TREASURING EVERY REMEMBRANCE

I  have rather liked this picture!   It draws me!  Perhaps it is its simplicity.    One cannot SEE the people's faces, yet somehow you get the impression of their individuality.    Each one so special, so innocently 'wondering' - what IS the one holding the leaf so tenderly thinking about?  And the Palm Leaves ........?
Tomorrow is PALM SUNDAY!    The remembrance of the Day JESUS entered into Jerusalem just four days before He was killed.
Just another likeness to the Sacrificial Lamb - the PASSOVER Lamb of Exodus 12v3-6 which was 'penned up' for four days before it was killed!
Interesting to consider how quickly people can change.     Innocently joyous to welcome him as King; so quick to turn and indecently stab Him in the back!         Such a 'strange' day it must have been for Jesus; laughter, exultation, JOY on all the face around him - NONE then realising that they were leading a sheep to the slaughter.    HE knew.   He was aware.   He knew the Truth.  How truly brave and courageous He IS.

On Thursday we here in Testimony will remember the LAST SUPPER, where Jesus and His Disciples gathered together in the Upper Room to celebrate the Passover together.    Can there be any thing SO poignant?        Each of the four Homes here will eat Roast Lamb.    Each Mum will be in the kitchen, and at supper time, the meal cooked and complete, will be shared around each Family table.     We started doing this three years ago, and it has really caught on as a prelude to Easter Friday.  It has been a Blessing.    So what will be on our table Maundy Thursday?   What will the Menu be?
Well it will be Roast Lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs (from our own garden) and water.
During the meal, as we eat, one and another will speak of the 'meaning' of the lamb, the herbs and the bread.      Then AFTER all is cleared a little bread will be left and some water........
At that point we shall have a Family Time of sharing the bread and cup together - and again the Father of the house will give a simple resume of what is being done and why.     And finally when all is said and done, songs, and hymns are sung, and prayer and sharing.... and then it is time to go out to bed in the bedrooms  - at least for the youngest.       SO think of us - we shall be thinking of you all as you prepare to meet Good Friday once again.     SUCH a momentous day.    
We are hoping to show the PASSION this year.     Yes, it is a little TOO violent and bloody in places, BUT it is a powerful rendition of what too place, and it follows the Bible Text clearly.   We have two or three different films of Easter.     We usually show a different one each year.
God Willing and Enabling we shall hope to wish you all a Blessed EASTER on Easter Saturday.

To night there is 'thunder' in the air - a faint promise of RAIN, and with temperatures in the 80fs and severe water shortage we all long to see, hear and FEEL it.    Yes, it is rumbling all around us as I type this.    Have Mercy upon us O Lord.

Three days ago we received the gift of a three year old cow - our fourth!!!   Quite thrilling.  Milk here is up to Ksh.70/- per litre now - but WE have our own plentiful supply by God's Grace.  AND we still have green veg, and PEAS growing well AND more and more EGGS and CHICKENS so that we are now able to even sell more of what WE do not need.     God is GOOD.

I hope you received our Awareness Leaflet - I know at least some have received it safely.  Please do hand them on.     We are also distributing them in our immediate locality as well.    It is already apparent that it was a good idea since so many have told us they had no idea there was a work of love and care for kids right here under their very eyes.     Amazing, after 41 years!   But the Lord knows, and He knows the times.

I am ending here - a shorty this week - yesterday was our Quarterly Board Meeting which took a good four hours, and today I had to write up the Minutes and send our Audited Accounts up to Nairobi to meet a Government deadline.    Quite demanding and tiring.    But tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and I shall tell the story of the two Greeks who asked Phillip to take them to Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on the back a donkey.

Love to you all.   Focus on He Who is our LIFE.

John and Esther

SCHOOL SPORTS DAY!!    And this time it is a Girls that ends up overall Champion - or at Least she is Captain of the House that WON!   It seems only yesterday that the last Sports Day took place.      You can see how scorched the grass - where it still exists - is.    The HEAT has been more each day, and even at night the temperature has been in the 80fs  BUT the sky is BLUE, and today the event was unspoilt by heat, dust or anything else nature threw at us.   Crowds of people attended.    We have about 500 family heads on the school book, but it looked as if both parents, and even relatives were in attendance today.      EVERYONE thoroughly enjoyed it, and many parents and teachers joined and took part much to the delight of the children generally - AND OF COURSE all our Home children were there, if not all competing in the Events, then at least to enjoy the excitement, and that special sense of a Day Out.    It all started at 10a.m and finished at 5.30p.m.    Quite a Day!   The shouting, cheering, plus   general pandemonium was considerable.      NOW all is quiet again, and the air a little cooler..........And it is Sunday tomorrow.

The week has been quiet.    Esther has been away some 20 kilometres distant from Eldoret attending a rather lengthy Board Meeting (4 full days) of another Charity known as OPEN ARMS INTERNATIONAL.    We have been friends of the co-founders - David and Rachel Gallagher since 2001 when they first came to spy out the land.      They have a 52 acre plot not far from Eldoret Airport and already have 6 Children's Family Homes there.      So far they have 60 children, but of course more and more will come.     A wonderful Vision.     SO Esther is on their Board.     She went to and fro every day from 8 to 6p,m,      All ended in a promotional Dinner in an Eldoret Hotel on Thursday evening which I also attended.      Always interesting and to some degree exciting to be on some one elses Project at the very beginning, and to be able to pray along with it and see God's Hand make it grow.         We have been privileged to see NEEMA HOMES grow too as we have walked along with Joshua and Miriam......Their Visas to UK have now been granted and we think they may fly out at the end April.     God's Timing is always right.

On Thursday Funds arrived to relieve our own latest desert experience.     Hearts were lightened and Spirits soared.    Now Thank we All our God!      Bless you who were involved in His Relief Program for us.  HALLELUJAH.

On Friday the Children's Department brought a grandmother to see us.      She apparently is looking after eleven children, and an additional three others.       It appears she is too old and poor to cope with this, and so 'will YOU (us) please take them in'.    This was not so much a request as a command.      The lady was quite well dressed, but probably in her middle/late sixties.         Daryl, as Director, was dealing with this whilst I sat in as a by-stander.     He began to explain to the grandmother that once the children were committed to us they would not be able to visit her, since the REASON they were coming to us was that she was unable to care for them, and did not have proper accommodation for them.       She immediately became upset and said but of course they would come every school holiday!       A gasp went up from the Children's Officer - as if a cat had indeed leaped out of the bag!        It became clear that the lady did not KNOW the kids were coming to a Children's Home - she thought they had won places in a Boarding School - she was not wanting to be separated from from, and WAS able to offer care and accommodation.
It looked very much as if an 'arrangement' had been made........
Daryl handed all the papers back to the Officer and said that before we could take any further action we would need to be given clear evidence that the children needed care in an Orphanage.   All very embarrassing - most of all for the grandmother who very nearly lost control of her kids.   A good experience for Dal.....!!

Also on Saturday one of our Old Boys now 46 (Abraham Kipchumba)put an article in the Daily Nation showing off his new and moderately well equipped Automotive Workshop which he has opened in Nairobi.      He tells the story of how he was orphaned when he was 8 and being quite destitute was brought to Testimony Faith Homes in Eldoret where he was brought up and educated - (in Testimony House with me and Esther!)    He ascribes his success to what he learnt during that time, and to taking life seriously.      Nice to see something like that.       ON the same day another of our OLD boys appeared - Elijah Oura.      He has a Degree in Civil Engineering, but for many years has been going from one job to another until NOW he has finally opened a small Building Contracting Business. He and another of our old boys are joining together in this venture.      He came to say 'Thank You' to us and to TFH.        Our hearts rejoiced!!

Not much else to share this week .    Water is getting shorter by the day.      Sometimes off all day!  Not easy to run a school of 800 without toilets working - to say nothing of the four Homes -  and Green Cottage.      We must endure until the Rains - may be late as well this year ........SOOOOO! Thirstily I must end for this week.      Some will probably sigh with relief!        I have sent out THIS WEEK an extracted Income & Expenditure Account for the Running of the Children's Homes taken from 2011 Audited Account just completed.     I hope you will have received.      We have been having almost continuous troubles with our Servers AND also with E-mail - separately, so we are not sure who is receiving what.     But God knows, and it is safe to assume that those HE wants to know anything WILL know it - and those don't WON'T!!

God Bless and Bless, and Bless you again.

John and Esther

GO ON LOVING ONE ANOTHER IN CHRIST!

THIS IS TOO NECESSARY TO FORGET!  I may have put up this picture before - no apology if I did!
The world and the Church is so short of love.   It is so full of schism.     We call it 'Denomi-nationalism', but it is still a deceitful way of enjoying disunity.   UNITY and the experience of being ONE BODY, one Family, was what Jesus had in mind.    But the Enemy has been consistently busy in ensuring we have all found excuse to have our own 'camp' our own BRAND of Christianity.      Even the ROMAN Universal Church has suffered split and schism, and we have all followed on in such a way as to make it almost impossible to demonstrate the Commandment  to LOVE one.another.     Look where you will THIS is hard to find.       Add to this 'national' and 'cultural' differences and you have a CHURCH more diverse, divided, and dispersed within itself than the world, after BABEL was destroyed.
But JESUS said - 'All men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another (if you keep on showing love among yourselves )' John 13v35
Two thousand years later we find ourselves with so many considerations that might just restrain us from demonstrating love to anyone, let alone another Christian!!   Ephesians 4

We are no longer FREE to love like children, indeed I begin to wonder now, at the end of seventy years on the planet, what a 'child' is really free to do!      JESUS says unless we are LIKE little children we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.     What did He mean ?       Children were innocent and unaware of all the sins of adult human life,  and freely demonstrated their affection and innocence.   THAT is getting harder and harder to find as world society changes radically annually, and 'children' via the Internet and TV are almost adult from birth, with the definite danger of being cheated of childhood and all that it means.    The photo to the right shows that innocent affection between two trusting friends - they have no restraints.     They are free of knowing cultural or tribal differences, growing up in a multinational family, all attending church and praying together in a Christian atmosphere free of denominational bias or tradition.

ONE OF THE THINGS we try to reveal here is that in the sight of GOD all men and women ARE equal.    There is no different whatever in his eyes between an African, Asian or European, or north or south American.    No difference between a Kenyan or a Nigerian, or a Kikuyu or a Luo.  GOD loves - cares about - us all.     He went to the CROSS for us all, that we might ALL be Saved from our sin, and inherent impurity of moral and motive..  He did not die for one MORE than the other.      In is HEART He sees those who have accepted Him in Christ as One Family with Him, and all those who have not believed or trusted in him as longed for potential members of that same family.
TOMORROW I am to share with the Mothers Union of The Anglican Church of Kenya at our local Cathedral of St. Matthew.     I shall be sharing the need to love Widows and Orphans - not just Anglican ones but those of any persuasion in or out of the Family of God.      I shall need your prayers.    I want them to open their homes, their hearts and their lives to God's Love for all the needy around us in this Town of Eldoret and its surrounds.     Homeless children alone in the whole area are said to amount to more than 80,000!!!

LEARN from the little children around you while you can - and then kneel down and forget you are a grown up, a man or woman of experience and knowledgeable wisdom, and just ask God to help you LOVE - even your enemies!      Even the deformed and challenged that are close by, often hidden away ashamedly by their families.    To open your home, your wardrobe, your store-cupboard, your LIFE!
MANY in sections of the Christian Religion recognise the period leading up to Easter as a time of FASTING; of going without - a season of Self-denial.      BUT GOD in His word ( seen in Isaiah 58v5-14) sets out a very different kind of fast to that of going without a cigarette, a bar of chocolate, or sugar in your tea.       His kind of fast is not just for a 'season' but for all of your life.     It is what is meant by 'Laying our life on the Altar - alive and whole....Romans 12.
REMEMBER - this world is NOT our home - we are on the way Home in another place.   And Heaven is a Beautiful Place, full of glory and GRACE.     No special segregational areas there on ANY account - we will ALL be together in UNITY and LOVE without reservation.    I am looking forward to that, as I hope YOU are.            But even here and now we can work toward such a state of being, and the Holy Spirit within us can and will enable every willing heart to do so.

Have an open hearted, open handed week ahead.      THE KING IS COMING.

Love you all in Jesus our Saviour

John and Esther

SELLING HUMANITY'S HOPE

THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN, all over the world are being diverted from their homes and a normal life and future right under our eyes - and mostly we hear nothing about it

UNTIL NOW!      Have you seen a thirty minute Video entitled KONY 2012.     It was on my Face Book page this week - shared by a number of my friends     If you have not seen it LOOK out for it and SEARCH for it on Your TUBE!    It is a film made about a man known as Joseph KONY and he is the Leader of Uganda's terrorists known as The Lord's Resistance Army.       He enlists his 'militia' by kidnapping young boys and girls and then taking them off into the jungle to forcibly train them to be 'soldiers' and sex workers.     This youngster on the left is one of them now.  There are thousands and thousands like him - and they do not occur in Uganda alone but all over Africa, and indeed the entire world is busy diverting children by 'kidnap from their home, school or workplace' to all manner of child labour, sex workers, and militia.    Frightening?   You bet!!

Kony has been around a long time, and he has been garnering  children and youth to use  in his banditry and terror campaign continuously.

Joseph  Kony



KONY 2012 concentrates mainly on one man's manic aim of turning kids into heartless, violent killers.    He may even brainwash them in the process of his training technique.   WE have had children in Testimony School who were taken by Warlords in the Sudan and forced to fight in their militia.     It is not easy to get just the 'experience' of killing out of their system so that they can begin to 'come back' into normal society.    The maker of KONY 2012 wants his film to get KONY and his crew into the limelight with a view to getting him caught and put away!      More than 30 million people so far have been influenced to join this aim.    He NEEDS to be STOPPED.        These children need to be rescued and saved from his demonic grip.  BUT it is not JUST Joseph Kony.     He is just ONE man amongst many worldwide - and women too - engaged in making money out of children snatched from their homes.   YET there is a substantial number of people discounting both the seriousness and even the truth depicted in this Video.     There is an element of disbelief - or just plain willfull ignorance it seems about the REASON behind the video.     I BELIEVE IT, and have met one or two members of Kony's 'Army'................

AND - NEVERTHLESS

It was reported here in Kenya in October last year for example that 'at least 50 girls aged between 10 and 15 are sold every week as sex workers in Nairobi and Mombasa.'       
Since 2005 there has been a lot said about Child Trafficking in Kenya - even in Eldoret.      The Kenya Children's Office has issued many warnings and even Reports with a view to alerting the public.



A REPORT recently issued by the International Peace Institute has stated that 'These Traffickers are connected to top Governmental Officials and political leaders who facilitate their operation.'   And furthermore that 'This illegal activity is said to be generating revenues of about USD.40 million in the country annually and headed by a network known as 'Mukhali' who are respected and well known figures in the society as they operate legitimate businesses.'

SURELY  IT IS UNTHINKABLE THAT A NATION CAN BE WILLING TO ACTUALLY LET THIS HAPPEN FROM WITHIN IT'S OWN CITIZENSHIP WITHOUT PUNITIVE ACTION?

WHAT  is KENYA doing about it?     What are YOU and I doing about it?

TODAY in the Digital STANDARD here in Kenya Dann Okoth's article written on the 16th December 2011 is again published -

'DID you know 27 million people are enslaved worldwide annually through human trafficking and US$.32 billion ( Ksh.3 TRILLION) is generated in profits annually from this illicit business?

This is the third largest illegal trade in the world after dealing in narcotics and small arms!

According to statistics posted on AOL News Network website, an estimated 6-8 hundred thousand people are trafficked annually internationally, of which 70 percent are women and 50 percent children.

The website further indicates that up to 1.2 million children are trafficked annually as sex slaves even as the United States alone records 14-17 thousand nationals being trafficked into the country annually.

Most of the victims , according to the report, are persecuted threatened, manipulated, abused, hidden, tortured and murdered. 

The victims, especially the children, end up as sex slaves in brothels and massage parlours in red light districts across the world.   After being exploited, most of the them are then thrown into the streets to become refugees, whilst others are re-sold to become child soldiers or child brides.   Those considered the 'most worthless' re sold to be murdered and their organs harvested!'

These are some body's sons and daughters.      These are OUR children.     Here IN ELDORET children are disappearing - throughout the country parents are grieving.      Even from England, and America children are being targeted - maybe YOUR child is being targeted.!!     Think about it.      The maker of the Video KONY-2012 sat down and thought about it, and has come up with something that is motivating the world - against ONE man at present - BUT surely if it is working against KONY it can work against ALL those ruthless 'sellers of flesh'; the 'termites' of our society that are slowly stripping away our life blood.

Do I make you pause in your blind daily life to THINK?   I hope so.    Don't let ANYONE snatch a child from your district, from your home, from your family!

oooooooooooo

YESTERDAY Esther and I attended the funeral of our friend and brother Edward McCarthy here in Eldoret.     They buried him in the grounds of the School he built up and ran for the poor for 42 years.      It was a very moving occasion.    Last Saturday I had announced that he was ill, but in actual fact as I wrote he past away painlessly in his sleep.    We Thank God that he was spared a long and painful end.

THIS WEEK Daryl was in Nairobi trying to obtain my Work Permit which needed to be renewed.    Whilst talking to the Immigration official it was agreed that I was in fact Graded incorrectly that that I should be on a Class E .     Since 1990 I have been Graded as a 'A' person at a cost of more than £1500 every two years.    As they continued to talk together my age came up, and that I had passed retirement age - therefore why should I not be a Dependant of Daryl - this would mean I no longer need a Work Permit and thus no Fee has to be paid, just an assurance every two years that I am still here!!     All sounds like a miracle - was Daryl speaking to an Immigration Official or an Angel!!.       SO after years of banging on their door shouting 'Foul' - all the walls are fallen down and I am FREE.

My Blood sugar still a bit high, but my Blood Pressure down.     It has been VERY hot here, and I am never very good in such weather - a man of the COOL CLIMATE.        We love you all, and remember you all each week as we combine to plan the Blog.    Be Blessed, but do not go to sleep - the DAY HAS COME.

John and Esther    

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE?

FOUR MORE BOYS JOIN US.  Dennis Kogo 9, and brother Kelvin 8, AND Samuel Mainia 9 and brother Ben 11.     All four are totally parent less and have been living in desperate circumstances.
Dennis and Kelvin will become part of the Jacaranda Cottage family, and Samuel and Ben will be calling Testimony House, home from now on
Dennis and Kelvin have missed a lot of schooling and are quite behind for their age.    We will need to help them on and will appreciate prayer for them that they may be quick to grasp language as a priority - neither speak English or Swahili well.
Ben and Samuel have been to school and will join their appropriate classes.    They should do well.
All four need prayer that they may not only settle in their respective new homes, but that they may also use the security and sudden sense of well-being well and seriously.

We always rejoice to see new faces, lit up with a quiet joy.   Turnover in any Children's Home is slow.    Not many come in to stay during any one year    Our average is about EIGHT only in any one year.     It may go up to as many as 12, but not often.     When the National need for places is well over the two million mark, our own contribution seems just like scratching the surface of a problem too deep by far.        BUT I have heard some say it is 'not numbers that matter' but the quality of life.   Guess that goes for churches too!     Well the Lord has sustained us, and although we HAVE increased  over the years we have not done so hugely.    We ARE still a very small ministry.      And perhaps it is true that the REAL reason for us being here at all, has not been SO much to help a multitude, but rather that in helping just a few we have been able to point out objectively that GOD is there - and that He HEARS when we speak to Him, and WILL answer us and interact with us.      THIS is our basic and REAL testimony, and our REASON for being and DOING.         And, although we are small in the scheme of things, yet we and YOU together are involved and interconnected with us in this activity.         One small stone dropped into a pond generates many ripples affecting the shore and the world at large.

MIRIAM & JOSHUA Mbithi are hoping to visit friends and supporters of themselves and their ministry, (NEEMA Children's Home), in the UK in the near future.      They hope to receive their Visas next week.   It is now many years since they were last in England - and at that time they visited on behalf of us all here.    THIS TIME the Lord has provided for them to come, still as our friends and 'family', but ALSO more specifically to share what the Lord has done and continues to do  since He led them on in their own Calling and Vocation.  It is a testimony needing to be heard, and we truly hope they will have opportunity to visit many of our own friends as they spend this few months amongst you all.      Their work is only a few kilometres away from us and although Neema is a quite individual Vision and Work to ours I think both parties would say that we remain very much 'Workers Together' for the Lord and for the children of Kenya.       Hopefully both they and ourselves may be travelling to Australia together later in the year for a three week visit to Tyndale Christian School.

LAST WEEK'S Blog was delayed in being published.     Our Server just seemed to crash, and we were left in the dark over the week-end until on Monday we were advised that 'our main cable was cut in the high seas of the coast of Kenya.'   Today we were told that a tanker had dropped her ANCHOR and that it scored a direct hit on the communication cable in question!!     Sounds almost stranger than fiction - it still MIGHT BE fiction.    One can never tell these days.    But at least we are once more connected and able to be in touch.      One thing came home to us very clearly, and that is how more and more dependant the world is becoming on technology, and how very fast total chaos and paralysis can disrupt our civilisation's communication and general utilities.         I think, if I could choose, that I would prefer to still be in the 40/50s - still delighting in the use of a fountain pen and notepaper; still able to type without electricity.
Still forced to read more for pleasure as well as information.     Still able to converse with others in a regular language instead of devalued and often corrupted one.     Still able to expect justice and discipline in a relatively just and disciplined society.      To me NOW this is more and more an 'alien' world, and as I LOOK into the hopes and dreams of the future I fear that the world I was born into will not even be remembered or even understood.   A fast and furious world.
This week the High School National Examination Results came out.     We were placed 84th Private School in the Republic.    An overall mean score of C+  -  Definitely the best result yet, but still with a long way to go.     BUT our teachers and students seemed to think we had come first, and the whole place erupted into such pan demonic NOISE that I was convince a riot was taking place as the uproar continued more and more, and had to go and investigate.   'Just high spirits' I was assured, and the usual peace was restored.       What will happen if we should by God's Grace ever become FIRST!!     THIS world is SO emotional, SO excitable, so easily HYPED into uncontrollable hysteria. .........

We have been taking for granted that the information and news that we send out via the Blog will somehow get to everyone we know - forgetting in our haste that 50% of our friends have no Internet, and often no E-mail either..      They are in many ways very fortunate, but WE have been guilty of forgetting to take them into account.     So in the next week or so we shall be resuming the sending of Newsletters to them by Airmail post.     In the past we have always done this from right here, but in the future we may have to find a way of circulating friends from within Europe.      As from yesterday our postal costs rise by 100% from 55 to 100 shillings per letter      This is becoming too expensive for regular usage.      Understandable though since more and more have gone to electronic mail ......    Increase the stamp charges or go bust!  --- but of course they will not only go BUST in any case, but will eventually become EXTINCT.    Maybe all will become unable to hold a pen or remember what a stamp looked like!     A world ravenous for change, heedless of its past, and thoughtless for its future.     A BRAVE NEW WORLD?      Or one that must be stopped in its tracks by the very POWER that made it?       Keep AWAKE and Watching, and most of all hold yourselves READY an even GREATER change.

We love you all, and walk with you all in our thoughts and prayers as always.

John and Esther