TO BE GLAD FOR YOUR CHILDREN..!?

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR GIRLS, NOW ALL GROWN UP, MARRIED WITH KIDS!
What is more important they all love Jesus, and He is the Head of all their families.
Damaris, grew up in Jacaranda Cottage with Miriam and Joshua Mbithi.  Catherine Senge, the youngest in the photo, Francina, and Elisabeth our daughter, all part of the Testimony House family.
We had started with boys only in the Homes, but gradually took in a girl from time to time as from, 1971.  By the time Esther and I ceased being Mum and Dad in Testimony House, in 1998 we had seen 24 girls become part of the family, with some ninety boys!    Only one of the girls got into trouble with a boy,and he was not from within the family.   THEN from '98 things began to change.  More than 14 girls became pregnant in the next seventeen years.    The moral teaching did not change.    So we can only look to the advent of the School as a possible factor.      In 1987 we built up the Primary, and in '94 added the Secondary departments, and suddenly between 400 and 800 day students began to come in and out of the compounds of both Testimony and Jacaranda.     Certainly this must have made a difference together with a general increase in licentiousness in a more and more permissive society.
From our point of view every 'daughter' that is seduced and becomes pregnant is a heartbreak, since we know that a whole lot of further misfortunes can follow.   No least what to do with the baby!
Abortion will often be the first presented option, which although may not always be perceived as such, is in fact infanticide - murder.     Adoption is another option, which may provide home and family for the child, but often without the understanding and and perceptions that are there with ones real, birth, parents.   And in Kenya, as in other places, one might even SELL the child ......for 'spare parts' or even worse!      To KEEP the child means you may never find another man to actually marry you.     The child then becomes immediately a hindrance to finding a normal happy life for the mother.    
MANY of the children we try to bring up in Testimony Faith Homes have missed both, and at least one parent.    The obvious LOSS is evident.    To know and live with ones blood parents, good or bad, is a big step in learning to know and accept yourself; understanding where you have come into the world from, and why you are the way you are in character and personality.     Without such a foundation of knowledge about your origins a person can truly suffer an identity crisis.      It is SO important and necessary for any child to grow up in a home environment with both Mum and Dad present and relating affectionately together.     The sense of 'belonging, security, and acceptance', together with the emotional awareness of Love, kindness, mercy and forgiveness interacting with family members will be the foundation on which the child's own ideas and hopes towards making a home and marriage will be based.    
To base ones own life on this kind of a concept is that much harder in 2015 than ever before.   Our world is increasingly hooked up to getting, and to pleasing ourselves, rather than GIVING and denying ourselves.       But there is no real happiness without a willingness to sacrifice.

Growing up, as I did, in a family full of marital strife and violence, I often felt insecure and in the midst of a very dangerous situation.     As I grew up marriage itself seemed a very risky business to commit oneself to.    BUT I believed it was possible to have a happy home and family.    One of my uncles did.     I began to dream of such a home. and on discovering God was there to help me live a better life, I began to ask Him to provide me with a good woman to be my wife, so that we could together build a home in which love also existed and overflowed upon our children.     God answered my prayers.     And after 44 years Esther and I can both look back to our Wedding Day and see that what we had been denied in our childhood was given back to us on that Day, and has remained and grown in our lives ever since.     Our Thanks to God for showing us His Reality, and for letting us experience it, and bring others into it.

A growing Family of sons and daughter, grandsons and granddaughters !    Wow!     Dreams and Hopes galore, and the need to pray for each and every one.     Dear Friends always pray for and encourage your children and grandchildren to pattern their family life on God's Word.   It is a 'lively' Word, and when we put our faith in it, life changes, Hope dawns, and Miracles happen.    TEACH the Word of God, Talk about the Word of God, and LIVE the Word of God with all your might.   It will NEVER become out of date, or obsolete


THIS is one of our Boys from Testimony House marrying on 15th December 1994 (John Ngugi, another of our old boys,and his wife Susan were his Best Man and Maid).    Wykliffe was a teacher at this time, and eventually returned to TFH as Headmaster of our Secondary Dept., and later still as Chaplain to the whole Work and Pastor of our Christian Fellowship.   His wife, Miriam, is now H/mistress of our Nursery School.    Just recently they had the joy of seeing their daughter enter University.  Another lasting Marriage and Family
THE RIGHT shows the Wedding of one of our girls from Testimony House - Jane Wanjiko - to Peter Mwema, a pastor with Africa Inland Church at the time, on 7th August 1993.    Jane had trained as a Secretary and was for a time School Secretary to Testimony School
She finally went back to University to get her Degree and is still working there  on their Staff.  Another Marriage continuing to stand the test of time in Jesus Name.

And lastly another of our boys, Molem Piera marrying his Grace, with me and Esther by their side.    Molem is a Laboratory Technician, and quite tall; I am 6;11" and he must be a good foot taller!!   It was a great and happy Day as all our many Weddings have been.     Could not put a photo of all, else dozens of pages would have had to be sent.   Just a few of the many!     Molem married on 5t April 1014.    They are still beginners!  But we have great hopes for them, as there are so many that have gone before who are still together after many years.   We are proud of them, and very Thankful to God our Father, for answering not only OUR prayers but also theirs.    

God Bless you all who together with us can claim some good part in all these unions that you - many of you - have assisted to come together and face a future with God by their side

Blessings on you all

John, Esther and Daryl.