not, of course, sisters by blood.  Catherine knows a little of her family roots, but Sarah knows nothing at all, and neither do we.   Catherine was only a few weeks old when she was brought to us, in 1980, and Sarah was approximately 3 when she came to us in 1981.    Both grew up with me and Esther in Testimony House, and thus especially part of our family there.     Both pursued their school life together, Catherine attending Kenya Highlands Bible College, Kericho where she obtained an advanced Diploma with Honours in Christian Education.     Sarah attended the Kenya School of Monetary Studies in Nairobi and qualified in Banking.      Catherine is now Mother in Charge of Tyndale House with us here in TFH.     She has two children now - Steven and Esther.

 Sarah Njeri

Sarah is Manager of a Bank in Malindi, and she has twins - a boy, Andrew,  and a girl, Amanda  - all three often trek back home for vacations and of course then there is great joy in the camp.       We are glad for our 'girls'.    They have both had trials of one kind of another, but they have both hung on to their faith - or is it that Jesus has hung on to THEM and made their faith to grow as they have lived and endured.     Both are now happy women with a testimony.   We love them both dearly  -    just some of the very many that make up our Family.

Catherine Senge with Micah, her husband

I have had to put the lights on - it is 3.30p.m. our time.    The thunder still muttering within almost purple clouds piled up all around us, blocking the light. The birds have all become silent - maybe they think the night has come early.

I REMEMBER when I began to take in kids, in Maseno, W,Bunyore, Western Kenya, that it thundered almost every day.   Maseno is about 2000 ft above the town of Kisumu close to Lake Victoria.   It is built upon and between great outcropping boulders, and when it thunders there it is like deafening drumbeats, that jump from boulder to boulder.      It became so resonate and huge a SOUND that I could not concentrate.

======================================

THE WEEK HAS BEEN BUSY.       With the sudden absence of Daryl a number of things have changed.

 -  OOPS the first heavy patters of RAIN are heard on upon our iron roof!     IT HAS BEGUN quietly enough - no sudden flash of lightening or titanic ROAR of Heavenly Wrath!     It gathers pace now, amid the silent, semi darkness of the world outside.   Everyone has run for shelter, all doors and windows shut.......!!!

YES I am busier than I was.    Must once more see to things in town myself, and also must spend time with those new member or our staff to help them grasp the scope of their duties and so on.    AND with a new Term beginning there has been need for me to be very careful in how we lay out the little that we have in order to assure as many students as possible to return to College, and at the same time leave us with enough in hand for daily needs.    Days have gone by swiftly, but gladly, and thus far Father has continued to put into our hand what has been needed.     All is well.

Our dear Chaplain, Wykliffe Ondanga, has now wonderfully recovered from his Hernia Operation and is back on his feet, and will be ministering on Sunday for the first time in well over a month.    We had good fellowship yesterday, thanking God for His Faithfulness and Healing.

Please do continue to pray for us through the coming week.    The Government Inspection Team will visit us on Thursday 5th to decide whether or not we pass muster as a suitable Charitable Children's Home.   The Application for RE-REGISTRATION was sent a month ago.   It comprised 140 bound pages of required statistics, copies of necessary documentation plus, plus, at a cost of some 300 pounds sterling!!!    This has to be done every THREE years.....!

God be with you all

John and Esther

30 YEARS AGO IN 1983

(top left to right - Nicholas Mwangi; John Ngugi, Moses Ongonga;  David Koech;  Joseph Kihara; Daniel Kinyanjui; Anthony Wanyama; Mwangi Macharia; Peter Kalulu;)
(2nd row - centre - Sarah Njeri and Catherine Senge;)
(Bottom row left to right -  Jotham Chege; Ezekiel Okoko; Samuel Macho; Christopher Kipkosgei; Peter Wangolo; Anthony Bones; David Senoga; Paul Ngugi; William Lomyrot; Charles Salim; Daryl Peacock, and Samuel Kirui.)


ESTHER AND I WERE BOTH IN THE U.K. WHEN THIS WAS TAKEN.    Nicholas Mwangi (top left) was left in charge during that time, and it was he who got this photo taken.     Not every one was actually in the photo - but it is interesting to look back..........The majority are all doing well in different spheres, though two (Peter Kalulu and Paul Ngugi have died).     Four are in full time Christian Ministry ( Moses Ongonga a senior pastor with A.I.C. and Jotham Chege an Archdeacon with the Anglican Church,
and Christopher Kipkosgei a pastor with a pentecostal church in Eldoret, and his brother Anthony Bones a pastor with Africa Gospel Church in their largest church in Nairobi.    All happily married with their own families.
John Ngugi and David Koech are both Accountants - David in the U.S.A.     Daryl Peacock Green became Director of TFH in 2011 - today is the 17th Anniversary of his marriage to Carol.     Our son  Steve and his wife Anji who married in January of the same year were Best Man and Maid at their Wedding.
Sarah Njeri is a Bank Manager, Catherine now married and Mum to Tyndale Cottage working for TFH.
Joseph Kihara and Peter Wangolo also both work for TFH,     Sam Mwangi is a taxi driver in town.
Anthony Wanyama a business man in town, as is also Nicholas Mwangi.        Daniel Kinyanjui is a hotel waiter in Nairobi.   Charles is an evangelist with Youth with a Mission stationed in Ethiopia and recently married.   William, hoping to set himself up as a Dairyman having worked successfully  in  working up a Dairy in Town.     David Senoga is Director of an Urban Garbage Collection business in Nakuru and  doing well.
We are happy to still know them and to see them building their own lives and families, AND for many, many MORE from Testimony House still,    AND from Jacaranda, Drakeley and Tyndale.    Life goes no - not without challenge and sometimes pain - but it DOES go on, and God goes along with it, to offer opportunities to each one of us.    

========================================

has been a busy month so far, but each day has had its blessing, and we are all glad - even with continuing heavy RAIN and severe COLD - to say that all are well and glad to be living and working together.  ALSO last Saturday (Esther's Birthday) we really had a good time together with the Greens from UK and the Greens from Eldoret Kenya.     We shared a meal together and celebrated being family together   -    we missed the remaining members still living in the U.K. but we did managed to talk on the phone - even saw our latest grandchild - Liam Alexander - via SKYPE.           Daryl and Carol are expecting to celebrate their Wedding today as well, though we have not so far seen them.     TO-DAY the weather has been wonderful - blue sky and warm sunshine.      Everyone taking advantage of the pool to SWIM and swim, and swim.     And I - by the grace of God and prayers of many - was able to pay out the due College Fees of seven of our twelve youngsters about to commence a new term.     No mean feat considering it is money that has to be found over and above our normal housekeeping .      We have truly PRAISED GOD.


TO CLOSE FOR THIS WEEK - I just wanted to include the picture to the right.     I liked it, and I used it recently when speaking on the topic of a 'Virtuous Woman'  Partway through I had said -
'A Virtuous Woman will strengthen her husband, and give confidence to her children.   Men, for all their proclaimed masculinity, are more often the gender most at risk in losing their self confidence and assurance.    When a man falls and fails, it is the WOMAN who can lift him up and push him to success.   Virtuous Women are not merely sexual conveniences.  NO!  God created them to HELP the MAN to hang on to, and grow into his intended MANHOOD.   She was made to an integral part of the Man, his inner moral fibre.   Somehow a VIRTUOUS woman, a woman with God, has 'power' to make a man to BE a man - she standing with and behind him - quite a package!.   
IN THE PICTURE the man is seen to be STRONG, not because of himself, but because he knows the woman is at his back to secure him, assuring and encouraging him in love and compassion.   God sent the woman to DO this.   It is her SERVICE to God FOR the Man.    A Virtuous woman will do it.      Will YOU?           As I looked at this photo for myself I felt very much how the man in the picture was thinking of his wife - Very much the same way I have learnt over years to see and appreciate my own dear wife.     It has taken ALL she has to make me and help me to be the Man I am.   I thank God for her; for her love, her patience and her endurance all along.      Keep it going you sisters who are also wives.      And you husbands be meek and humble enough to recognise what you have in your wife.

Much Love to you all in Jesus

John and Esther

A BREAK JUST TO CELEBRATE

WELL HERE WE BOTH ARE.   IT IS MY DEAR ESTHER'S 69TH Birthday TODAY!    On the 14th August it was our 42nd Wedding Anniversary as well.     A great Marriage we have enjoyed and DO enjoy.     A wonderful Wife, AND Mother.  A wonderful Woman!    
Well I hope you will all excuse me if I pass up writing the Blog today.     Our son Steve, and his wife (her Birthday was on our Anniversary Day) plus   our two grandchildren, Tonia and Eric are ALL with us JUST FOR THE DAY, from England.   They are here having a brief visit to Mombasa and Anjie's father, and made the great effort to be with us today.
VERY SPECIAL, and tonight there will be a party for US, with our son Manu, daughter Helen, and son Daryl, Carol his wife, and our grandchildren Jesse, Becky and Jeremy all together...... SO rejoice with us.
Much Love to you all in Jesus Name, and thank you for being part of us, part of both the  small and the EXTENDED family.        Wish you could ALL be here as well - WHAT a Gathering that would be.
OUR SPECIAL Love and Thanksgiving to Michael, Janet, and baby Liam,  to Elisabeth, Prem, Rachel and John-finney; AND to my Sister, Pat, nephew Harvey, and Marion.      We know you will have rejoiced with us too.

John and Esther

RAGS TO REMEDY

A TIBETAN MONK?    No, just one of the boys from Testimony House finishing off a straw hat he had found lying around. Richard Ochieng was not so old when this was taken way back in the early 80s. He was probably just about 6 years old then. Now he is a local business man of 35, happily married with three children. His wife just recently having given birth to their third child, a son.
'Dicky' always had a great sense of humour, which has stood him in good stead over the years.    He often remembers Testimony, and will arrive spontaneously with a Gift of food or other needed commodity JUST when our prayers had been on the way to Father.    Always joyous and glad to be alive, Richard is one who having arrived  VERY young (he was ten months old) has never known another home, and always been glad for it.    A true 'son' of Testimony, and one that we can always be happy and glad for.     And the years go by more come in, year by year.
Just this week another of our family in Testimony House called in.    He also works locally in Eldoret, and is married with four children now.    George Agusioma has continued to be a hard working family man, building what he himself lost early in life.    Both he AND Richard are Believers, and attend church with their wives and children.    Something truly to be Thankful for.     And there are many more that we can look back upon AND also now see grown up and successful in life and spirit.    Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Something to bring GREAT JOY to us and, an inward SMILE at the satisfaction created by SEEING the Grace of God at work.
Of course the picture above right  is of a REAL Tibetan Monk.............

=========================================== 

ONE WEEK HAS GONE BY since Daryl commenced his sabbatical, (he has been in Nairobi most of the time) and since I have once more found myself sitting at my old desk in the Director's Office.     Well, it felt a little strange for the first day or two, but then I kind of fell back into it all.     We are a little straightened just now, but able to walk on day by day.     My main worry was about getting about.      I have been a little nervous about driving myself around town for a few years.    I had one or two near misses in traffic, and felt that my reflexes were not what they were in the face of increasing traffic in our crowded streets.    I had let Daryl do all the driving.

However, although I still feel unable to drive in town, I have managed to get about, and one of our older School drivers has now agreed to ferry me around the Town when I need to go there.      Of course Daryl has been doing a great deal more than be my chauffeur.   He has dealt with daily business which is quite diverse in the town and its environs.    Apart from physically being the one to actually GO, I now have to try to navigate once more in areas I had given up - such as Banking, and other matters relative to running this ministry.     Rather daunting when I thought about it - but once again I am finding the Lord with me as I GO, and am managing rather well.       Yes I miss having D around, but on the other hand I am not dead yet by any means, and needed to remember it.      Will need your prayers still though.

Our NEW 'Estate Office' managed by our newly appointed Manager, Moses Githambothi is working VERY well, and has already proved itself a needed innovation.     This week we have also taken one of our Certified Public Accountants from the Finance Office  to be part of the Estate Office Team.    From the Beginnng I have been the one to run the Finances of Testimony Faith Homes.    But when we started the Schools it became necessary to open a second Account for the School Transactions alone.    Thus we commenced a Finance Office, which now has a staff or five.      BUT they did not take on the Accounts for the Children's Homes.    I continued to control this area of the Finances myself.     THEN when Daryl took over from me, he took on the finance himself, though he was not as qualified as I am.     THIS WEEK I have handed over responsibility for Homes Finance to Mr. Dan Kipkogei, CPA, the young well qualified clerk transferred to the Estate Office.     He will control the Books, and also be financially responsible for the finance related to the various Self Help Projects under Moses Githambothi's direction.      This will we think make things much easier generally.     

SCHOOL nationwide has now closed for the 'summer' holidays.    This will be for a period of THREE weeks only.      The 3rd and last Term of the year will end in late October and then the LONG Christmas Holiday will begin - the School will not open again until January 2014!!!

The WEATHER continues to be COLD 12-16 Celsius, and WET with quite  lot of rain, with forecasters reporting it may stay and continue on until the end of September.      Not very unusual.      But it is a fact that THIS year has been unduly cool and rainy throughout.      Only about two weeks sunshine that could be enjoyed.     Temperatures low generally.       Not BAD.    Quite enjoyable weather in all, and little discomfort if any - no water shortage, no excessive heat!!    Thank you Lord.

This is week I must leave you a little shorter than usual.    Some might sigh with relief!    I have not commented on the AIRPORT FIRE in Nairobi.    It is a very serious episode.    I may comment next week.  We can be glad for so few casualties, but perhaps apprehensive for the future.    It IS thought that the possibility of foul play may still not be ruled out.     We shall see.

God Bless you all, keep you safe, and Assured in Jesus Name

John and Esther      

PEACE AND WAR !!

WELL here is Testimony House taken from our VOXY Toyota, parked in front of Green Cottage, through one of the side windows.     It is just as it was when we first moved here in December 1972 forty one years ago.
It can be interesting to see an image of something and to look back.     SO much has happened here in these 41 years - not all of it happy or easy to bear.
Many wonderful, even glorious events have taken place here.   Births and deaths, comings and goings, success and failure.     The actual IMAGE in this picture does not display any of this, any more than it displays the 60 or so years PREVIOUS to our arrival, through which it had existed.     History has always fascinated me - both the known, and the conjectured.    And even history in the making - this present, current life experience; something that also is not even hinted at by looking at this image of Testimony House in 2013;  there is no apparent realisation of the 40 boys and girls, young people that call it home, and reside within its mud walls today.   Amazing.

In my Office in the Administration Building, there stands a wooden chest.    It used to belong to an elderly lady missionary friend of ours, Patty Drakeley.   Patty had arrived in Uganda circa 1923 as a CMS missionary.    She eventually founded and ran the first Teacher Training School there, and was awarded an MBE by the Queen.     She passed away to Jesus aged 93 in 2003 and the wooden chest - actually a portable ORGAN - came to us.     It had been made by the ESTEY Organ Company in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, probably around 1910.     Jacob Estey was an orphan and had been born in 1814.     He ran away from the Orphanage as a youth, and put himself to learn the Plumbing Trade.    At 21 he arrived in the town of Brattleboro and worked in a Plumbing Shop - which he later bought and so commenced a long and successful business career (he died at 76 in 1890.  
In the 1840s Jacob had seen the rise of an innovative and popular musical item known as a Melodium.   Some were actually being sold in Brattleboro.     in 1856 Jacob Estey was able to establish his own organ manufacturing company - the first to actually bare his name - the Estey & GREEN Reed Organ Company.
Patty Drakely must have had her Box of Music from Vermont shipped out for her when she first arrived by steamer in Uganda, from England where she had been born.       It was no doubt used to the fullest, and must have travelled with her to many locations in Uganda.      How many times must its harmonious tones been part of Worship and Praise.     A very different world and time.      Slower, quieter, less brash and impatient.         I am glad to see it today, recently refurbished and put in working order.    The original bellows that pumps the air through to the Reeds that produce the sound had long since perished.   Now they have been replaced and this handy, hundred year old, little chest organ has been given a new lease of life.
A remnant from another Time, a window full of imaginary images and history.   A silent witness to an adventurous past able at any moment to enter into the present as quietly reverent as when first created.    It stands in the Office of the Director here in Testimony Faith Homes, a reminder of another day, and another ORPHAN who knew someone also called GREEN.     What a co-incidence, and what an encouragement to other orphans..........

The Ebb and flow of life brings constant change of scene and human activity and experience.   This year has been full of it.        Since February we have been wrestling with a human sadness.      Carol walked out on Daryl.      Daryl was devastated, and has tried all that he can to bring her home again; so far without success.

Our Board of Management (of which Esther and I are both part) have felt very concerned, and finally, last night at an especially convened Meeting, decided to ask Daryl to take a Sabbatical Leave of Absence for six months, whilst he and Carol both pursue Counselling in regard to their Marriage and their Christian Commitment.     It is felt that Daryl cannot be the Role Model required of a Principal Officer in a Christian Charity in his present situation.       We cannot say more about this.    We have of course seen it coming, and the fact that six months has already gone by without any sign of improvement (Carol is still unwilling to return home) does not bode well.       Well of course Daryl will still live practically next door to us, so as family we shall no doubt still see each other frequently, but as far as his work and position in that work is concerned he will be AWAY.         This will mean that I will - at least for the next six months - be once more sitting in as Executive Director.  I feel confident God will be with me, and that I shall cope.    BUT it is a set back, and a disappointment.  Our prayer is, of course, that Daryl and Carol will accept the need for Counselling and that they will together find a way back to God and to one another.  If not, then at the end of the six months Sabbatical it may be Daryl will be unable to take up his position again, and we shall need to look for another............All of this should have been properly dealt with earlier.     We feel the Lord has not been happy for our prevarications.    I must personally accept my own failure in this respect, and trust that we might all find His Mercy and Grace once more open up to us.    Esther and I stand in need of your prayers therefore, and indeed all the Ministry here is obviously suffering attack.
BUT there are good things happening as well.      We have just employed a 41 year old married man, a member of our Church Fellowship living locally with his family to be our new Farm Manager and  Manager of Personnel.       He has trained as a Baker and Business Manager, and is a committed Christian from a Christian family.    He started on the 1st August.     This means that the progress of the Bakery, Dairy, Poultry Scheme and the two Allotments will now be under his management, removing a great deal of work from me during this next six months.      Moses Githambothi will also be endeavouring to improve Christian Commitment amongst our 70 or so staff including houseparents, and to engender a Team Spirit at all levels.    He is a quiet and gentle man, and is already well known by staff and children together.     Moses and his wife have two young girls, both in Primary School.
The Re-registration process for TFH as a Charitable Children's Institution is now completed and the Application before the National Assembly well in time.     This is always quite a time consuming job, and it is good to be through with it.     Acceptance is usually to be taken as automatic.
We have also augmented a Monday Afternoon Fellowship for ALL of our TEN Houseparents.   We (Esther and I) meet socially together with them for prayer and conversation from 2 - 4p,m, every Monday afternoon.      It has been greatly blessed,

OUTSIDE THE CLOUDS, grey and rain heavy, press down up us.    But they do give way to blue sky and even sunshine from time to time - just to remind us that LIGHT and WARMTH are always just behind the clouds...... however DARK beneath them may be, the LIGHT has never gone  -   we shall find it still there at the last.      Thus if we have been suffering a Winter Season, we see signs of a spiritual SUMMER beginning to peek through for us ALL.     Pray on with us please.

=================================== 

NOW SOME LOCAL COLOUR!    Once again ELDORET is in the NEWS, and once again the topic of  'same sex marriage' is brought to the fore.     In the Kenya Daily NATION newspaper for Friday of this week we are confronted with the Headline -

ACTIVISTS SEEK NOD FOR 

SAME-SEX MARRIAGES!

In our area of North Rift Valley activists from Eldoret are asking Central Government to amend sections of the NEW Constitution to allow for 'same-sex' marriages.     they are reported as saying that -

'We can no longer hide behind the cloak of religious and cultural values

to deny some citizens their rights and freedoms. 

They have a right to equal protection and privacy before the law.'

The one speaking, Mr. Ken Wafula of the National Association of Human Rights was joined by Mr. Nick Omito of the Centre for Human Rights & Democracy who said -

'Gay practises are prevalent in our society and any form, of harassment

and discrimination is immoral and undermines humanity's pursuit

of freedom and equality.....

ALL of these statements are of course just a load of 'Cods-wallop'.       First and foremost, WHO is HIDING behind Religious and cultural Values..?     Rather those against such activities are instead putting the LAWS and VALUES of God, humanity's Creator, in front of the creature - to remind him of what OUGHT to be.

These 'men' speak from a world mindset that is without God; which has excluded God and even consigned Him and his values to the rebellious human dustbin.      Any that BELIEVE in the existence and character of God, as they are revealed to us in the universe, have no need to HIDE behind them for they are the only basis and foundation for all TRUE LAW and value.    They STAND ALONE, PARAMOUNT AND ABOVE ALL.

Neither do those who put GOD first, believing and relying upon His Existence, believe that any individual or collective part of humanity has any given right to set aside the LAWS OF GOD that govern the well being of the universe, including human society.       A SINNER - the one living opposite to the WILL and PURPOSE of God - is condemned already, while he waits to DIE.      To reverse or set aside this FACT will need a total change of life style that will turn away altogether from what is offensive to God.

AGAIN, to say that 'Gay practises are prevalent in our society' is, to say the least, - for the moment - grossly untrue.     Less than 6% can hardly be considered a prevalent, or a majority situation.     

ALSO the Bible clearly informs us that we should be ready to CRY OUT, BLOW the WHISTLE and WARN those who may be heading toward disaster in their life style as it rebels against God.   We are not to condone what is UNGODLY in humanity, but to oppose it - in love;   that is with compassionate and sympathetic understanding that we are ALL proved to rebel against the TRUTH of GOD, and that God Himself wants us to turn away and LIVE rather than perish.    Christ Himself said that he did not come to set aside or ignore the LAW, but to confirm it and reveal how necessary it is to KEEP it.

I do not CONDEMN THE HOMOSEXUAL, but I will not condone his homosexuality.    I cannot love the sinner and love his SIN also.     

What a sad world;   Why are we so blind as not to be able to discern these matters more simply.    Why ares the God fearing to bad at communicating the good, whilst sinners seem so lucid and unhindered in communicating the BAD?

IT is RAINING outside now as I write.. .....VERY COLD as well.      But sunshine will come soon.

My dears we thank you for all your love and good will in the Lord.     Accept of our own love for YOU in His Name - always.

John and Esther.