ONWARDS, FOREWARDS!!!

YESTERDAY WE RECEIVED TWO NEW CHILDREN into the Homes. Camilla and Valentine aged 6 and 9 years. In this photo Valentine is on the extreme right, and Camilla is to her immediate left. Standing with them is Stacey aged 5 and her brother Franklin aged 9 standing behind. ALL four of these children lost their parents to AIDS. They immediately lost their home and were destitute in addition. No home, and no family to find shelter with. Three are clear of the HIV virus, but Camilla is not, and is the first child to come in toTestimony being HIV Positive. This is something of a land mark in our history. Previously we had not thought that we should accept any with the virus since we are not really set up to provide intensive medical care. A Week ago I had been in Court to finalise details to bring Camilla and her sister to TFH, but at the Hearing it was revealed that BOTH had HIV. I could not accept them as things stood with our current regulations without consultation with our Houseparents and Executive Staff. We duly met on Monday of this week, and it was unanimously felt that we could not refuse children in need, and these little girls were in great need. Thus we changed the regulations to accommodate them. We shall not put up a 'sign' to say we welcome HIV children, but we will not in future necessarily turn away those that are. We have in fact helped many disabled and challenged children, but usually limited the number. HIV is no different really. BOTH girls are already marvellously happy and settled. They are now part of the Drakeley Cottage Family, some of whom can be seen in the other two photos. Steve and Emily have a very happy little family of 33 at present. And it is always a joy to meet up with their kids who are real 'SMILERS'. It is a comparatively young family age wise, with the majority being between 4 and 12 years. They get on very well with each other.

THIS WEEK we had one of our many 'sons' staying with us on a short visit from the USA. His name is SAMMY KIRUI. He is presently attempting his Phd., but previously he has been both Pastor and Teacher here in Kenya. It has been good to have time to be with him once more, and to catch up on his news. He needed a break from what has been quite intensive and demanding study. NEXT WEEK we shall be meeting up with our friends from HUDDERSFIELD in England - Ian and Diana Hogley. More of that next Saturday. I must apologise that to-days update will appear late. I have had to be out most of the day visiting another Children's work and have only managed to start after supper.

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ONE OF MY OUTSIDE INTERESTS for the last decade or so has been involvement with a new Kenya Program aimed at reducing overcrowding of our prisons. This involves Community Service as an alternative to custodial sentencing. It has been very successful indeed, and it has been more than interesting and encouraging to sit on the Case Committee. This is attached to my involvement with the local Probation Service. I have been quite surprised this week to read that the Government might now consider dismantling this Program.
THE DAILY NATION, on page 11 of Thursday's edition announces -

COMMUNITY SERVICE UNDER THREAT

New Constitution might kill programme as Bill of Rights

curtails arrests for minor offences.

The writer of the Article tells us - 'The new Constitution outlaws incarceration for offences punishable by fine or imprisonment for not more than six months. Such offences usually involves people patronising busaa (illicit beer) dens, idlers at marketing centres and bus termini.' He also goes to great lengths to tell us that public opinion would be very much against a move to abandon the Community Service Programme. He is very right. I am very disturbed to think that such a thing could happen. It is TRUE that our prisons are overcrowded, but this is not the way to relieve the situation; it can only backfire on the general community by encouraging petty crime. If Magistrates in Kenya are feeling unable to give deserved prison sentences because of overcrowding, and now the Police are in any case to be prevented from arresting petty thieves, drunkards, and potentially dangerous vagrants, then soon we shall have a VERY unsafe society indeed. Even now the Police are wondering if it is worth arresting serious criminals since they are not given adequate custodial sentences. One wonders if they will put themselves out to 'police' the country at all if this new piece of legislation goes through. It is hard to see that 'Rights' given to drunkards, street vagabonds and tramps will improve the 'Rights' of the law abiding society. We NEED to lobby instead for more Prison space, more Police on the beat with powers to arrest. But will we get it? I think not. This world of ours is VERY DARK!

LAST SUNDAY I preached on Psalm 11v3 - If the foundations are destroyed what can the unyieldingly righteous DO? The 'foundations' in question are those moral and ethical laws on which all our history is built upon - the TEN COMMANDMENTS. But all our World Society is breaking up, regardless of what it is built upon! The God given evidence of Right and Wrong are no longer being accepted or understood. Even religious people are forgetting their religion and merging into world humanistic values and habits. Why - even Christians give less and less attention to the Word of God - either written or as seen in the Life of Christ - preferring instead to seek after sensational 'experiences' and to lean to their own understanding. Few seek how to 'please' God, or how to Be a Witness to the world around them. Why even today we are told on the WORLD NEWS that the Archbishop of Canterbury is happy to have a homosexual as a bishop provided he is not having sex with his partner!!! I have put THREE explanation marks because I just can hardly believe it. BUT, look at 2.Peter2v1 -

IN THE LAST DAYS

false teachers will arise among you who will stealthily (almost unnoticed) introduce

destructive heresies (deceitful teaching)

and many will follow their immoral and lascivious life styles

AND, because of them the TRUE Way

will be evilly spoken of.

In Psalm 83v5 it says that even Magistrates will not know what to do because of this breakdown in law and order - I have already mentioned how our Kenyan Magistrates are at a loss how to Sentences convicted felons! -

All the fundamental principals that justice rests upon

ARE SHAKING!

Secular Society - the majority - who do not KNOW God, are unaware of where they are going. They help make and change laws and practice to suit themselves - NOT GOD.

Look at Isaiah 24 - a truly terrible chapter speaking of the END of the world, and how things will be in those days. Isaiah had a vision of this -

Verse 3 - The land and the earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly pillaged (ecological mismanagement)

Verse 5 - The land and the earth are defiled (made unclean) by their inhabitants, BECAUSE they have transgressed (disobeyed) the LAW, disregarded (God)'s) Statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.

THEN IN Verse 16 God comments and says -

From all over the earth we heard singing

'Glory to the Righteous One (Jesus)

BUT I (GOD) feel deprived and unsatisfied. WOE is Me!

The treacherous dealers (shepherds / teachers) have dealt treacherously -

they have betrayed me.

TO ME this is another reference to the loose and decayed state of the World Church. The Laodician Church of Revelation - There is hardly any visible difference between the so called 'godly' and the ungodly - as with the merchant so with the priest! THE LIGHT SEEMS TO HAVE GONE OUT other than for rare exceptions here and there.

THUS in Verse 17 we continue to read -

Terror, and the Pit (Hell), and the Snare

are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!

He who flees from the terror will fall into the Pit,

and he who climbs up out of the Pit will be caught in the snare

AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARTH WILL TREMBLE AND SHAKE.

BEWARE! Take care! This has BEGUN already, and is far on in its progress everywhere. SO what will each one of us who seeks to be unyieldingly, uncompromisingly, Righteous DO. Will we go the way of all FLESH or will we STAND and SHINE in the Spirit of our God

THIS IS THE TIME TO WARN the world.

This is the time to WARN the CHURCH with JUDE in mind.

We must PROCLAIM the Gospel Message

We must OPPOSE ungodliness and Warn of Judgement and Hell.

We must regard the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless around us.

WE MUST BE LIGHT - SHOWING THE RIGHT WAY

WE MUST BE SALT, highlighting the world's lack of real flavour;

ready to cleanse and disinfect from sin.

We must be DEAD to sin - ALIVE to God.

We have to begin NOW if we have not already done so

THIS IS WHAT WE MUST DO.

And we have to do it just where we are - right in the midst of where GOD has put us, without fear or favour, with all our strength and with all our mind.

God Bless you all and enliven you to hear HIS voice at every turn of every day.

John and Esther

YESTERDAY, TODAY, FOREVER?

35 YEARS AGO, in October 1975 I was driven by an Eldoret Social Worker to the Municipal Rubbish Dump.

"The Social Services Officer and I left the car at the roadside, and walked on up the hill. It was about 11a.m. On either side of the road fields of tall maize rustled in the wind that swept over the steep incline we were climbing. The road had been tarmacked once,. Now, long neglected and broken up, it led us to the Municipal Rubbish Dump. The smell of it, and the acrid blue smoke of endlessly burning rubbish blew down upon us as we walked. 'Come with me', the social worker had said when we met earlier, ' and I will show you a sight.'

At last we reached the sloping summit, and there, stretched out before us under the blue vault of a sun drenched heaven, and margined by the maize plantations, was the DUMP.! Acres of it! Smoking, burning, rotting! No TIP this, but truly a DUMP. Everything just dumped on the ground, dumped to burn and to rot away. Dumped and pounced upon, searched, and rummaged - for FOOD or anything sellable.

There was a place like this outside Jerusalem - The Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) they called it. HELL! Next to Jerusalem. And here we were again - The vivid sapphire and emerfald of sky and field - THEN the charred, littered, defiled earth, enmisted in slowly curling smoke; huge carrion hawks circling always watchfully above...

'Well here we are!' commented my companion. 'and there THEY are!'

Yes there they WERE! People! People who lived from this rottenness! Like wraiths they moved in and out of the haze, tattered, raggfed, thin and gaunt. Adults and children scattered all over that putrifaction; children jumping and scuttling in and out of the rubbish like great rodents. Some naked, some in rags; hair matted, bodies caked in grime. The youngest seemed about 5 and eldest perhaps 18 and of course older adults also with them." (from the Book 'A CRY FROM THE STREET)

TODAY that Dump has been moved, but not entirely changed - only that NOW the children are to be found on the STREETS as well, and in geater numbers, and with even worse results.

That DAY, thirty years ago, we took FIVE of the young children into our care. A week or so later we began to rent what was to be the second Children's Home for TFH. We named it JACARANDA COTTAGE, because of the many Jacaranda Trees that grew within the compound.

Into that house we transfered the five boys we had taken from Eldoret Dump, together with a few others from Testimony House to help them orientate. Francis and Elaine Wainaina went as well, as newly wed Mum and Dad. AND one of the girls that went with them from Testimony House was Miriam Peter, later to become the wife of Joshua MBITHI, (NOW a mother of three PLUSS many more as they both care for HIV orphans not far away at NEEMA CHILDREN'S HOME which they were to commence much later in life). And Jacaranda Cottage continued on. We were finally able to purchase the property outright, and it now belongs to Testimony Faith Homes, with a current family of thirty seven children. 62 others having come and gone with those first five. In 1975 hardly anyone noticed or cared about such hidden poverty. In 1975 there were probably only 60,000 souls in Eldoret. NOW there are opwards of 600,000 (unofficially!) and thus poverty has become much more visible in 2010, with greater hunger greater destitution, greater everything. But NOW we are not alone in reaching out to the needy.

JESUS said that the POOR will ALWAYS be with us. World Governments say UTOPIA is always just round the corner - a world were poverty and suffering will be swept away - here in Kenya we are also being told our own poor will soon be swept away by the practical implementations of the New Constitution..............I know who I believe!

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SCHOOL and HOMES have all managed to quickly adjust to new and better understood disciplinary methods and attitudes. Where necessary meetings were arranged between children, students, houseparents and teachers, together with ourselves, and we are glad to say there was a very good spirit resulting in all parties accepting past mistakes with apology and so far since all this first blew up we are now experiencing peace and appreciation of law and order on all sides. Truly a case of the Devil getting the worst end of his own strategies. Thank you God for watching over us, and for being WITH us, even when confronted with the unexpected.

ALL our College and University students from within the four Homes are now back to study, the Lord wonderfully supplying ALL their need.

ALSO, this week, I instituted a Monday to Friday morning Prayer Fellowship for all the Homes Staff and our Administrative Office. Others also have begun to attend, and it has been a very encouraging week. There is no doubt that committing the day to God, together, and being able to pray for each other on a daily basis is a Blessing. This move is in addition to our weekly Prayer Meeting. We also re-opened our weekly Staff Bible Study - we are studying the Letter of JUDE. NEXT week we hope to re structure and improve our evangelical outreach to our cleaning and grounds staff. TODAY there is a big Christian Rally in the School Hall with about 500 attending from the Homes, Testimony School and other Christian Unions from around the Town. An all day affair. Wonderful to see SO MANY YOUNG people seeking to KNOW and SERVE God.

It has been a GOOD week. A visibly VICTORIOUS week! Thank you JESUS!

Love to you all - your are together WITH US in all that happens here.

John and Esther

BUFFETS AND BLOWS!!

ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 25 YEARS AGO to the week-end, Esther and I were visited by a Christian couple who had been close friends of more than a decade. They came to confide in us that the Lord had shown them that I was POSSESSED and needed Ministry to be set free. They said that they were not alone in this opinion, and that many other brethren in the Pentecostal Fellowship that we then attended felt that I brought 'a coldness' into the Meetings when I attended, and that I suppressed the Holy Spirit.

They shared this is we sat together taking tea in Testimony House garden during the afternoon. We were both very much alarmed. These were friends of many years! Were they right? Was I indeed possessed without being aware of it? I said 'And if you are right - and if I do not seek for 'Ministry' as you suggest - what will happen?' My brother quietly replied -' you will destroy the work of Testimony Faith Homes! Esther and I looked at each other, and she said how shocked she felt. 'We need time to seek the Lord about this, since we ourselves seem quite unaware of the truth of what you say.' Our friends got up and left us to consider the matter.

We were then, at that time, quite without funds to carry the work forward. Not even a shilling in the Bank. I was also at the time unwell and over-tired. Esther and I had no assistant in those days, and were quite unable to leave the Homes even for a day. If this Statement had come from just another brother or acquaintance it would have been easier - but from long time, trusted and respected friends! - We felt - I personally felt - as if the GROUND on which I stood had been taken away - could it really be possible - was I possessed? I had been feeling low, and weary. The Lord had kept us more than a week without funds or any word to comfort us..........

It was a most horrible and paralysing occasion. It would take serious heart searching. But we took ourselves to prayer and sought the Lord through the Word, and as the days of the ensuing week passed, we were given confidence and proof that though we might indeed have been oppressed by the Enemy, yet I was NOT possessed. And progressively as days turned into years, and years into a quarter of a century we have felt assured that if CHRIST indeed be IN you then no Devil can have possession of you. Looking back on this incident today we remember the force behind that thrust against our individual and united Faith; against our moment by moment Salvation. It almost threw us off our feet - almost but not quite. How Mighty is the Hand of our God. We did not see our friends again for TEN years. they actually left the Country for a time. Then we met again, and all was forgiven and put right. God IS Good.

AND HERE WE STILL ARE 25 years LATER. Alive and Well, and still in the midst of a growing and prospering ministry. Life has not always been plain sailing, funds have not always been plentiful, BUT clearly GOD has been very present with us, to keep us, and to build us up.

He does not CHANGE.

He IS the same TODAY as He was Yesterday, and will be Tomorrow!

Last week finances had been slowly getting lower, until this week the Bank was with a balance of ten Kenya shillings. BUT we had food on hand, if only basically, and so no one has hungered. And NOW we have heard from friends that further help is on the way - We are constantly watched and cared for, and He UNDERTAKES for us - even before we have asked. In this connection there is a verse, very special to me in the Bible, which enshrines a very great Truth.

I came upon it in 1987 when I was being medically examined in Nairobi Hospital. I had been sent to a Cardiologist - Dr. Silverstien - and he concluded his Examination by telling me that I had heart damage, and would, in his estimation, need by-pass heart surgery! He said, 'Mr. Green I want to see you again in three days, and in the meantime do not exert yourself at all - no do even pick up a pin!' THIS TIME it was not the 'ground' but my legs that seemed to have been taken away from me. I do not know how I actually WALKED out of Silverstien Office. That night in bed in Nairobi, with Esther next to me, I could not sleep, listening to every heart beat and wondering what would happen to her, the children and the work if I were to suddenly konk out! The bedside light was still on, and I reached for my Bible. I opened it apparently randomly and found myself in the 2nd Letter to the Corinthians chapter 1 verse 9-11

'We had the sentence of death in ourselves,

that we should not trust in ourselves,

but in God, which raiseth the dead.

Who delivered us from so great a death,

and doth deliver;

in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us.

YE ALSO helping together by prayer for us

that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons,

thanks may be given by many on our behalf.

THESE verses immediately set me free from all anxiety about my health, and when I next met Dr. Silverstien it was for him to stand back amazed at seeing nothing untoward in regard to my heart which before had seriously alarmed him and prepared him for surgery. Even the NEW set of X-rays which he ordered showed NOTHING wrong at all!! BUT this was not all, but also the realisation of how we are all to some extent joined to each other and are part of each other's prosperity, health, and general welfare, as God the Holy Spirit communicates, inspires and involves us in one another's lives as He directs. This is a great mystery, but a greater privilege and spur to faith. Truly we are members of Such a Family!

And how wonderful to know that HE is seeing us through every unforeseeable happening along the way. No matter the waves, the wind, and the storm suddenly breaking all around us - HE is with us in the ship; with us wherever and however we are AND prepared to bring us through. What a Saviour! What a Friend!

TODAY we are happy to see one of our oldest girls with us for the week-end she is now 48 and a widowed mother of 7 children. She is also sister to Johanna who we once took to England with us in 1972. Grace lives 130 kilometres away near to Maseno, where we began this work. She has been through a lot of rough times, but her Testimony is that Jesus was WITH her throughout, and brought her through. What a GREAT joy to hear this from her lips, and from her experience of life. How wonderful that the Lord has spared US to have her in our own little Green Cottage - a daughter kept by the grace of God. Thank you Jesus.

Lovingly to you all

John and Esther

YEARS GONE BY FOR ALL OF US

NOW THIS IS AN OLDIE! Taken in the grounds of the Anglican Cathedral Church of St. Matthew, Eldoret, Kenya on 30th August 1975, this is the Wedding of Francis and Elaine Wainaina. Esther and I were their best couple, and the intrusive gnome is our son Michael then aged one and a half. I was 34 and Esther 30.

FRANCIS had been working with us for a year or so, and then, after his marriage to Elaine in 1975 went on together with her to be the first houseparents of Jacaranda Cottage.

Elain was a missionary teacher in Moi Girls High School, situated also in Eldoret. They were to remain with us until 1981, when they left for the UK to pursue further studies. Francis is today Vicar of the Anglican Church of St. Andrew in Starbeck, near Harrogate in Yorkshire, England. His vicarage is exactly opposite my old Primary School which I attended in 1944-47! We have remained good friends together, and I often think, if he had not ventured to England, that he might still be here and probably my successor. But it seems dangerous for us to look at anyone in that hope, since they never seem to stay....... They have all come and gone, one by one, leaving me to continue on. NOW it is at least necessary to be able to have back-up even if we still cannot ascertain who will, eventually take over from me as Director Over-all. Recently a decision taken by our Board was extended to a more permenant extent. Daryl Green to be Asst. Director with responsability for the Homes, and Anthony Ndungu, our School Principal for the last 25 years, as Asst. Director with responsability for the Schools. The Board had made this suggestion at the A.G.M. held in June this year initially. But this is merely a 'safety provision' to cover any eventuallity that might leave a gap in Management. The final matter of who will follow me is not able yet to be decided, and should anything happen to me the Board would not be in a position to automatically appoint one of my Assistants as matters stand. BUT God will in the end attend to it, either before or after I give up the ghost, so to speak. It does at least help me to be able to hand over some of the administrative routine work, and have less of a load upon me.

Looking back over the years I came across a photo of Catherine Senge, later to become Mrs. Yego! She was just an infant then! And now a wife and mother of ONE + 32 others in Tyndale Cottage.

She is 31 now. Wonderful to look back and SEE how the Lord arranges things, and conmtinues to teach and mould us into His Will. And almost impossible to SEE close up, at the time, what He IS doing or WHERE He IS leading us. BUT, it is certain that a man or woman has no idea - no understanding - that even though they may THINK they make their own way in life, it is God that nudges, hedges in, and generally seeks to lead us in the way we SHOULD GO. God does not always win in this purpose, but He never gives up trying. And for the man or woman who has genuinely handed Him their life, trusting Him to lead them, He actually DOES go before them, arranging each step. Where would we be without HIM. Where are you now?

Catherine Senge is at home in Tyndale with her husband and family. Yes, they almost seemed on the way to missing their way......but the LORD's hand was with and upon them. He did not let go, and guided them back to the Way He has for them. He IS so good. So Patient, So kind! I wish I was more and more like HIM.....Lord hear my prayer and answer it.

Just heard from Esther! She is safe and sound in Nairobi. We like to keep in touch, and make sure all is well with each other. Not bad after 39 years!

Just shows that with His Grace and Patience two can grow into ONE. Yes, if we are willing to go ON, and to ENDURE each other in Marriage, we will eventually find ourselves with something more than precious. This surely must be what God is aiming at for Himself and US together in end. I am looking forward to it.

The sun is shining outside for the first time. I can hear faint sounds of bird song wafting in through the open door and windows. Children laughing, and the sound of the Town far away. The grass, too, has just been mown, and the fragrance of it also is upon the air - wish I could send all the beauty and comfort of this moment to you all....... And the words of an old hymn, also, faintly mingling .

Have Thine own way Lord! Have Thine own way!

Thou are the Potter: I am the clay.

Mould me and make me, after Thy will

While I am waiting, Yielded and still......

Have Thine own way Lord! Have Thine own way.

Hold o'er my being absolute sway!

Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see

Christ only, always, living in me.

Good place to break of for this week. Have to turn once again to Sunday's Word which is once more my burden to carry. Pray for me. Pray for Esther. Pray for all our co-workers. Pray for the CHILDREN.

Sincerely in His Mercy

John and Esther