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.