PASSING DAYS - AND PROGRESSIVE FUTURE

HOW QUICKLY YEARS PASS, and our children GROW!   Here is a photo (LEFT) of Daryl with his son Jesse at about five or six.    You can see the pride of a father in Daryl's eyes.   Pride AND Joy together. And now Jesse has just had his eighteenth Birthday (Photo Right with his Dad again and young brother Jeremy).    Tomorrow Jesse
will be travelling up to Nairobi to commence his Engineering Course at the Polytechnic.    We shall all miss seeing him around including us his grandparents.    Esther and I were about the first people to clap eyes on him, with his Dad,  the day he was born.     He was almost born into the family of Testimony House as Steve. Michael and Lizzy were, since Daryl and Carol moved in as Houseparents early 1998 - and certainly spent all his early years there until 2006.     Then Daryl and Carol felt they needed a family life of their own, and moved into their own rented accommodation just a kilometre away, and brother and sister MULI took over.  Daryl continued of course to work with us and Jesse continued to grow and study in the School.     He was always a good and diligent student, and always had it in mind to get into Engineering of some kind.   he is now just a little taller than his Father.    We will be praying for him, and trust he will do well and succeed in seeing his ambition blossom and satisfy him.   Most of all we shall pray he will remember Christ in his new life in the Capital City - a city full of Wine, Women - and Drugs.     Our young people in Kenya generally have come to a place of confusion as to what to believe and follow in their lives.    As in most other places on earth today the best advice is to be found in the Bible in Psalm 119v9 where it is written -

How shall a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed, and keeping watch on himself according to Your Word;

conforming his life to it.

The Writer of the Psalm had discovered to truth of these words for himself as he lived through life, and in the following verse he emphasises this in saying -

With my whole heart have I sought you (God)

inquiring for and of You, and yearning for You:

Oh, let me not wander or step aside,

either in ignorance or willfully from Your Commandment.

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THIS WEEK, we heard from our son Steven in Lancashire.    He was overjoyed to see their son Eric achieve a praiseworthy result in the National Examination.     Well he certainly showed himself able and in this photo looks pleased about it.    I can see, just looking at it, that he has achieved a real victory and has been 'baptised' into a new chapter of his life.      Well done!     And think it is one of the great things of parenthood - relative to both parents - to see your children grow up into men and women, and to see them realise their talent and to be serious enough to make the most of them.   It really is not a matter of your child getting A's or not - it is just seeing them mature into men and women, able to look the world in the face without fear or prejudice.     Thank you LORD for all OUR children, both those born to us and those brought to us to love and care for.     Thank you for the fact that they all eventually will come to the day when they unfurl their wings and fly, and in learning to fly they hopefully will soar to unexpected heights and realisation of the Goodness of God.

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THIS WEEK the 15th East African Secondary Schools Games began (today in fact).  The Opening Ceremony was yesterday, and above you can see a view of some of the students from more than SIX East African Countries inclusive of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and South Sudan. In the photo they are parading in one Eldorets main streets led by the Police Chief (in uniform) and the County Governor, Jackson Mandago (in the grey suit).      TESTIMONY SCHOOL is one of the chosen venues for events, and the Badminton/Table Tennis, and Swimming will be here.    Actually the teams were in town as from the 20th and they have been here most days practising.    Actual events will be here as from Monday, 29th.     They will be using our School Hall for Table Tennis, and the School Pool for swimming.

I am closing here, for this week,     We rejoice in you, in Jesus, and we lift up your names often to our Father in Heaven as we pray for you.      Our love always in HIM Who loves us MOST!

John, Esther and Daryl Green