ENTERING INTO 2020 AND THE UNKNOWN FUTURE

AND SO HERE WE ARE INTO 2020, AND A VIEW OF OUR SCHOOL FIELD ONCE AGAIN, some two months since the last posted on 9th November 2019.     May not seem much progress, but in face WE can see a huge difference.   The whole plot though still with a slope, is now comparatively LEVEL and beginning to grass over.     The planned Track that will surround the field is now mapped out and we hope in the net month to lay a surface on it.    We have until March to have it ready for use..       Our team of some twelve grounds staff, and Daryl  himself, all worked very hard to do what has been done, and not a rock or a stone in sight.       BUT you CAN now see clearly the MANSIONS on our boundary that are being built.    The owners are now busy building high stone walls to keep our foot balls - and maybe a little noise - from intruding upon their from lawns.
It is being built up all around us; and imagine when we arrived 47 years ago there was literally nothing but open fields and forest around us as far as eye could see.
TO THE LEFT we are looking to the right of the one above, toward the Primary Boarding Block.
The Field extends to about an acre in this direction, and Daryl and his team have already put in a full Basket Ball Court in the foreground and also marked out further areas as Volley Ball. Net Ball and Tennis Courts.      It will all take time to complete but the progress so far is very encouraging, and we feel proud to own the  work of our own selves.     We thank the Lord for the dedicated labour and joyful team work that has gone, and will continue to go, into this project.and school OPENS NEXT TUESDAY, for the 1st Term of the year.      Our adopted daughter, Helen who has been teaching Nursery School in Nairobi has just joined our school and will be living not too far from us with her daughter Abigail who will be 6 in March.   Time flies, but it is nice to have them both nearer.         Both Primary and Secondary School did well in the National Exams this year and we hope to see increased interest and patronage for the School from our locality so that our own children will continue to enjoy free schooling all the way to Form 4 of High School.  Everyone helter-skelter to buy articles of school uniform and footwear - always a last minute rush every year, and then, at the same time, added effort to find College places - and fees - for the thirty who will be continuing with further and hopefully 'higher' education with us this year.    But some will be concluding College this year as well; for example Pauline who is our first NURSE will be Graduating this year, and quite a few others.   

TO THE RIGHT a view of Nursery School with its playground, and a double story block of 4 Primary Classroom in the background, and another block of EIGHT Primary  classrooms to the extreme centre right, also behind the nursery classes.....we have 107 students in Nursery aged from 3 to 51/2 and 7 classes altogether
To the right - midway front - you can just glimpse the two room that used to be a duo one room staff house when we arrived in 1972.  We added to it in 1976 to accommodate a Mechanics Course, and then in 1983 it became the beginning of the Primary School until it moved to new buildings in 1987.

David & Absalom

THIS SUNDAY I shall, God Willing, be sharing with our children and staff on the topic of 'Forgiveness and the Family'
I shall be using a well known text from Deuteronomy 21v18-21.
Over last year a few of our more difficult teenagers (yes we DO have them from time to time) tested the patience of some of our house parents, and were told to LEAVE the Homes.    They were not  prepared for this and it was a real trial for them  WHEN we began we felt any child coming to us had been brought by God, and that our welcome into the 'Family' was for better or worse, until the were old enough to find a job and find an independent life for themselves.    WE, me and Esther, were tested on many occasions by some who had come to stay.    We let two or three GO, but they all came back, and we let them in.   Some of them were to remain  a trial until they were ready themselves to brave a life own by the sweat of their own brow.
I have been a little troubled in my heart bout losing others more recently.    We offered a HOME and FAMILY not a halfway house, and to now renege when a teenager is tugging at the leash seems NOT to be what family is about.       In the Scripture quoted the text begins with the word IF - raising the question as to whether it could actually happen, and it has been said  that no such case is as cited has ever been brought to light as having actually occurred.      Others have said that it could not have happened if the parents had brought their child up with God in mind.      The Scripture merely wanted to underline the importance of respecting our parents and emphasising the awfulness of not doing so.       And it seemed it did not happen.
This led me to remember David's trouble with his son Absalom, and his forgiving heart , all the way to Absalom's death.         So I have felt to share on these thoughts and to hope that our teenagers and parents in the Homes, and even our Director, will see the Lord more carefully and unselfishly in those instances when their human endurance and patience is tested to the limit.   


So let me close once more.      We continue yet again to Wish you all, God's richest Blessing for this New Year, and the Patience to endure where it is needed along the way.     You are all remembered by us all, and appreciated in our hearts always.

John, Esther and Daryl Green