LENDING A HAND TO THE NEEDY

HI DAD!    happy Hero's Day!

You are my Hero, 

Together with Mum

you made my life to shine.

God Bless you,

Found this Message on my Mobile Phone last Monday which was Kenya's Hero's Day - a Day set aside to remember our Heroes!     It was once known as Kenyatta Day, Father of the Nation's Day

The FIRST Kenyan President's DAY!    The HERO that fought against Colonial Rule and WON.   Certainly a man of outstanding vision and leadership ability.  A man to be remembered        BUT as my picture declares 'Heroism is MORE than merely slaying dragons.'      I do not see myself to be a 'hero' in any particular sense.     I am just someone doing what he felt he needed to do!    OR, as one writer has put it -

'A hero is a man

who does what he can'.

No Big Deal - just doing what comes naturally.      I felt somewhat startled to read this message sent by my son - Was I - AM I - a hero?    George thinks I am, and even links Esther my wife in with me, appraising us both as being worthy of such a designation.  But what did we DO that has made George see us as such?   We took him in, cared for him, loved him.     As far as we knew when he came to stay with us in Testimony House he was a total orphan, but two years later, in 1986, his mother appeared, looking for him.     She said she wanted him back in her care and would come again in a month to take possession of him.    He was, of course, on a Court Order, and for George to be handed to this lady's care it had to be proved first that she WAS his mother and then that she was capable of caring for him.   However, on her return a month later, George all excited and ready to go with her, she declared that she could not look after him as she had no permanent home and wandered from town to town.     She said Goodbye to her son and walked off down the drive from our front door, never to be heard of again.    George followed her to the gate, and our hearts broke for his disappointment and broken heart.     He was then twelve years old.     He had been abandoned twice.

George with his son.

He remained with Esther and me for another eleven years, completing his Secondary Education, and then in 1998 went on to do a Course in Sales & Marketing.     He then worked in Insurance for some time, marrying in 2007.    He now works about forty kilometres away and calls in from time to time.    But why does he consider us his 'heroes'?     He was always quiet, well behaved; no trouble at all.   He was easy to love!     We did not have to 'suffer' because of him, or even have to 'fight' for him.     But I suppose we DID stand by and with him, as we did for our own children and all the others that made up our Testimony Family.

We DID suffer and fight for some of the others who themselves were uninspired to work hard at School, and at times not willing to fight the Devil for themselves.

There were days when it was hard for US to bare them, believe and trust in them. Yet each one was, we believed, brought to us in faith that we would not run out on any one of them and do our best to be dutiful and responsible parents - but still not 'heroes' in our own estimation.       We have only done what we felt we SHOULD do. 

I read today these words by a well known celebrity -

'Too many children in foster care

are falling through the cracks...!   

BE A HERO

take time to learn about 'Adoption' today!

An interesting comment indeed.     Here in Kenya the Government has been pushing its own fostering programme to the limit, with hundreds of thousands opening up their family to foster a child;  they are even paid for it, all in the effort to empty the national streets of all homeless children.     BUT, recently in the press it was clearly declared under the banner headline - ORPHANS' PROGRAMME HAS FAILED. - 'Labour and Social Welfare Committee Members raised concern for the effectiveness of the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) cash transfer programme.       More than 30% of foster children run away back to the streets they were picked up from.      Foster parents tend to take the money and USE the child as a domestic........no love in such homes or families only disadvantage and greed.   Most of us who work on the ground with children in Children's Homes KNOW this Program would fail from the onset.      It is not so easy to BE a REAL parent, and much less easy to be a RESPONSIBLE parent to your own flesh and blood, let alone those of another tribe or colour.

I often look back at my own 'blood' parents.     They both turned their backs on me.   To me this does not speak of heroism.        I am thankful to God for choosing them to be the substance and means of my creation and existence, but they RAN from their further duty in providing me with loving care, guidance, and in risking their own happiness and convenience for my ultimate good.     I was NOT fostered  -  and as an answer for a homeless orphan I still find it hard to recommend it.     BUT I was ADOPTED!     And indeed I have adopted FOUR of our own in addition to our blood born kids.         We have endeavoured to BE parents to our own, our adopted, and many others we welcomed into our home, that we could not adopt or foster - but could care for.      I suppose that might be conceived as 'heroic'  -  but we never felt it to be so, or even now looking at it in retrospect do we feel it WAS so.      It was just in our hearts.      It may not have always been easy.

It was not always comfortable, rewarding or satisfying.      We struggled to understand the nature and character of youngsters whose antecedents we had no idea of.      We suffered and wrestled with the effects of unrequited love, rejection, and open hostility at times.     We had to FIGHT often to avoid being found short of GRACE and Forgiveness when we were robbed, reviled, and ashamed by those WE had set ourselves to love without condition - just as God has loved US.

Of course there were, and continue to be, little stars and 'brilliants' of light to encourage us, and lift up our heart,   But they have not been  the majority.      It is NOT easy to bring up a child in the way that the BIBLE says they should go.   We can meet with resistance, un-thankfulness, arrogance..............without any excuse to turn away from, or give up on, ANY child that we have accepted responsibility for as a parent.        This demands Endurance, Courage of ones Convictions, a lively faith in GOD,  Constant Love, and never ending Grace.    Perhaps these ARE qualities that might be found in a HERO, but WE never thought about it; we just lived by the Grace of God, and let it over-flow around us.    

A Parent should NEVER give up on his children.     Stick with them, stand by them, FIGHT the Enemy for them night and day.       Neither of us have set out to be heroes, any more than Christ and the Apostles set out to make a name for themselves on Earth or even in Heaven.    We have just done what He put upon our hearts to do, having himself provided ALL we needed to DO it as we went.       It has been ALL of HIM.    He ends up with ALL the Honour and Glory - He is Himself, finally, THE HERO.    None the less we are glad if only one of the children He gave us to care for can think of us as in this way -  Thank you Georgie!    And thank you all the rest of you - each one remembered and loved as you each deserve - without reservation or condition.   It has been a privilege every time to be trusted to by God to care for you as part of his care and plan for your life.

My brother and sisters the world is over-flowing with unwanted Men, Women, AND children.    Without asking WHY they have become unwanted, let us remember to REMEMBER them.       Perhaps especially the children since there is great prospect of saving and rehabilitating them in time for them to still make a contribution to the decades ahead - should time permit!      And, yes I can see you might need to be ready to take a chance, a risk that could end up being a truly 'heroic' effort, if you WERE to ADOPT a needy child. But still I find it good to say to you - BE A HERO!

He who would valiant be 

'Gainst all disaster,

Let him in constancy

Follow the Master.

There's no discouragement

Shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent

TO BE A PILGRIM

With our LOVE always

John and Esther, and ALL of us in Testimony

SURELY, ONE MUST EAT!!

One of our M.P.s ....'tucks into a generous helping of chicken and chips at a Hague restaurant on October 16th 2003  -   He is among legislators who, when not attending the Trial at the I.C.C. while away the long hours talking, eating, and taking and posing for pictures in the Dutch City.     They all travelled to the Netherlands 'to show solidarity' with Deputy President William Ruto and Mr. Joshua arap Sang, wh are being Tried for post Election violence (circa 2007)

THIS PHOTO &  BLURB appeared on the front page of the Daily Nation one day this week.    Seems unfair really that one cannot eat ones food in peace, if not in privacy.   The Honourable Member will no doubt suffer some annoyance at this fiery dart, shot from a well placed 'candid camera'.   There may be room to sympathise with him; he was,after all, only passing by the Hague to add a little support and goodwill for our Deputy President at a time of need.     Surely he can be allowed a meal as he hops from plane to plane.   We should encourage his humanity...........should we not?

BUT was he RIGHT to be there in the first place?    Was it an absolute necessity for him to  be there, in the vicinity of the Hague, staying at an ultra expensive hotel, just for the purpose of encouraging the D.P. ?Could he afford it? -  or was he just there because the Government offered to pay?     It looks as if the finance was in fact funded by everyman through the Revenue Department.       I have no problem with seeing this man enjoying his chicken and chips -  my problem is that his flight, to and fro from the Hague, his accommodation, transport and appetite may have been paid for by the TAX PAYER,        This would be a waste of hard earned money.       It would be bathing in the blood and sweat of every man, woman, and child poured unnoticed and unappreciated into the National Economy.        It would be Selfish, Gluttony at its worst.      It would be just the same as looking at the mad Roman Emperor NERO, lounging in his Palace sitting room, idly playing his lute (guitar) as he watched his City, the City of Rome BURN!     Awful.      
YES we might all feel guiltless to eat when we feel the need .......but to eat a plate of food (as I also mentioned last week) so expensive that it could afford the provision of an ordinary family's food for a WEEK seems just TOO BAD.       And to eat that plate of food when you know it has been paid for by those who GO WITHOUT what they need for themselves alone!!!!    Oh my!     Is Mr. Rutto pleased with this display of WASTEFUL EXTRAVAGANCE?  - (even if only personally spent).    Can the unemployed, hungry man in the street, his wife and children, be happy about it?     Is God happy about it.       IS KENYA a nation to be built only upon the blood and hunger of its people, until nothing is left further to sustain it?    Until it is made barren, and uninhabited,  its cities and mansions left to decay and moulder away to nothing.
IN ELDORET THIS AFTERNOON  our vehicle could not move in a seething crowd of humanity that looked much poorer than it did a year ago, jostling upon the roads and pavements seemingly without joy or aim.      There is a change upon this town.    For the first time in forty years I felt there was a human despair upon the population.

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THIS RATHER GRIM representation of early Man is said to resemble Man's Common Ancestor - the man from whom ALL mankind has sprung!
This Week, in the Daily Nation,there was report of the discovery of a human skull said to be in the region of 2 million years old (??) unearthed almost completely intact.       The writer of the Article expresses GREAT SURPRISE and excitement that close study of this Skull suggests that all ancient remains of MAN now point to an assumption that he has evolved from only ONE common ancestor.
In other words there were not many different species of Man in different parts of the world as had previously been thought.....NO!  It now seems that Man sprang from Africa, and from Africa alone, and from only ONE basic primogenitor.    Science is expressing amazement that ALL Mankind sprang from ONE original source!         Are you feeling somehow confused.    I mean didn't we all know this before!      I mean doesn't the BIBLE, for example, tell us that God made MAN, and only one.     Out of that Man He produced and moulded EVE, and they were the FIRST couple on earth from which ALL the human race has sprung.       Yes of course it does say this very clearly and firmly.      It is science that has encouraged an opposite view.      I find it VERY gratifying that yet again science has been forced to consider that they made a miscalculation - a MISTAKE.    The Bible is RIGHT.   Mankind is ONE just as GOD is ONE.
No other species of a man - no other GODS.
Well of course this news has not pleased everyone, but it HAS pleased ME, since I have always intuitively felt that all MEN were created the SAME, and that all fell into rebellion against their Creator, but are all still loved equally and given opportunity to find their way back to God and into the knowledge of His Love.    GOD, our maker, loves us all, and He wants us to love each other as brothers and sisters of ONE Father.   This is the 'duty' of Man.      To know this, and to give your life to demonstrating it, could change the world - it will certainly change YOU...........

.....THAT IS IF YOU HAVE TIME.        Time is definitely running our - definitely we do not have untold millenia in which to further evolve into greater perfection.     Indeed we may only have DAYS left to us to work even a little towards such a goal.       This was again brought home to me to day reading yet another Article in the NATION.       One entitled 'Outdoor Air Pollution - a Leading Cancer Cause'.   WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer has stated that 'The air we breath has become polluted with a mixture of cancer causing substances - We now KNOW that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.'       AGAIN I do not find this statement in the least surprising given the pollution we see everywhere.      But maybe we have taken it for granted that there is clean air enough for us all to survive on  -  Yes, survive on, but not live from.       I have mentioned some other time that in Japan there are cities so air polluted that the Authorities have had to install Oxygen Ports through out such cities, to enable citizens ENOUGH air to exist in them.      I assume people have to PAY.   It is truly terrible to have to accept that MAN who was given the task of taking care of this Planet should be the main cause of its terminal illness; the cause of it's imminent death.       SORRY, I know I do carry on a lot about these things, but every day I find myself confronted with even more proof that it IS so!.

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AND SO TO THE CLOSE OF ANOTHER WEEK.       But not before I show you some good photos of a creature quickly in danger of becoming extinct - the RHINO.        Daryl's son, Jessie too these photos recently on a school trip to Nakuru National Park.      I have always been rather fond of the Rhino.   He is at once enormously arrogant AND humorously foolish.      Huge in armour plating, he seems to exude total indifference to all.         Now the Chinese want, as they have apparently always wanted, the great tusk on the end of the Rhino's nose.      Some talk of it being (ground down and taken in with your tea) an active aphrodisiac!    This has to be SO unbelievably RIDICULOUS that one must indeed be sorry for the defenceless Rhino.

All things bright and beautiful.

all creatures great and small.

all things wise and wonderful.

The Lord God made them ALL

Each little flower that opens

Each little bird that sings

He made their glowing colours

He made their tiny wings.

A favourite childhood song sung much by me as a child.

Strangely as I grow older, and hopefully growing into a child of God,

I find myself singing it, humming it, more than often.

Perhaps because I grieve for the Earth

and Earth's creatures.

Our Love and Prayers flow out to you. Thank your for all YOUR love and prayer, appreciated and coveted moment by moment, and THANK you for walking with us.....

John and Esther

     

A WANDERING MIND

WOW this photo goes back to circa 1983 - THIRTY years ago!!      

ALL gone into the world now, including Mum and Dad Jensen from Denmark who were then Houseparents in Jacaranda Cottage. Yes this was Jacaranda in 1983.       Children growing up all the time, some admissions some departures.  And even Mum and Dads in each Home can come and go.     Perhaps they cause the greatest sense of loss, when the leave, since they are the ones to hold the family together.      All have come to offer themselves as parents at the first, but not all discover that they are able to parent so many all at once.      Some come to devote their lives, and some endure only for a short time and leave.       They leave a family behind, forsaken and somehow orphaned all over again.        Jacaranda has seen seven sets of parents since it began as a Home for Children in 1975.      Of course Esther and I knew parents, in any Home, would have to retire at some point and new ones take over - but we expected long-stayers.     WE stayed 28 years as parents in Testimony House, and saw the benefit of it in the children that stayed with us.   Joshua and Miriam in Jacaranda stayed 19 years and found the same thing.     However,  when it comes to leaving it has been, and we think always will be a hard road to travel at the very time.    LATER the hurt heals, and even for ourselves we are seeing many children come back to seek us out with good memories of our family life together, and with adult understanding about how the time had to come when parting was such a bitter pill to swallow.    In fact, strange to say, all those who lived in a particular house seem to see the different parents as ONE as they look back and visit.      Of course they remember the individuals INDIVIDUALLY, but somehow it is as if each Mum and Dad stand as one so that on returning to the HOUSE it remains the Family that it was, and the current 'parents' composite of all that were there before them.

But Jacaranda as a Home has had the most 'Ups and Downs'.       The most changes of Houseparent, and the most troubled children and young people.    Since Joshua and Miriam left in 2003 we have seen three different couples take their place.     Currently we have Joseph and Beatrice Rop, now in their fifties, taking on the 'family'.
The have been with us since March 2009.     For the first time since Joshua and Miriam left we have begun to see the ensuing disturbance and insecurity give way to a peace-filled and happy Family once more.   We are grateful for Joe and Beatrice; grateful for their patient endurance that has sprung from a true desire to bring God's Love into the lives of children.      They are an encouragement to the rest of us.
We are praying together to see that same Strength and Devotion to God, carry all our houseparents onward, and US too, though it is true Esther and I are now tucked away as 'grandparents' to all four Families. Not always easy to face every day - but for God we can and will face anything.   We are here for HIM.

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RECENTLY one of our cows gave birth to a calf - a little girl cow.    Regretfully her mother passed away a day or two later, but the calf has survived and is doing well, strong and full of curiosity about life.   Now we have TWO heifer and one bull calf growing up with THREE surviving cows that still give us all plenty of MILK.

All the cows are on the Jacaranda Compound now in their new enclosure.      They seem very contented and happy in their new surroundings, but we are still hoping to lay a cement floor to their enclosure to avoid the danger of foot rot and other diseases that can be picked up from mud and waterlogged ground.   They spend about half their time locked up in a fairly roomy communal coral, but they also do go out to graze for some hours of the day.

We hope to see our heifers grown up into good 'milkers' - but the bull calf may be slaughtered for meat later on,      Also one of our current milkers is now old, and may herself have to be taken off to the Slaughter-house as well.      She has served us well, and many others before we got her.     I think she has had a fairly happy and rewarding time with us.  They serve us, but we try not to see them as 'possessions to be used' without kindness and thankfulness and perhaps most of all 'appreciation'.   We must remember WHO made them, and that HE loves and cares about them - and that He has entrusted us with the task of treating them accordingly for His sake.

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IT HAS STILL BEEN RAINING during this week again.       Testimony House and Jacaranda Cottage have both been troubled by their leaking roofs.     Not pleasant to have your floors and belongings suddenly saturated with water.     Both roofs have been a trouble since we moved under them!    Both built a long time ago, and not easy to repair now.    We have always been faced with the prospect of one day having to literally REMOVE them and then REPLACE them.     But this will not be easy and demands that we seek good expert advice as to how we can do this - especially where in some cases we will have to somehow join the NEW to the existing.     Not a very happy prospect.       On the other hand we have lived with them now for many years.      No one became ill, were washed away, or died.       God giveth more grace.....

TODAY our WATER Department has apologised for reduced Water supply in our area!    Rather surprising when it is understood that this has been the wettest year in forty years for our Country, and that the rivers are full.     WHERE IS the water going?     The pressure is certainly low, and some days water cannot find its way into our roof storage tanks.    Sometimes SO low it will not service the flush the toilet systems either in the Homes or the School.     Not easy to endure.           WELL, say the authorities, it is not that the supply is low, but that we do not have a big enough Holding Tank to be able to enable efficient CLEANSING of all the water that we need - we need MORE holding tanks - AND bigger dams!     Sad that they can make such statements AFTER the water has GONE, rather than before.       It is galling when those who should know better and are in fact PAID to know better, declare their own inability to look ahead, plan and provide for the future.     

Nevertheless we still should not grumble since there is still water in the tap.     MANY in other areas have no tap let alone water!    Life may begin to also cause US discomfort, but this alone will not kill us.

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BLUEBELLS may be a thing of the past - or so I read recently.   Their habitats are all being eaten up by human development.      The shady woodlands and copses of our countryside (in England) disappearing to make way for more housing estates.     Everything is disappearing - even here in Kenya.    OUR Wild-life is vanishing - with only a relative 'handful' of elephants, lions, rhinoceros (to name but a few) still existing compared to the huge numbers of the recent past.     Even these remnants are being constantly whittled away by poachers.   Nothing and no one seems able to stop this.    Eventually all we shall have left are photos, and other pictorial images to show to our children and grandchildren.     An Earth slowly being impoverished and plundered by its appointed Protector - MAN.     Man was appointed to CARE for Creation not destroy it, and selfishly use it up for his own base and carnal lusts.       But Man can 'rob his own grandmother for a shilling' so how much more will he rob for MORE than a shilling.        Governments accuse other nations of plundering their wealth - we hear this accusation all the time in relation to the ill use of the Colonialists in merely taking advantage of the Colonies rather than developing them.     Whether this is true or not, it is certainly true that Man continues to take advantage of himself, his kind.... and that without any conscience or compunction.    Just this week we have been told in Kenya that our Governments Audit has revealed yet another deficit - this time of more than 200 billion Kenya Shillings all gone astray - somewhere.    Yes, Man is a Robber, a Pillager of everything and everyone, and ANYTHING he can turn to his own profit  -  he is indeed his own worst enemy whilst at the same time being the Enemy of all Creation AS LONG AS HE REMAINS IN THE GRIP OF SATAN, AND DOES NOT TURN BACK TO GOD. Let Mankind be WARNED - Judgement is COMING!    Judgement more fearsome than any human kind, and one quite unable to be bought off with anything we have!

Tomorrow I shall be in the pulpit again in our Sunday Morning Fellowship.     I shall be sharing about the 5th Commandment ' Honour your Father and Mother....'      I tend to go through the TEN Commandants about every three or four years, and we have them posted up everywhere.    Forget them, forget GOD, and in the end NOTHING will be left in or upon the Earth.........BECAUSE they (the inhabitants of the Earth) have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant....(Isaiah 24v1-6  the whole chapter is worth careful prayerful thought!)

Our affectionate love to you all, each one.    You are Precious in His Sight.

Lovingly     John and Esther.

DO NOT CONFORM TO THE WORLD

THIS PHOTO IS OF A COTTAGE IN A TINY VILLAGE CALLED 'ALFRISTON' IN SUSSEX ENGLAND.
I have put it in here because it speaks of a bygone age!     And recently I have been considering how that time not only passes by, but at certain times seems to come to the end of a chapter, an age, an era.      THIS COTTAGE has stood for 800 years and seen time go by whilst remaining almost the SAME in its snug garden.    But different ERAS have seen changes in the world around it.   In its social life.   Things have gone on.     They have certainly gone on since I was born in May 1940.
I read just recently a comment from someone writing about those days and remembering what did not even EXIST then - ' No personal computers, no Internet, no cell phones, no calculators, no FM radio, no ATMs, no satellites - (until Sputnik), no Debit cards no cable TV, no MTV..........'      How DID people manage to live in those days without all this electronic and technical advance?    We lived very well indeed with less stress and perhaps less fear.     Just a hundred years and the whole world society has CHANGED even more radically and quickly than in the Industrial Revolution.     And by 1960 the introduction of Television began to shrink the world until now with mobile phones, the Internet, and Cable TV we can have the world IN our homes.      More than that we have speeded up the process of learning and 'knowing' EVERYTHING.          Reading in the PRESS we are confronted with what the Owners think will SELL the Paper -  Sensational news - mainly violent, corrupt, disappointing and tragic, and SEX.      Sex is probably number one - a close runner with Corruption.  
When I look at the photo above, and even remember my own childhood in the North and West of England between 1940 and 1960 I see little of what we endure in society today.      Of course crime and immorality and injustices existed.....but today it seems NOTHING ELSE EXISTS.      In this last few years we have seen civil unrest and political and religious terrorism destabilise the peace of the world.      The London Riots, still seem unbelievable.    But we have lived progressively with Famine, Disease, and Insurrection all over the globe.      And SINCE the 1960s it seems as if man cannot live apart from SEX.     Indeed Violence and SEX dominate our world scene.     And from sexual permissiveness and liberal manners awful statistics are available.      For example statistics show that adulterous behaviour is out of control.    The Kinsey Institute estimates that during their married lives 37% of American males will prove sexually unfaithful to their wives and 29% of their wives will commit adultery.
Adultery is family-obliterating behaviour that destroys the very heart of society, with devastating consequences for children.    According to social critic William Kirkpatric, divorce is "up 700% in this century, with most of the rise occurring in recent decades"   He also notes that "the pain of parental divorce is more difficult for a child to overcome than the death of a parent."        Teenage pregnancies are up worldwide, and with the the incidence of single parent 'families' rising.     AND more and more of those cases relating to people going on the rampage, killing without apparent reason, are found to be from 'one parent families.
THE WORLD has radically changed and LEFT BEHIND its old moral values and concepts.     This began I believe in the 40s, and began to be clearly SEEN in the 60s since when a NEW WORLD ORDER has come into being both in Political Science, and in MORAL and SPIRITUAL perception.     A BRAVE new world indeed.     Where is BEAUTY?    Where where is FAITHFULNESS?   Where is SPIRITUAL worth? As I have often felt in my heart - the evolutionary teaching that 'Men came from Apes and the Jungle' seems much less likely than that Men are turning to become APES, and are returning to the law of the Jungle.
Perhaps we should wake up with a start and realise what is happening to humanity - the Cartoon was drawn in 1922!

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THIS WEEK our weather has taken a turn for the better with deliciously warm and sunbathed days.

Also the Nation is quiet and slowly getting over the enormous shock of the West Gate Massacre.  BUT perhaps not feel quite as secure as before.       One of our old girls from Testimony House who is now a teacher away from here, lost her fiancee at West Gate.    He was there shopping and was one of those shot down.

ON WEDNESDAY OF THIS WEEK we received the three girls I mentioned Last Week.    They all arrived together with their Uncle and also their Pastor.       We officially Admitted them to the Homes, trusting that eventually the Children's Department will have them duly Committed to us via the Court.
PERIS, aged 16 is standing at the back of this photo, and to her left is Susan aged 13 and lastly Mary aged 8.     ALL three are suffering from severe Malnutrition, and Mary had been diagnosed as having HIV when she was born.     She had not been checked in all the years till now, but yesterday at our HIV/AIDS Ampath Clinic she was discovered to now be NEGATIVE.   Much Praise and Thanksgiving indeed.
Peris is staying now in Testimony House as part of their family, Susan in Tyndale Cottage and their family, and Mary in Drakeley Cottage and their family.    All three VERY happy and already settled in.     They have yet to be tested as to their academic ability and placed in their appropriate Class.    Not many weeks left of this last term - School closes on the 8th November.
We feel we have guided very much by the Holy Spirit in granting places for these sisters.    AMEN.!!

We also received a NEW cow calf last week.   Her poor mother unfortunately died giving birth to her, but the calf is strong and bright, and already the darling of all the children.     We still have THREE cows and three calves - one a bull calf.    All are doing well, and enjoying their new quarters in the boma near to Tyndale Cottage.     

LIFE HERE CONTINUES by His Grace, and His Love in and through you all.     The sun is shining, a light breeze like a breath of blessing moving about the compound, full of colour, freshness and peace.      It is as if 'time' stands still at times here.     His Word continues to order our lives and implant faith and confidence into all our hearts - no matter what is happening around us, or how adrift and alien the world might become.    The is something here in Testimony like the Cottage in the photo.   The World does batter upon our doors and fences at times, but we are KEPT by His Power, and so far we remain a WITNESS to the everlasting Commandments of God.

God Bless and be with each one of your, our dear friends, and co labourers with us.  

John and Esther