PEACE AND WAR !!

WELL here is Testimony House taken from our VOXY Toyota, parked in front of Green Cottage, through one of the side windows.     It is just as it was when we first moved here in December 1972 forty one years ago.
It can be interesting to see an image of something and to look back.     SO much has happened here in these 41 years - not all of it happy or easy to bear.
Many wonderful, even glorious events have taken place here.   Births and deaths, comings and goings, success and failure.     The actual IMAGE in this picture does not display any of this, any more than it displays the 60 or so years PREVIOUS to our arrival, through which it had existed.     History has always fascinated me - both the known, and the conjectured.    And even history in the making - this present, current life experience; something that also is not even hinted at by looking at this image of Testimony House in 2013;  there is no apparent realisation of the 40 boys and girls, young people that call it home, and reside within its mud walls today.   Amazing.

In my Office in the Administration Building, there stands a wooden chest.    It used to belong to an elderly lady missionary friend of ours, Patty Drakeley.   Patty had arrived in Uganda circa 1923 as a CMS missionary.    She eventually founded and ran the first Teacher Training School there, and was awarded an MBE by the Queen.     She passed away to Jesus aged 93 in 2003 and the wooden chest - actually a portable ORGAN - came to us.     It had been made by the ESTEY Organ Company in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, probably around 1910.     Jacob Estey was an orphan and had been born in 1814.     He ran away from the Orphanage as a youth, and put himself to learn the Plumbing Trade.    At 21 he arrived in the town of Brattleboro and worked in a Plumbing Shop - which he later bought and so commenced a long and successful business career (he died at 76 in 1890.  
In the 1840s Jacob had seen the rise of an innovative and popular musical item known as a Melodium.   Some were actually being sold in Brattleboro.     in 1856 Jacob Estey was able to establish his own organ manufacturing company - the first to actually bare his name - the Estey & GREEN Reed Organ Company.
Patty Drakely must have had her Box of Music from Vermont shipped out for her when she first arrived by steamer in Uganda, from England where she had been born.       It was no doubt used to the fullest, and must have travelled with her to many locations in Uganda.      How many times must its harmonious tones been part of Worship and Praise.     A very different world and time.      Slower, quieter, less brash and impatient.         I am glad to see it today, recently refurbished and put in working order.    The original bellows that pumps the air through to the Reeds that produce the sound had long since perished.   Now they have been replaced and this handy, hundred year old, little chest organ has been given a new lease of life.
A remnant from another Time, a window full of imaginary images and history.   A silent witness to an adventurous past able at any moment to enter into the present as quietly reverent as when first created.    It stands in the Office of the Director here in Testimony Faith Homes, a reminder of another day, and another ORPHAN who knew someone also called GREEN.     What a co-incidence, and what an encouragement to other orphans..........

The Ebb and flow of life brings constant change of scene and human activity and experience.   This year has been full of it.        Since February we have been wrestling with a human sadness.      Carol walked out on Daryl.      Daryl was devastated, and has tried all that he can to bring her home again; so far without success.

Our Board of Management (of which Esther and I are both part) have felt very concerned, and finally, last night at an especially convened Meeting, decided to ask Daryl to take a Sabbatical Leave of Absence for six months, whilst he and Carol both pursue Counselling in regard to their Marriage and their Christian Commitment.     It is felt that Daryl cannot be the Role Model required of a Principal Officer in a Christian Charity in his present situation.       We cannot say more about this.    We have of course seen it coming, and the fact that six months has already gone by without any sign of improvement (Carol is still unwilling to return home) does not bode well.       Well of course Daryl will still live practically next door to us, so as family we shall no doubt still see each other frequently, but as far as his work and position in that work is concerned he will be AWAY.         This will mean that I will - at least for the next six months - be once more sitting in as Executive Director.  I feel confident God will be with me, and that I shall cope.    BUT it is a set back, and a disappointment.  Our prayer is, of course, that Daryl and Carol will accept the need for Counselling and that they will together find a way back to God and to one another.  If not, then at the end of the six months Sabbatical it may be Daryl will be unable to take up his position again, and we shall need to look for another............All of this should have been properly dealt with earlier.     We feel the Lord has not been happy for our prevarications.    I must personally accept my own failure in this respect, and trust that we might all find His Mercy and Grace once more open up to us.    Esther and I stand in need of your prayers therefore, and indeed all the Ministry here is obviously suffering attack.
BUT there are good things happening as well.      We have just employed a 41 year old married man, a member of our Church Fellowship living locally with his family to be our new Farm Manager and  Manager of Personnel.       He has trained as a Baker and Business Manager, and is a committed Christian from a Christian family.    He started on the 1st August.     This means that the progress of the Bakery, Dairy, Poultry Scheme and the two Allotments will now be under his management, removing a great deal of work from me during this next six months.      Moses Githambothi will also be endeavouring to improve Christian Commitment amongst our 70 or so staff including houseparents, and to engender a Team Spirit at all levels.    He is a quiet and gentle man, and is already well known by staff and children together.     Moses and his wife have two young girls, both in Primary School.
The Re-registration process for TFH as a Charitable Children's Institution is now completed and the Application before the National Assembly well in time.     This is always quite a time consuming job, and it is good to be through with it.     Acceptance is usually to be taken as automatic.
We have also augmented a Monday Afternoon Fellowship for ALL of our TEN Houseparents.   We (Esther and I) meet socially together with them for prayer and conversation from 2 - 4p,m, every Monday afternoon.      It has been greatly blessed,

OUTSIDE THE CLOUDS, grey and rain heavy, press down up us.    But they do give way to blue sky and even sunshine from time to time - just to remind us that LIGHT and WARMTH are always just behind the clouds...... however DARK beneath them may be, the LIGHT has never gone  -   we shall find it still there at the last.      Thus if we have been suffering a Winter Season, we see signs of a spiritual SUMMER beginning to peek through for us ALL.     Pray on with us please.

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NOW SOME LOCAL COLOUR!    Once again ELDORET is in the NEWS, and once again the topic of  'same sex marriage' is brought to the fore.     In the Kenya Daily NATION newspaper for Friday of this week we are confronted with the Headline -

ACTIVISTS SEEK NOD FOR 

SAME-SEX MARRIAGES!

In our area of North Rift Valley activists from Eldoret are asking Central Government to amend sections of the NEW Constitution to allow for 'same-sex' marriages.     they are reported as saying that -

'We can no longer hide behind the cloak of religious and cultural values

to deny some citizens their rights and freedoms. 

They have a right to equal protection and privacy before the law.'

The one speaking, Mr. Ken Wafula of the National Association of Human Rights was joined by Mr. Nick Omito of the Centre for Human Rights & Democracy who said -

'Gay practises are prevalent in our society and any form, of harassment

and discrimination is immoral and undermines humanity's pursuit

of freedom and equality.....

ALL of these statements are of course just a load of 'Cods-wallop'.       First and foremost, WHO is HIDING behind Religious and cultural Values..?     Rather those against such activities are instead putting the LAWS and VALUES of God, humanity's Creator, in front of the creature - to remind him of what OUGHT to be.

These 'men' speak from a world mindset that is without God; which has excluded God and even consigned Him and his values to the rebellious human dustbin.      Any that BELIEVE in the existence and character of God, as they are revealed to us in the universe, have no need to HIDE behind them for they are the only basis and foundation for all TRUE LAW and value.    They STAND ALONE, PARAMOUNT AND ABOVE ALL.

Neither do those who put GOD first, believing and relying upon His Existence, believe that any individual or collective part of humanity has any given right to set aside the LAWS OF GOD that govern the well being of the universe, including human society.       A SINNER - the one living opposite to the WILL and PURPOSE of God - is condemned already, while he waits to DIE.      To reverse or set aside this FACT will need a total change of life style that will turn away altogether from what is offensive to God.

AGAIN, to say that 'Gay practises are prevalent in our society' is, to say the least, - for the moment - grossly untrue.     Less than 6% can hardly be considered a prevalent, or a majority situation.     

ALSO the Bible clearly informs us that we should be ready to CRY OUT, BLOW the WHISTLE and WARN those who may be heading toward disaster in their life style as it rebels against God.   We are not to condone what is UNGODLY in humanity, but to oppose it - in love;   that is with compassionate and sympathetic understanding that we are ALL proved to rebel against the TRUTH of GOD, and that God Himself wants us to turn away and LIVE rather than perish.    Christ Himself said that he did not come to set aside or ignore the LAW, but to confirm it and reveal how necessary it is to KEEP it.

I do not CONDEMN THE HOMOSEXUAL, but I will not condone his homosexuality.    I cannot love the sinner and love his SIN also.     

What a sad world;   Why are we so blind as not to be able to discern these matters more simply.    Why ares the God fearing to bad at communicating the good, whilst sinners seem so lucid and unhindered in communicating the BAD?

IT is RAINING outside now as I write.. .....VERY COLD as well.      But sunshine will come soon.

My dears we thank you for all your love and good will in the Lord.     Accept of our own love for YOU in His Name - always.

John and Esther.