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Some years back I addressed the Mothers Union of the Anglican Diocese here in Eldoret. I spoke to them on 'Mother and Child'. I challenged them, and I now repeat the Challenge here in this week's Blog.
IS the Fire of Heavenly Love Burning in our Soul?'
'Can a woman forget her sucking child,
that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb?
Yea, they may forget.
YET I WILL NOT FORGET THEE - Isaiah 49v15
IN JAMES 1v27 (Bible New Testament) James briefly describes pure religion. He writes and says that it is ' To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself un-spotted from the world.' No doubt he would think even a Motherless child might need even greater charity.
When I came to Western Kenya is 1968 I found children in need, but the most of them were cared for by their immediate community. The Extended Family Tradition still worked for the orphan and widow then. Even in Eldoret in 1972 there were no children living on the Streets, destitute. BUT with the increase in Urbanisation things changed quickly. Old values began to break down, until in this present day they have all but disappeared, so that Adultery, Divorce, and plain Prostitution are the order of the day. Home-life continues to be threatened, and children are forced to become adults before they have truly understood their childhood, or family life. Some, a growing number, will never know the love or security of their own home and family.
With more than THREE million children homeless right now, in Kenya, a problem affecting future society, faces the Nation as a whole. The Government is propagating Fostering and Adoption as the way forward to combat this situation. FOUR YEARS ago the then Vice President of Kenya said that in his opinion, by the year 2020, ALL children now on the Nations streets would then be with 'Foster-parents' and Children's Orphanages would be non existent. Even with the inducement of proffered financial help in caring for an orphan or destitute child we are discovering it isn't working out the way the Government envisaged. Children still flood our streets. The number of needy children without home or proper care increases daily.
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WHERE IS THE FIRE OF HEAVENLY LOVE? Where are the Christians that truly Love and Care for each other - or is it that they ONLY care for those of their own Denomination? Selective Christians loving their OWN little group, or clan - a kind of Christian Tribalism. Look at Isaiah 58v6 with me for a moment. THIS IS STRONG STUFF FOR LENT!!!!
Soon to end _ Lent I mean, a season for going without prior to Easter. Those who observe it will once more be free to take up their self pleasing and comfortable life. Free to break the fast, so to speak, and once more free to indulge themselves at Christ's expense.
BUT GOD has another idea altogether about Fasting and what it entails.
He says in this Scripture -THIS is the fast I am looking for .....
'THAT YOU undo the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens,
When I came to Western Kenya is 1968 I found children in need, but the most of them were cared for by their immediate community. The Extended Family Tradition still worked for the orphan and widow then. Even in Eldoret in 1972 there were no children living on the Streets, destitute. BUT with the increase in Urbanisation things changed quickly. Old values began to break down, until in this present day they have all but disappeared, so that Adultery, Divorce, and plain Prostitution are the order of the day. Home-life continues to be threatened, and children are forced to become adults before they have truly understood their childhood, or family life. Some, a growing number, will never know the love or security of their own home and family.
With more than THREE million children homeless right now, in Kenya, a problem affecting future society, faces the Nation as a whole. The Government is propagating Fostering and Adoption as the way forward to combat this situation. FOUR YEARS ago the then Vice President of Kenya said that in his opinion, by the year 2020, ALL children now on the Nations streets would then be with 'Foster-parents' and Children's Orphanages would be non existent. Even with the inducement of proffered financial help in caring for an orphan or destitute child we are discovering it isn't working out the way the Government envisaged. Children still flood our streets. The number of needy children without home or proper care increases daily.
WHERE IS THE FIRE OF HEAVENLY LOVE? Where are the Christians that truly Love and Care for each other - or is it that they ONLY care for those of their own Denomination? Selective Christians loving their OWN little group, or clan - a kind of Christian Tribalism. Look at Isaiah 58v6 with me for a moment. THIS IS STRONG STUFF FOR LENT!!!! Soon to end _ Lent I mean, a season for going without prior to Easter. Those who observe it will once more be free to take up their self pleasing and comfortable life. Free to break the fast, so to speak, and once more free to indulge themselves at Christ's expense.
BUT GOD has another idea altogether about Fasting and what it entails.
He says in this Scripture -THIS is the fast I am looking for .....
'THAT YOU undo the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens,
and let the oppressed go free AND that YOU break every yoke.
IT IS TO give YOUR bread to the hungry
Bring the poor into YOUR house
That YOU cover the naked.....'
There is a great deal in this chapter to get to grips with in our confined and selfish lives. Let me ask you, humbly and meekly as Jesus might - DO YOU have room in your home for a motherless child, a hungry child, a naked child? Do you have the means to reach out to single mother? And, of course, this is just the very beginning......
IS THE FIRE OF HEAVENLY LOVE BURNING IN YOUR HEART for each other. For your neighbour, Christian or otherwise?
The Bible encourages us NOT TO LET THAT FIRE GO OUT!
How COLD is your heart right now? How impervious to the drift of what I am sharing here? Or is there yet a little warmth left there; a little warmth that might be kindled into a FLAME OF HEAVENLY LOVE.
When I had been in Kenya a Year I was unsatisfied and a little disillusioned. Life in Kenya was NOT what I had dreamt it might be. My personal ego felt let down, and I was missing home. IF I had given in then to the dictates of my carnal self; if I had not stopped feeling sorry for myself, I would have completely MISSED out. The Fire of Heavenly Love would never have even sparked in my soul. I would never have come across children whose lives had been damaged and injured;
I would not have met my wife, and we would never have built a home together for our very own three children - a home that expanded into an ever expanding family as more and more homeless children squeezed themselves into our hearts and lives. Between 1972 and 1998 our family rarely numbered less than than some 40 or 50 children. And since then we have added space for some hundred or so more so that there are now FOUR family homes. How have we been able to do this? We had no income of our own. No, we just had to trust God that as each child that came, GOD would provide for according to Matthew 6v6. And He did! He does it still. We tell HIM our needs, and He arranges for us to receive. We make no Appeal or Request to any other than God in Heaven.
.
I had started to take in children just six months before I first met Esther, my wife and partner. When we came to discuss marriage we had to agree on a few very important matters affecting the future.
I WAS CARING FOR 28 KIDS BY THEN, and each one needed love, patience and long suffering. Some would be a disappointment; each was a potential heart-breaker.
COULD WE make our own home and family the home and family of ANY other child God might send to us ...? Not all would be able to accept us as parents, or our family as theirs - there would be set backs, problems and tensions - even total rejection. Should we, could we, expose OUR children to such an atmosphere?
Could we be willing to forgo our own family privacy, freedom?
Could we be willing to do our best to treat our own kids and the kids of strangers with us, just the same, and to love them all equally?
Could we be willing to TRY and give to children who had lost home and family another chance to have just what they had lost - a home and family?
We said a rather diffident YES to it all - not beginning to realise just how much more it would take than we had expected. WE did not succeed perfectly, BUT much has been done, countless hopeless lives given hope and comfort, and a chance to find happiness.
We TRIED, and we adventured ourselves, hand in hand with Jesus. WE sometimes suffered doing it!
At times we might have run away.........but as we prayed for strength He had compassion also upon us, and BLEW upon the dying embers of our human love, and His Heavenly Flame was enlivened within our hearts and the FIRE of Heavenly Love once more sprang up within us, and we carried on. WITHOUT HIM we would indeed have achieved NOTHING at all.
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WHAT might YOU do now for the needy - both the young and the old!?
You might do it together, as the Anglican Women do in the Mother's Union. You might be moved individually, to open your home, and fast from your ownership and personal privacy. Remember to receive Christ is to receive God's Holy Spirit into your very being. He will come in as a FIRE of Heavenly LOVE, to set YOU on fire for each other, for your brother and sister in Christ, AND for your neighbour. If you let it, it WILL burn forever until you reach your heavenly destination, there to SHINE the more, for ever, as a STAR that never dims. Especially, my Sisters and Mothers in Christ, BURN for Jesus. Reach out to those in need around you. Share with them what you have, and see them prosper. Take care NOT to quench the Spirit within you.
Our FATHER in Heaven grant you ALL a very special and thoughtful week. EASTER is not too far away - may we enter into it with something new in our heart.
John and Esther and Daryl
PS- photo of Abigail taken the day after she was born. She is
a hungry baby with a lusty cry that brooks no stopping till she is back to sucking once more. After getting what she wants she is quiet, quick to sleep and no trouble at all - like most of us I suppose. Mother doing very well, and already set on spoiling her little daughter..
How COLD is your heart right now? How impervious to the drift of what I am sharing here? Or is there yet a little warmth left there; a little warmth that might be kindled into a FLAME OF HEAVENLY LOVE.
When I had been in Kenya a Year I was unsatisfied and a little disillusioned. Life in Kenya was NOT what I had dreamt it might be. My personal ego felt let down, and I was missing home. IF I had given in then to the dictates of my carnal self; if I had not stopped feeling sorry for myself, I would have completely MISSED out. The Fire of Heavenly Love would never have even sparked in my soul. I would never have come across children whose lives had been damaged and injured;
I would not have met my wife, and we would never have built a home together for our very own three children - a home that expanded into an ever expanding family as more and more homeless children squeezed themselves into our hearts and lives. Between 1972 and 1998 our family rarely numbered less than than some 40 or 50 children. And since then we have added space for some hundred or so more so that there are now FOUR family homes. How have we been able to do this? We had no income of our own. No, we just had to trust God that as each child that came, GOD would provide for according to Matthew 6v6. And He did! He does it still. We tell HIM our needs, and He arranges for us to receive. We make no Appeal or Request to any other than God in Heaven.
.
I had started to take in children just six months before I first met Esther, my wife and partner. When we came to discuss marriage we had to agree on a few very important matters affecting the future.
I WAS CARING FOR 28 KIDS BY THEN, and each one needed love, patience and long suffering. Some would be a disappointment; each was a potential heart-breaker.
COULD WE make our own home and family the home and family of ANY other child God might send to us ...? Not all would be able to accept us as parents, or our family as theirs - there would be set backs, problems and tensions - even total rejection. Should we, could we, expose OUR children to such an atmosphere?
Could we be willing to forgo our own family privacy, freedom?
Could we be willing to do our best to treat our own kids and the kids of strangers with us, just the same, and to love them all equally?
Could we be willing to TRY and give to children who had lost home and family another chance to have just what they had lost - a home and family?
We said a rather diffident YES to it all - not beginning to realise just how much more it would take than we had expected. WE did not succeed perfectly, BUT much has been done, countless hopeless lives given hope and comfort, and a chance to find happiness.
We TRIED, and we adventured ourselves, hand in hand with Jesus. WE sometimes suffered doing it!
At times we might have run away.........but as we prayed for strength He had compassion also upon us, and BLEW upon the dying embers of our human love, and His Heavenly Flame was enlivened within our hearts and the FIRE of Heavenly Love once more sprang up within us, and we carried on. WITHOUT HIM we would indeed have achieved NOTHING at all.
WHAT might YOU do now for the needy - both the young and the old!?You might do it together, as the Anglican Women do in the Mother's Union. You might be moved individually, to open your home, and fast from your ownership and personal privacy. Remember to receive Christ is to receive God's Holy Spirit into your very being. He will come in as a FIRE of Heavenly LOVE, to set YOU on fire for each other, for your brother and sister in Christ, AND for your neighbour. If you let it, it WILL burn forever until you reach your heavenly destination, there to SHINE the more, for ever, as a STAR that never dims. Especially, my Sisters and Mothers in Christ, BURN for Jesus. Reach out to those in need around you. Share with them what you have, and see them prosper. Take care NOT to quench the Spirit within you.
Our FATHER in Heaven grant you ALL a very special and thoughtful week. EASTER is not too far away - may we enter into it with something new in our heart.
John and Esther and DarylPS- photo of Abigail taken the day after she was born. She is
a hungry baby with a lusty cry that brooks no stopping till she is back to sucking once more. After getting what she wants she is quiet, quick to sleep and no trouble at all - like most of us I suppose. Mother doing very well, and already set on spoiling her little daughter..
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