THE GREEN FAMILY IN ELDORET, KENYA 2020
Daryl, Jeremy, Dad, James, Jesse, Erica, Mum, Helen, Abby and Becky
We do not often get a photo of us all together, and even this photo is minus Edward, Daryl's Brother who was not able to be with us on this occassion. He is employed in our Maintenance Dept., and lives on the Jacaranda Compound. Daryl, and his family, live about five kilometers away from us.
Jeremy is in Form 3 in our School, Jesse is in his last College year in Nairobi, Erica in Primary 3 in our School, and Becky is in College in Nairobi training as a teacher. Esther and I are still in Green Cottage here on the Testimony Compound, and James ,(Manu), is living away from us on the other side of Eldoret. He is still unemployed due his many medical problems, incuding the partial loss of more than 50% of hs eyesight, Diabetis, and Epilepsy. Helen is teaching Nursery School here with our School, and her six year od daughter, Abby, is in Class 2 of Primary. The REST of our Family, Steven, Michael and Elisabeth all away in the UK, and the current Covid 19 makes us all feel even further apart. BUT we are all in close contact, and we Thank God for it being so.
ALL our wider family of children and their |House Parents are all well and happy. We have currently 120 children in the four Homes.. This week one of our eighteen year old boys was sent away by Daryl, due to Theft; he had been found breaking in to the School Store to steal a computer.. This was the second time he had been involved in theft. He is not the first of his age group to be sent away due to miss behaviour of some kind in recent months. Daryl's reasoning in this, is pretty well the same as George Muller of Bristol's who firmly believed that to leave a bad apple in the barrel would endanger the rest. God has not spoken to me in the same manner. And when I became Engaged to Esther, and after much discusssion, we agreed that the children God brought to our door, we would welcome in as part of our own family, and they would remain with us till they could leave independently, and on their own feet. This was not conditional on their behaviour. Love is unconditional, and we felt it was part of our Vison to provide a secure and safe base for children to grow up in, and for us to have the patience to endure. First we have to understand clearly that we are ALL sinners, prone to sin from birth, and secondly we cannot heal ourselves, and cannnot KNOW when any of us will be sorted out and given power to live a perfect life. I must have patience with my brother, sister, son, daughter, as MY Father Heaven has patience with me, willing even to 'die' for me. This is loving my neighbour as myself.j SO - yes we have not been able to do this perfectly.
We have seen times when patience wore thin, and on three ocassions over 50 years, among some 90 children, that lived and grew up with us, we have said 'Enough is enough' and had three of our children taken to Approved School - from which they ran away - back to US. And we took them back in. We have seen some finally leave us still very persuaded of their own way and life style, and one or two have died in their thieving, drug taking, and alcoholism..... But they stayed with us until they found work, and left able to fend for themselves. They had no other home and no other parents who cared about them, living or dead. We have for the most part kept in touch with nearly all of them and have been able to be with some who on their death bed, assured us that they had believed in God, and the Love of Jesus in dying for their error and sin. Had we judged them too harshly we may never have had such joy in seeing even one of their lives turned around to face the Cross, and reach out for Salvtion. 'NEVER, NEVER, give up' said Winston Churchill, and he was right, and will always be right to have said it. And LOVE will ALWAYS find a way through, to peirce the stubborn heart into seeing and feeling new. As St. Paul says in 1. Corinthians 13 'LOVE (God's patient care and mercy) bears ALL things, and it will NEVER FAIL. And that has to be TRUE even if my eyes may not live to see it come to pass down here!!
SO we are plodding on. Has our original Vision changed! I do not think so. Are we in danger of wandering from the path laid down for us here in Testimony, when it began? If we are, then one day we may no longer be able to sincerely call ourselves a HOME, a shelter and refuge, to those who have lost, or never even known, such a benefit. We may have just become another secular instituion without a heart.
But the God who started us off, IS still with us, and gives us living proof of it day after day, and HE will in patience and love make sure we do not lose our way - or our Testimony. PRAY for us all, for we are needy, and want to please HIM.
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Another week has passed by, and Covid 19 still is taking lives, and infecting more and more.
Cases Tested Cases Positive Fatalities
233,641 12,062 222 as at 17th July - Friday.
This is an increase of some 27,057 Cases tested since last week and an increase of 2,614 confired Cases over the previous week. Plus 41 more deaths over the same period.
SO FAR only one reported confirmed Case in our Uasin Gishu County.
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However, it is yet to be seen exactly HOW it will do so.
Most Governments are pushing to lift Lock-downs in their respective Countries, in an effort to save their Economies - and this at the risk of even seeing further waves of Infection as a result. And, indeed, hundreds of new Outbreaks or 'waves' of this Virus are being reported where lock-down has been lifted or seriously relaxed. Is the 'risk' justified, if multiplied deaths are to be the fruit? Either way, in my opinion, whether we remove all 'bans' or whether we retain them and see greater economic hardship, we will still be faced with more fatalaties than we need to expect.
SINCE the onset of this Pandemic it seems to me that the World Media, as well as individual Governments have appeared to HYPE the situation more and more. A kind of universal agreement to brainwash the masses into believing the worst, no matter what. Or, as one brother, this week confided to me - 'We are being culled! There is a conspiracy to reduce world population before all is out of control.' Be that as it may, this would not be the first time that the world population has been threatened with hyped up news forcasting irriversable catastrophe caused by disease.
"In 1997 we were told that BIRD FLU could kill millions worldwide - it did not happen.
In 1999 E.U. Scientists warned BSE could kill up to 500,000 people - fortunately only 177 died of vCID.
The first SARS outbreak of 2003 was reported as having a 25% chance of killing tens of millions, and being worse than Aids.
In 2006 there was another bout of Bird Flu which was declared the first Pandemic of the 21st century; the scars of 2003. 2004, and 2005 having failed to meet their body counts." This gives us a picture of progressive public scare mongering.
"in 2009 pigs replaced birds, and the BBC announced that SWINE FLU 'could easily explode' and it was suggested that 65,000 in Britain alone might die." (Simon Jenkins in the Guadian of 6//3/2020)
ON MONDAY OF THIS WEEK - 13th July - watching SKY NEWS during the evening, still in Lock-down, here in Testimony Faith Homes, Eldoret, Kenya, we found ourselves encouraged by an update on what we could expect should we catch the COVID 19 Virus - and painfully survive. The presenter was very enthusiastic in informing us that there could be worse things ahead - even if we did come through hospitalisation. It had now been ascertained that the Virus could seriously affect a number of our internal organs, such as Heart, Kidneys, Lungs plus, plus, and even weaken them, and causing further serious, if not fatal, medical conditions. The presenter seemed quite unconcerned by any of this, and did a good job of consisely unloading it on the already depressed public. SKY NEWS is basically Covid 19 these days, and it is a kind of labour of depression and negatism. DEATH to MILLIONS was surely enough of an inital scare, but now, even if you survive, the lasting affects of having the Virus might still kill you, or blight your life for decades.
It is little wonder that the latest hot topic is MENTAL HEALTH; the world is falling apart materially and spiritually, and it seems more by design, than by accident. And, worldwide, there is an increase in the suicide rate, especially among the young. It is as if the bottom has dropped out of life, meaningful life. Nothing feels secure or permenant any more, as if the whole world is poised and waiting for the NEXT step........
NOW IS THE TIME TO TURN TO GOD, and to bring Him into our lives.
GOD says to us all FEAR NOT, FOR I AM WITH YOU.
I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU. NO ONE AND NOTHING, can take you out of my hand.
I SHALL EVER WALK WITH YOU WHEN YOU PASS THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH - the threats and attempts upon your life.
SO THROW YOUR DOUBTS, and your despair right away from you, and call upon the LORD, the SAVIOUR of Mankind, Who moment by moment has promised to keep you safe, and to bring YOU through all the elemental and other ddangers of this life, to Life Eternal, FREE of even the idea of FEAR. AMEN.
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IT IS STILL VERY COLD HERE, AND RAINING EVERY DAY. This is usual for the time of year. The only real DIFFERENCE is that there seem NOT to have been a HOT/DRY season these. Thus the 'light and warm' seem to have been withdrawn from us. No more special news of importance to report. The chidren have settled down to the fact that Schools will not open this year, but we all hope the Government may yet reconsider. Our Schoo Pricipal, Anthony Ndungu has initiated within Testimony School a 'Distance Learning' Program, using tablets, and this has picked up quite wel, and some thirty of our teachers have been able to earn a LITTLE as they participate. It has not been lot but little is better than nothing in present dire situation of joblessness.
God Bess you all.
lovngly in Jesus
John, Esther and Daryl Green
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