LOOKING BACK INTO HISTORY

SOME MAY HAVE RECEIVED THESE PICTURES BEFORE, perhaps in a personal letter. But it is good in our 40th Year to remember where we have come from. This 20'x40' mud house in Maseno ACK Mission Compound was where Testimony Faith Homes actually began. A simple house without any modern conveniences such as running water, electricity or sewage! It sported a sitting room cum dining room, three small bedrooms with outside kitchen and pit latrine. No glass in the windows, no ceiling, no inside doors.
The FIRST four boys came to live there with me in August 1969.
We moved into quite a few different properties after that. Two larger houses on the same Compound and then into the private home of the Anglican Archbishop of Kenya, The Rt. Rev. Festo Olang (he was then living in the bishop's palace in Nairobi). Then for some weeks in 1971 we were camped out in the Sports Pavilion of Maseno School, and then until 1972 we moved to a place called Ramula in Siaya District, about 15 kilometres from Maseno. This was a large compound previously used as a colonial administration, Chief's Compound. It had been empty, unused, and derilect for ten years! It comprised a semi open air Magistrate's Court building (which we used as dining/kitchen) and some six small cottages similar to the one we started out in. It had a few local shops adjacent, but otherwise was quite far from anything, almost on top of a windswept hill, water a quarter of a mile away, no power, no sewerage; quite basic. It was to Ramula that I took Esther my Bride in August 1971, transplanting her from an orderly, fairly well appointed High School where she had primly taught English and Home Science to demure high school girls, back to what must have seemed almost primitive circumstances amongst an instant family of sons aged 12 to 18; most of them rough and unruly!

BOXING DAY 1972 we moved 130 kilometers north east to Eldoret, to a 5 acre plot on the outskirts of the town, to a seven bedroomed mansion (built of mud brick and wattle) some 70 years earlier. This was to be and remains the NEW Testimony House. We had just arrived back from a trip to UK where our first son Steve was born. The Lord had raised up the money to purchase outright, and so it was ours, and we no longer needed to hop from rented property to rented property. We have slowly acquired adjoining plots of land, on which we have built and developed Jacaranda Cottage, the School, and the two new Homes - Drakeley and Tyndale.
It has taken time. But it has happened, and continues to GROW. We now own some TEN acres on which the Nursery/Primary & Secondary School, and the FOUR Homes stand. The School offers tuition to about 650 local children on a fee paying, daily, basis, plus our own 14o needy children resident in our Homes. We hope we are still developing and we believe the Lord our God will yet find ways and means to enlarge us, and to provide for all the ongoing costs of keeping it going. It is good to look back though, and recently the first boy that we helped, Wilson Swayi, visited (September 2008) the FIRST little house in which we began. Wilson was travelling at the time with his now five year old son, and could not resist walking to Maseno Hospital to see if our first home still existed. It did, but has suffered some dilapidation over the intervening years and looks definitely the worse for wear. It has gone from care to ruin. I felt rather sad to see it so, and wondered if one day even all of Testimony Faith Homes might suffer a similar fate! Not, perhaps, a happy or FAITH FILLED thought! But it is a fact that the care and maintenance of property is not something one notices in Kenya. There seems little national determination to preserve anything. But that is in the Hands of God.

THERE ARE STILL displaced adults and children camping in Eldoret Show Ground. There are MORE children on our streets in the Town, and generally the situation as related to homeless children is increasing and expanding on every hand. Our District Commissioner has evinced concern about this, and yesterday I received a visit from the District Children's Officer who had been instructed by the DC to contact various Charitable Children's Homes with a view to getting them (us) to DO MORE to help - or rather CONTRIBUTE financially to assist. I pointed out that in 40 years I had not seen much encouragement or thanksgiving from Government either Central or Local in respect of the many hundreds and thousands of children already helped freely by the private sector. Today we still assisted - all together working - many hundreds and thousands of children unable to be assisted by Government, and still without much Thanks or Appreciation shown either in word or deed. We had a long discussion. Don't miss-understand me, it was not an antagonistic exchange; we both saw the need and the problems, and both were concerned as to what to do....... but we also realised there was need for Government to come in and back up what the CCIs are actually doing. For example all of us are heavily charged for RATES, and WATER. Could we not be exempted from such charges be? All of us are taxed, and charged for every little thing, and receive not the slightest relief or financial aid. It was agreed that a Meeting be laid on between the District Commissioner and all the Managers of CCIs as soon as possible to discuss the way forward. I shall look forward to it actually happening!
Yesterday we took in TWO more children aged 3 and 5. I will tell their story next week and add a photo. Wish we could take in more.!
We have had two days of LIGHT rain here in Eldoret. Refreshing but in no way alleviating the dire state of drought that the entire Nation is experiencing. People and cattle are dying whilst the unscrupulous amongst us sell Relief Aid to other countries, distribute highly toxic cheap maize, and spend endless days and hours TALKING and COMPLAINING about corruption without actually DOING anything about it.
Perhaps we hope Mr. OBAMA will be the one to straighten it all out and feed the Nation! No one seems to be looking or applying to GOD for the Answer.

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Last week I commenced an article on Cosmetics, and so now I will try to conclude.....

'I AM NOT AT ALL FOR 'MAKE UP'! I am not for 'make-believe', but for the truth. Jesus came to lead each one of us into TRUTH - and into personal honesty in front of God and each other......Of course the argument is always that we should try to look our BEST, and to make ourselves as attractive as we can. I am not merely speaking about women, by the way.
MEN are more and more into the use of creams, oils, and cosmetics generally - even in some church circles. I wonder, though, if in trying to improve ourselves we sometimes achieve the opposite effect? After all painted nails often look like the talons of some animal that has been tearing up flesh.....the glistening of skin and lips suggests a stickiness, a sweetness, that repulses more than attracts. Have you ever read Proverbs 5v3 in the Bible?

'The lips of a loose (immoral) woman drip as a honeycomb,
and her mouth is smoother than oil.'

I have often wondered if one kissed some women's lips that look so full of lipstick, whether one might not stick to them like a fly to a fly-paper. Of course I an not saying that a woman who wears lipstick is in any way a prostitute, but it can often make person LOOK like one! And we are exhorted to abstain from all appearance of evil. Many men and women today, using varied products to sell their 'looks', do end up looking 'sticky'. sweaty, and somehow, over ripe. Oh dear, perhaps I am coming on too hard......yes of course I do know that if one has dry lips that crack, or skin suffering from acne, body odour that is not pleasant, or hair that is unruly, then there is a case for finding a remedy and a help. We should not be careless about our personal hygiene or appearance. BUT we should take care not to over-do it.
In recent years is has been disclosed that many of the skin products on sale promote skin cancers and other related ailments, endangering our health. In (2001) many of the well known creams were actually been withdrawn from the consumer market. Not only that, but many face creams are made from ingredients obtained from the aborted fetuses of unwanted children. Do we really need to be covered in such rottenness and shame. Should we we truly expose our bodies - that we know are the 'Temples of God' - to sickness and disease purely from a sense of carnal vanity? Surely not! We know that God designed us even before we were conceived in the womb. He lovingly and carefully planned everything about us. He did not make a mistake, but permitted us to be just as we are for good reasons of His Own. Colour, skin texture, hair, EVERYTHING about us was just as He wanted it to be. And Remember He made us for Himself, to serve, please, and give Him PLEASURE. It is not for us to change it. IF change is suggested for some reason, then we should always ask Him first BEFORE doing something ourselves about it.
Iaiah 3v16-24 in the Bible sounds a warning to the overdressed, over adorned, and over made up woman in particular. He says - 'Because the daughters of Zion are proud and walk with outstretched necks, and with undisciplined (flirtatious and alluring) eyes, tripping along with mincing and affected gait, and making a tinkling noise with their bracelets and anklets; BECAUSE of this, the Lord will smite them with a scab upon the crown of their heads to make them bald. He will by force take away their finery, their bracelets, the headbands, the sashes, the perfumes, the rings....and instead of the sweet odour of spices there shall be the stench of rottenness!'
And in the First Letter of Peter 3v1-6 in the Bible we can also read - 'Let not yours be the merely EXTERNAL adorning with elaborate interweaving and knotting of the hair (hairstyles, and Hair pieces), the wearing of jewelry, or changes of clothes, but let it be the INWARD adorning and beauty of the hidden person of the heart, with incorruptible and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit.....for it was thus that the pious women of old who hoped in God were accustomed to beautify themselves and were submissive to their husbands..'
We can put on face creams and lipsticks; we can put on deodorant and perfume. We can plait, and put on hairpieces and style to our hair, we can bejewel and adorn ourselves with the latest fashion - BUT WE NEED INSTEAD TO PUT ON CHRIST! We should all seek to make Him Who is the REAL Beauty, to be our Adornment and Beauty.
In Ezekiel 16v14 in the Bible The Lord God says to those that are truly HIS Children -

'Your fame went out amongst the Nations
because of your beauty,
for it was perfect through MY Majesty and Splendour
which I had put upon you says the Lord...'

And finally look at Job 11v15 in the Bible, where it is written -

'You will lift up your face without a spot.......
You age shall be clearer than the noonday;
Thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning!'

IF we would only put off our old man (nature) and put on Christ Jesus (His Nature) then we would scrape off the world's MAKEUP and put on GOD'S TRUTH, and we would find ourselves with the best of complexions year after year. HE is our medicine and health.

EXPERIMENT AND SEE IF IT WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU.'

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Joshua Mbithi is still suffering from a trapped nerve. He has not had much encouragement from the medics he has seen so far, and may finally have to have an operation. He need prayer very much.

Desmond and Virginia HALES arrived as hoped and expected and are settling in. Des is already well into investigating our School Accounting System which has been giving us a bit of a headache. They will be hear till about the 26th March. We have been wonderfully blessed to have their fellowship, and they brought with them a Gift from their Church which delivered us yet again from a pressing and urgent needs. Such an unlooked for direction for salvation to come from - We are ALWAYS surprised by His Loving Care.

THIS is all for this week - probably too much.! Steven has been trying to improve our Website. If you go to www.testimonyfaithhomes.org look at the top right of the page and press LINK. You will then go to a page inviting you to look at the NEW page. Press there and then you will be able to see how things are coming on. Lots more photos, and the latest BLOG will also be there. God Bless and Keep you sane and well.


John and Esther