AT LAST!  Our Vegetable Gardens are being reborn, having for a season died away.   In 2011 Daryl and I had decided on making an effort toward self sufficiency and initiated a poultry project, a small dairy, a bakery, and two allotments for veg.     It all began very well, but eventually tailed off.  The Bakery has done well, and the Dairy, (we now have three cows and plenty of milk) but the Allotments and poultry have suffered.      PLANS are now on the way to revitalise ALL these areas, and to make sure that we can feed ourselves with the basics.      We are definitely seeing a 'beginning' and crops are being sown, and planted with a view to continuous supply.     Also the Poultry  Project has picked up and we have been heartened to see definite success in being able to produce enough eggs and meat with careful and responsible management.       Hesketh Mulli and Mica Yego have both felt that they can contribute to all this, and indeed have already done so.    Together, and with the help of the children, we believe that God will prosper our effort, and keep us well and healthy in what we expect to be a national time of dearth and increased poverty.

CURRENTLY, IN kENYA, by yesterday, we have counted 1,160 Cases of Covid 19 confirmed, out of which we have recorded 50 fatalities and 380 recoveries so far.       Nationally we are still 'locked down' with some little easement here and there.     Schools still shut.    Hotels only permitted to open if they are approved to be able to keep the new Distancing Regulations and so on.    Masks still to be worn in all public places.     All Churches, Sports meetings, and other gatherings cancelled.     Some movement back to work, but it is slow, and travel and movement severely restricted.     STILL very few officially confirmed cases in our immediate area - it would seem to many that the greatest problem is not in HAVING the Virus, but in protecting ourselves from it.    I mean we are not seeing GREAT numbers dying, but we are seeing greater and greater numbers reaping the economic effects of keeping the very threat of death away from us.      So many have been laid off of work without pay.    Schools especially, as I have shared before in relation to the private sector, have had to close and be unable (as ourselves) to continue to pay salaries to the teachers.     Many others in the same boat and unable to find alternative income anywhere, including the Government.    This is already beginning to take a toll, for example, in the incidence of suicide.     With our Government here saying that they believe the Virus to be with us for ever,  and little comfort or encouragement as to a return to 'normal' life, an element of despair is descending upon and increasing many!

WE, within the Children's Home, continue to be 'quarntined' which literally means that only one m or two of us are allowed into the outside world on urgent or necessary business (i.e. shopping and medical emergencies) and NO one is permitted to enter either of our two compounds.    HOWEVER our compounds comprise some eleven acres of land, and we are able to walk where we will inside its boundaries.     We have 130 children and young people with us, plus eight houseparents, and our  pastor and his wife.    All our other support staff has had to be sent to their homes for the duration, but we will still pay for their salaries as well as those still working with us.       ONLY the School which runs financially separate to the Homes is now unable to pay their way.
YESTERDAY, our cupboards in the Homes, were almost bare, and our Bank Accounts empty.  But we had not ceased to pray and look confidently to our God.     What great JOY then, to receive this morning via AENON TRUST a gift comprising the love and remembrance of many; enough to look the month ahead in the face, once more, by His Grace.     Our Thanksgiving knows no bounds, as we lift up our voices with a SHOUT, yet again, to GOD.     The Promise of God's Word cannot fail.

THIS PHOTO was put up on Facebook yesterday by one of our sons now working in Nairobi with his family.   I had never seen it before, and I have done my best to improve its quality here.   I cannot be sure of the YEAR it was taken, but I think it likely to have been 1976.   All gone now, grown up, and working.   No spacing then, and how good to be a Family Group Together.      We are GLAD that we were there and that all of us together shared in a life that was not always comfortable or without a need, but which was SHARED, and enjoyed in love and peace still enduring....and growing.

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ALMOST TWO WEEKS since my 80th Birthday.       ONE week later I was taken off to the Doctor by Daryl with sharp pain in my left side.   Turned out to be my old problem - a kidney stone - yet again.     My doctor, who is a jovial soul even at a funeral, commented  "Drink a lot, and it will come out!   It will hurt but not kill you after all!"        So I returned home again, no better than I had arrived, but at least I knew for sure what was wrong.    I have been lurching around for a week almost, since then, still without sighting any 'stone' but still feeling it.    Well the pain is on and off, and I have nothing more to do than to be patient.      To conclude I enclose two photos from my Birthday.   One with some of our current children and staff, and the other of me and my Esther together.     

May the Light of His Face toward you encourage you and draw you nearer to Him Who is our Peace and Confidence.     He is indeed our  Strong Tower in whom we may hide impregnably from every foe and  evil design.       Keep looking up, seeking those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right  hand of God - setting your affection on things above, not on things on the Earth.  Colossians 3v1-2.

With all our love in Jesus

John, Esther, and Daryl Green