HOW SECURE IS HOME AND FAMILY?

In all personal human relationships disagreement of one kind or another

can break the relationship.

BUT IN THE FAMILY

there ought to be special ties that bind us to each other.

Esther and I, as parents, know from experience, as most of you may know,

that humanly we can exasperate each other.

Even as husband and wife we have had our days!

RECENTLY Esther and I have found ourselves more than usually 'tried' and almost to despair within OUR 'Family Circles'.     THEN we came across these Lyrics of a song written by Dolly Parton.   Not a word about God in them, but as we read them we were once again reminded of HIS Love and Grace.      Some of the lyrics may be a little unusual in the way they are worded or arranged, but even so we commend them to you for careful and open hearted reading with the Spirit of God.     We can so easily set this picture of Family aside in a very impatient, selfish and unloving world society.

'WHEN IT'S FAMILY'

When it's family, you forgive them for they know not what they do.

When it's family, you accept them, 'cause you have no choice but to.

When it's family, they're a mirror of the worst and best in you.

And they always put you to the test - And you always try to do your best,

And just pray for God to do the rest, when it's family.

SOME are preachers, some are gay; some are addicts, drunks, and stays,

But not a one is turned away, when it's family.

Some are lucky, others ain't;   some are fighters, others faint.

Winners, loser, sinners, saints, it's all family.

And when it's family you trust them and your heart's an open door.

When it's family, you tolerate what you'd kill others for.

When it's family you love and hate and take, then give some more.

Somehow you justify mistakes, try to find some better way

to solve the problems day to day, in the family.

You take the troubles as it comes, and love them more than anyone;

Good or bad, or indifferent, it's still family.

You choose your lovers, you pick your friends;

Not the family that you're in  -   Nah!

They'll be with you till the end, 'cause its family.

And when it's family, family your forgive them for they know not what they do.

When it's family, they're a mirror of the worst and best in you.

When it's family;   when it's family!

Let Me be all that I should be, in the family

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DAN NDUNGU

SINCE RETURNING HOME TO TYNDALE COTTAGE, last Wednesday, Dan has continued to gain his strength and accustomed vigour.     We have been truly rejoicing to see him so bright and healthy.     He shows no outward sign of the months of previous anxiety, nor of the rigours of being on the operating table.     A very VISIBLE miracle of God's Healing and Grace.    Something to shout about.   IN THE NAME OF JESUS!

Trust in the Lord, and don't despair;'

He is a Friend so true.

No matter what your troubles are,

Jesus will see you through!

DAN

with Mica and Catherine Yego

AND just two views of the young man himself, on his own, and looking very well indeed.     He IS thin but this is due more to the fact that over the year he has been adding height, growing like a bean-pole, than to anything else.    He will soon regain some body weight, especially now that he is not worrying about his scary condition, and the vision of an operation.

EVERYONE is overflowing with Happiness just to see him back home and with the prospect of a future that had seemed so full of apprehension, yet is now looking so secure and healthy.

OPPOSITE - on the next page - is a photo of Francis Lahol half a year ago.
He completed his initial Chemo-therapy on Monday.  He is still weary and weak but on the whole looks better and we are all rejoicing for him as well since he and his wife, Eunice continue to maintain their own assurance that in Jesus Name, our Father is busy healing Francis, and saving his sight and his life all together.      They too have been uplifted to see how prayer has been answer for Dan, and that though it seemed to be delayed and even obstructed, it prevailed and was mighty in its working.    Keep upholding him in these next very telling weeks.

THIS LAST WEEK we had the joy of a visit from Ian and Diana Hogley.      They first set foot in Kenya in September 1968, and I arrived in December the same year.   We found ourselves living almost next door to each other, and have remained close friends, together with our wives, ever since.
So, to some extent, we were able to celebrate 50 years in Kenya together.      SO Good!!

This is all for this time.      We Thank God for His daily care of us.    God Bless you all

John, Esther and Daryl Green

DAN NDUNGU

AT LAST, after waiting since January 2017 when we all first found out his need, Dan was operated upon in Nairobi on Tuesday morning.   It has been quite a long wait, and not an easy one either for Dan, or for all of us. 
We had first put up this photo of Dan on the 21st January 2017 when I had written of him, saying 'he has been with us since 2002, when he was approximately five years old.   He came from a Collection Centre for street children in the town, and he came without any traceable history, relative or anything else.   No records at all.    He has grown up to be an able student, top  of his class, active and lively, showing no physical ailment of any kind.
UNTIL NOW THAT IS.   Suddenly a week ago, he complained of pain around his heart, and quickly lost energy and strength.    We quickly took him to our Doctor on Wednesday of this week.  (our government doctors were into a five week long strike, so we had to look for a private one who would see him.)    On examination we were told he had a 'serious' heart condition and needed immediate surgery, and suggested we see a Consultant as soon as possible.    Finally on the Saturday we found one, and she agreed to see him.     She confirmed that his condition was serious, and that he had a 'hole' in his heart.    She also told us she felt surgery was not an option, since he had been like it since birth, and all such cases had a short life expectancy.'      We had all been shocked.     We took to prayer, and within the week he was back in School, as bright as ever.      We all rejoiced,  in a Miracle.     But  he relapsed, and finally we took him to Nairobi to a hospital specialising in Heart cases for children.     They agreed to operate, and said they would also assist with the cost............yet, for a year and eight months, they have delayed and delayed, and delayed.    Daryl has had to take Dan again and again - almost month by month - back to Nairobi expecting him to be Admitted but no..........until 3rd September when they called for him to be finally taken to be admitted and the operation carried out on the following Tuesday.      Although not in pain, but by now very weak apprehensive, Dan was yet again taken up to Nairobi, this time by  Micah Yego, his house-father.
They journeyed up on the 2nd staying overnight with James Mbati, one of our old boys, who had kindly welcomed them for the days they would be there.       THEN, arriving at the hospital on the Monday morning at 8 a.m. Mica was turned away and told the Surgeon had not returned from his Leave, and would not be able to operate - maybe until the Thursday or Friday.......    We were all very much disturbed by this new delay, but it was no use returning to Eldoret, so they remained with James, in the City.     On Friday, they informed the Surgeon was available, but there were no BEDS available to Admit Dan into.    He would have to wait for a vacancy!.........Finally after almost a week, Dan was Admitted on Monday of this week and the Operation took place the next morning.
The Hospital has attested it to have been SUCCESSFUL, and Mica, seeing him later that day found Dan able to take hold of his hand and Greet him.       He is now out of Intensive Care, and apparently doing well - he may be home with us in a week!     YES, and there has been great Praise and Thanks-giving here by all who know and love Dan, and we want to THANK all of YOU who have been praying for him all this while.       Blessed be the Name of the Lord.     He does hear and answer prayer and STILL performs miracles.      Oh what JOY!!!

More than a year and a half ago we were professionally advised nothing could be done for Dan Ndungu, that he was terminally ill, and would die.    No medical HOPE.      BUT we did hope!   We hoped in God's Word, and in Jesus our Lord and Saviour.     And we continued to hope, WAITING, until TODAY the one who had the death sentence passed on him is ALIVE and LIVING.    Listening to that initial prognosis, and believing in it, we may all have given in and given up.    BUT we looked up and trusted in GOD.     Again this verse of Scripture has poured over us in ever increasing power and verification.

2.Corinthians 1v9

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves

that we should not trust in ourselves

but in God, who raiseth the dead.

The LORD be with you all, your Shield and Protector, your Health and Life.

John, Esther and Daryl Green

CAN GOD BE FOUND IN OUR WORLD?

THE LOVE, interest, concern, and even respect for GOD seems more and more to be dwindling in this fast world; a world of accelerated change.    Yet our world is filled with questions and problems that seem insoluble and pressing.      THIS WEEK I read that one in four children have mental health problems, and the juvenile suicide rate is up by 100%!!    Not good news, and not a hopeful outlook for the future.     Why is the world, as it is today, in moral and spiritual decline, increasingly permissive, and historically ignorant, so passively ready to accept whatever it is told without question?   Why is our  world producing mentally challenged, despairing youngsters?
There DOES seem to be a 'spirit' of hopelessness rolling in upon our thought and society; as if there is nothing worth living for, no ultimate aim to reach for.
My life for the last fifty years, together with Esther my wife, has been involved with the care and development of children; children who have had to face fear and anxiety, as well as a sense of hopelessness for their own future.
We have had to deal with the effect this has had upon them.      We have had to find ways to pacify their fears and anxieties and calm their mental disturbances, and give them hope for the future.      It has been quite a labour, but we have seen no suicides in the 400 hundred we have lived with and cared for.      We have seen many satisfied hearts and minds, and many disturbed young people pacified and brought through to a peaceful outlook and existence.    And seen many of them go on into marriage and parenthood as they labour for a living in this increasingly difficult, competitive and very uncertain world.     In all those that took time to come back to us for our Anniversary last week, we rejoiced to see young men and women facing up to life bravely and with faith for the future.       MANY OF THEM have done so by seeking out God in the world around them, and in their lives; discovering that they are not on their own, and that they need never be defeated.   They have actually done what the Prophet Amos exhorted us ALL to do in his Book in the Old Testament of the Bible chapter 5v4 and 6 -

Thus says the Lord.....SEEK (look for) Me   

(enquire for, and of Me, and require me as you require food,

and you shall LIVE.

++++++++++

SINCE I WAS SIX I have KNOWN without doubt that GOD exists.     I BELIEVE that GOD wants every person to KNOW that He IS real, and forever existing and alive.     HE wants us to know that He IS able to hear and answer our prayers in the 'here and now' of our lives.      THIS is not what the world around us generally believes or even has time to consider.      Never mind, 72 years after I was six and found out that God is there for me and you, I STILL believe and know it as a FACT.     I might die of a terminal disease, get shot dead, or in some other way physically suffer, BUT I will still KNOW God is with me.

God says, in the Bible, in MALACHI 3V10 -

'PROVE ME NOW,

and SEE what I will do for you'

BUT HOW?  How shall I prove HIM?     The Prophet Jeremiah says that we shall find Him 'when we search for Him with all our heart / mind, and mental faculties _ Jeremiah 29v13

IF we would reach out to Him in our spirit - our inner man....'....if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far ever every one of us - Acts 17v27  -  reaching out with all our senses and faculties, trying to perceive God in our inner self.

THUS, when I was six, I remember looking up into the night sky, and at the stars that hung and twinkled there.   My childish mind reached out with the question - 'What holds the stars up?' - it rose up above me in my thoughts, and almost immediately the answer was there in the front of my mind - a 'flash' message 'GOD is holding them up!'      I was not a church goer, did not attend Sunday School, had no Christian parent.

BUT I had my answer.   It was an answer I needed, with my drunken father beating up my Mum inside the house.    It was a definite answer, and it satisfied ME as my world was breaking up behind me.   If He was holding the stars up, HE could and would hold ME up too.     From then on this incident formed the foundation of finding PROOF of God in almost everything I saw around me.  Psalm19v1 and also Romans 1v20....

Let your thoughts reach out to discover God.    He WILL let you find Him - if you sincerely want to.

.................................................... 

THE APOSTLE JOHN found another way of coming to know Jesus, and being close to Him, and through Him to God, our Father in Heaven

In his FIRST Letter, chapter 2v3, he says 'Hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.'

 -This is how we may discern (daily, by experience),

that we are coming to know Him,

(to perceive, recognise, understand and become better acquainted with Him):

IF we keep (bear in mind, observe and practise)

His Teaching (precepts and commandments).

THE MORE we read the WORDS of Jesus, and even ALL the Scriptures, the more we shall slowly begin to SEE what pleases, and what offends God, generally, and even in the particular.

BUT, we have to read regularly, and we have to let what we read unfold in us a true understanding and intuition of how God is - UNTIL we can truly say that we 'know' Him

THE APOSTLE PAUL  in his Letter to the Roman Church, chapter 12v2 writes - 'Change the way you THINK - so that you may PROVE for your own selves what is the good, and acceptable and perfect will of God; EVEN the thing which is good, acceptable, and perfect in His sight for you.'

NOW we are back to Malachi and   'proving God' again.

WE ALL NEED TO KNOW GOD practically - NOT just theoretically.   GOD wants us to know He is not a myth, or the creation of any man's imagination.

IT IS OUR DUTY TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH FOR OURSELVES.    To PROVE by personal experiment and enquiry - Ephesians 5v10   'Proving what is acceptable to the LORD'.   AND, by implication, also what is NOT acceptable.      As we put into practise in our life what we KNOW, we shall REAP what we sow - and hopefully LEARN from it.

IN CONCLUSION, the APOSTLE PAUL writing to the Church in Thessalonica and in his FIRST Letter chapter 5v17 exhorts them all to ' Pray without ceasing.'     To communicate with God all the time, as if he is constantly with you, wanting to share your life.    'HE is never far from us - Remember Acts 17v27.

As you share your thoughts and feelings and desire with HIM, you should expect Comment, and even Action as He responds to you - He will make Himself known to be there with you, and to have HEARD what you share with Him.

BUT - if we willingly live a life that is not pleasing to God, THEN He may withdraw Himself from us, and refuse to be found by us - 1.Chronicles 28v9

HAVING FOUND GOD, WE HAVE THEN TO AGREE WITH HIM.

We have to make Lord of our life

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FRANCIS LAHOL HAS HAD TO SPEND A FEW DAYS IN HOSPITAL, but is now home again with his family in Testimony House.     He continues to recover, and gain strength.   He has ONE more session of Radiation AND Chemotherapy to undergo.     Please to join our prayers for his total healing.

JAMES MANU returned from yet another visit to Eye Clinic.      They are stating that he will need a further twelve months of treatment - either 6 or 12 sessions.    Generally the current prognosis is the best he has had yet, and he is much encouraged.

DAN NDUNGU went up to Nairobi for his operation to repair the hole in his heart last Sunday.   He was expecting the operation to take place on the Tuesday.     It was delayed due to the late return of the surgeon from his vacation!   It was deferred till Thursday but has again been deferred until Monday or Tuesday of next week, due to a shortage of bed space!!      Very frustrating and difficult.

But we know the Lord is over all this, and that in the end it will all work out for the best.   Mica Yego from Tyndale Cottage (Dan's home) is there with him in Nairobi.

A 16% tax on petrol has hit the nation this week, and there is a current shortage of fuel as well, which has together brought increasing pressure on the travelling public and trade.    Of course the effect on all consumer products, especially food, is also expected to immediately increase the cost of living.  The future looks rather bleak for all.     Nairobi has already seen riots, and the petrol shortage may continue, and has already begun to be felt here in Eldoret.

BUT THE SUN IS SHINING -   AND BEST OF ALL GOD is caring and watching over us

May He Bless you all and establish all your thoughts, strengthening your Faith.    Our Love in Him to you all, as we all together join hands in and with the Lord Jesus.

John, Esther and Daryl Green