YES, EDWARD COLSTON 'S STATUE HAS BEEN CONSIGNED TO A MUSEUM, his shameful image hid, his soiled memory now revealed for all to see and know.    Yet those who judge him now, know nothing of the man himself.    A wicked slave trader they say, who
hid his sins under charitable and civic acts of self esteem.     There seems little doubt that he DID trade and make most of his money from involvement with, and in, the Slave Trade.  In his 70's he was still advocating its expansion in Parlaiment.    He was also a devoted Anglican!
How could he have balanced his faith in God with the Slave Trade.   At that time, 300 years ago, the Churche's stand made slave trading like a 'rescue operation' to emancipate primitive man upwards to  the state of the 'enlightened' modern World of the day.    A genuine 'belief'?   Hardly a spiritual one, in all Truth.  Rather just a very 'bare' excuse to allow a clearly INHUMAN activity and trade, for purely carnal reasons; filthy lucre!   And a missplaced sense of superiority, perhaps.       There seems little reason to think that Colston himself felt unjustified in what he did - but this judgement is based on nothing more than circumstancial evidence.     I have come across no character reference for the man.   When he died he consdered his family, and the City of Bristol - but what was actually in the  heart of this man? -  only GOD, his maker knows,       At the time the people of Bristol seemed to commend Edward Colston, and the Church gave him a proper and noteable funeral.    Today the Church repudiates him as being totally unworthy of praise or commendation, and the City of Bristol has become ashamed of him.    Is Edward Colston in Hell?    Or is he, perhaps in Heaven?    The face of the man scuptored by John Cassidy of Manchester in 1895 depict a man who may been having second thoughts about himself - but of course this is just an impression of mine, based on the 'distant' imaginative impression of the sculptor.   But he may, finally, have found his conscionce troubling him.    At 84 he no doubt may have considered how he would meet his  Creator - and what His judgement would  be.....    BUT he may just have been like so many others, even today, who shrug off God from intruding into their lives, refusing to hear that 'Conscionce', given to EVERY   man and woman of every colour, race, and kind, to lighten them on their way.
NOW YESTERDAY I read that the Church is considering throwing out statues and statuettes that represent the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles that look too white - even a pictorial comment on how Jesus Christ may have actually looked like -  (there are NO drawings or representations of Him anywhere) - and the COLOUR His skin may have appeared to day.      What a very fragmented, arrogant race we humans have become.      We aspire to all be little gods,  jealous, asnd self righteous all.    YES,  we ARE ALL sinnesrs, there is and never was, even one righteous in God's Sight, and that is why Christ was born of a Woman, and came to reveal what TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS is.  DOES it MATTER what shade of colour His skin might have been - He died for everyone, for me, for you too no matter what colour you might have been given.

As for me I wish there were no drawings, paintings, sculptures or statues of ANY person, for none of us were born without the taint of, and inclination towards sin, and evil;   none are perfect, or will be, wthout Christ having found us out, and given the rule over our mind and spirit.
When I was a boy, growing up, England seemed such a secure and safe place.    Our history intact and even we ourselves all intact from being investigated, re-invented, and even forever doubted, suspected, and finally exposed - even after our death.     Where once God was seen and trusted as the final Arbitrator and Judge we now want to do the job for Him, and we do it most imperfectly.   It is a world of restless and wicked intent against whoever and whateve takes our fancy.  An age of pulling down, and letting others drag us all (along with our history, heros and culture)  in the dust.    Has God forgiven us.   If so why can't we forgive each other?

Since I arrived here in Kenya 51 years ago I have lived together with a multitude of black, brown and other 'coloured' people, and married a faithful, spiritual, brown lady from Kenya.   Many people told me not to get to close to the African - they are a different culture with different natures - but Esther and I have found the wonder of discovering that there are no real differences within us, and that though individuals we are individual HUMAN beings made in God's Image, able to appreciate Him and to appropriate Him into our lives together, as more than a brother or sister.      Surely - if we cease to look for, or expect to find differences - there must be hope for mankind to live together.    And thus 'colour' as an argument that should never be an excuse for one to degrade or set at nothing those of us  who are either  Black, White, Yellow or any other variation of skin colour.      Someone once told me that WHITE is of itself a colour, but is of itself made up, ultimately, of every colour.     We SHOULD all, quite naturally and ureservably, be able to co exist together, and trust each othe with each other's imperfections, with tolerance and forgiveness, respecting each other for what we all are, pilgrims needing to find our way together out of darkness into Light, and our Eternal Universally United HOME.       Love is what we all need for each other - not the kissing and cuddling only but the CARING and PROTECTING, kind that will consciously do nothing to hurt the other.     When you start trying to live for each other that way, you soon discover the evil mind within you that forces you to own that, indeed, you are NOT perfect - you are NOT 'like' God.     We ALL need to say sorry to each other, and to try harder to do better.    I have been grateful to find a family so different in colour  and heritage, that has made me, just as I am,  part of it, and indeed, without changing my colour, has absorbed it into their own, so that we see each other equally and in depth, as one.

I am center with Michael and Esther, surrounded Esther's sister's family, our son Steve, Daryl and Manu, and daughter Elizabeth, and a host of other sons and daughters that make up our Family at Testimony

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ME AND ESTHER sharing a memory last year
Next year we shall have been married 50 good years.



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latest Covid 19 Figures or Kenya
as at 27th June 2020

Total Tested since March  160,684      Confirmed Cases 5533 including 149 as on 27/6/2020
Total Recveries as at 27/6/20  -  1,905       Deaths  137

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Well, dear friends,  once more we send out out Thanks to all those who sent a gifts to us vis The AENON Trust through April to 20th June.    We understand Aneon does acknowledge gifts received and meant for Testimony Faith Homes.    We usually acknowledge as well, once every two months, with an UPDATE from my Diary covering the period, and also a general note to everyone.    SO soon the next UPDATE should be reaching you either by E.Mail or Airmail post.      Until then our very sincere Love and best wishes to you all, as we look for His Coming.     God Bless you every one.

John, Esther and Daryl Green and all at Testimony Faith Homes