I CAME ACROSS THS PICTURE TODAY.    It took me back to a little town in north Yorkshire, England, during World War 11.    I was six years old.    I too had looked out of my bedroom window into the darkening night sky.   And I was wondering what tomorrow would bring.   My Mum was out at the 'flicks', and I was alone in the 'one up, one down' little house in Starbeck;  alone except for my Dad's mother, sipping tea by candlelight, near the fireplace.   And my Dad was out at the Pub getting drunk, as happened every night.    It was a momentous moment for me; a moment between heaven and hell, between an almost nightly terror, and a sudden shaft of Light, that began in me a slow but sure realisation that Someone outside of myself, and those I lived with, had me in mind.     I 'tingled' all over with that revelation.

My Mum ( I later found she was not be birth mother) was often out with a boyfriend, and my 'Dad' as stated, often drunk at the Pub, down the road.     Money was short in the house, and most evenings rang with rowdy, and violent domestic fights.    Not the most peaceful, or stable home to grow up in.     It got worse before it got better.....much later.

But, I did manage to get to School - sometimes - and was introduced to God by my Mum;    Every night before I slept she would pray with me a very simple prayer.     I was never removed from this family by the Authorities.    God took care of me.    And, as  I look back I can see that if I had not gone through what I had to, I may never had been prepared for what God had for me to do here twenty or so years later.

WHY am I remembering this now, in front of you all?    I am not sure.    But it has to be connected to the Governments Ten Year Plan to close Children's Homes in the pursuit of finding a 'Family Home and Life for every orphan in Kenya.     Hundreds of children have passed through Testimony Faith Homes since it first opened in Augusut 1969.   Babies, little kids of all ages, and teenagers; boys and girls.

SO many have had their moment looking out from here, to the future, wondering what it held for them.  And also remembering from where they came.     Its a very good thing to do, if you can.   It can clear your hindsight so that you can better see and understand where you have come to NOW.   Every step you took was a planned step, to bring you to His Purpose.        

But along the way our hearts and minds can bring us both joy and sorrow - and a sense of 'aloneness' can, most of all, lead us astray into despair.  And it will manifest in many different ways, from 'pits of gloom', to overwehlming anger and self pity.     I know of no way to combat this, unless it be for one's understanding to be illuminated to the reality of GOD; the One who made us, and is able to enable us to overcome every situation life may bring us to.   Christ is the Answer.      WHY?    Because He will never, in our life time, turn His back upon us, or refuse to answer our call, whatever the cause.      Because He revealed Himself to my little life,  and I no longer feared what Man could do to me.     God was, and IS still today, WITH ME.    Nothing sensationally noticeable, just inner assurance.

CHILDREN NEED this Anchor, as they sail their life upon the choppy waves, and storms of life, in this very uncertain world.      And they need it from the onset; from their Conception in the Womb, to their Birth into this chaotic world.    They need to find it in the Love and Care of a happily married loving couple to teach them God's LOVING KINDNESS, as they interact in a home that provides a steadfast backdrop to that LOVE no matter what happens.

WE IN TESTMONY FAITH HOMES & SCHOOLS

BELIEVE IN

Marriage, NOT Fornication or Adultery

We believe in 

'FOR BETTER, OR FOR WORSE'

And Till Death Serparates us.

WE BELIEVE IN

'FORGIVENESS & RESTORATION'

that will SAVE Marriage

HEAL broken homes and lives.

WE ALL NEED to WORK AT THIS

FOR THE SAKE OF OURSELVES, OUR CHILDLREN,

AND THE NATION WE ARE PART OF.

save your children

SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

WE GAVE OURSELVES 

(as a Man and a Woman

joined in Holy Matrimony, together with our own offspring

that God gave to us)

TO OPEN OURSELVES, AND OUR HOME

to, and for, children who may, for any reason, 

have lost their own family home.

We patterned ourselves on the idea of 

a Kenyan Extended Family

One Family extending itself to those

having suffered loss, temporaray or permenant of the same.

TO DAY WE ARE ALSO KNOWN LOCALLY AS

the Testimony Family

NOT

that we seek to replace or negate our children's birth families,

BUT that we might strengthen ties that bind,

and 'stand in' for Mums and Dads,

who were unable to provide for their childrens need of

Love, Home, and Family Support

I believe that many children have found what they may have initially lost.

I believe many have found the Love of God, and been able to forgive,

and to turn bitterness and anger into compassion and understanding.

And in the process the majority

found themselves becoming 'family' in a much wider sense

to strangers, and foreigners, breaking common barriers,

and becoming one with all mankind.

As a Residential Children's Home

we have served a purpose.

John and Esther Green

Testimony Faith Homes & Schools

1969-2022