HIS (GOD'S) CHILDREN SHALL HAVE A PLACE OF REFUGE. Proverbs 14v26

CHILDREN'S HOMES WILL NO LONGER EXIST

UNDER KENYA LAW

STARTING NOW children in homes like ours, which has been a 'home from home' for children abandoned and forsaken by their own parents and family members, forced out of their own home by abuse and violence in their own homes, and deprived of the Love, Care and Protection which was their right, will now be repatriated to those 'homes and families' from which the Government rescued them.       This is the Recommendation of the United Nations, now supported by the Kenya Government via the Department of Children's Service.    This 'Repatriation' will only be undertaken after a proper review and investigation regarding the current suitability and safety of the family situation.    BUT children taken away from brutality and abuse might find it hard to believe in any change - and afraid to return.     As I related last week one such family of four siblings have been returned to us AFTER repatriation when their previously imprisoned father tried to poison them.         IF it is found, on 'exhaustive' investigation, that a child has NO blood relative living, willing, or able to be found, then the child will be put up for Fostering, or for Adoption - but it will no longer be able to stay in a Charitable Children's Home.   There won't be ANY still existing.   Either we agree to change into a kind of 'Reception Centre' where children come to be sorted and then redistributed as quickly as possible will all be closed down, (albeit gradually).        Already our Registration, renewable every three years, and which expired in March 2017, together with many others, has been with-held    Unregistered we have no legal right to continue, and can be closed down at any time.     Our situation is, to say the least, insecure.    Either we play ball or we close down.    After FIFTY years we find ourselves, and all  that God through his people have funded, and developed cast with disdain aside in favour of 'enlightened progress' dictated by another world.  Government has even stated that many C.C.I.s (no names or numbers) are engaged in Child Trafficking and Child Abuse, thereby discrediting all such homes.       Even as early as 2016 three of our major Newspapers published damaging reports on Children's Homes in Kenya, without identifying any in particular,  stating again that they were centres of Child Trafficking, and other abuses.         Yet in fact thousands of children have been helped over the years without a  word of appreciation or recognition of the worth of what any of us in Residential Child Care have done.  Until now we are told   -   "You should all look to the future and plan ahead, because soon you will no longer be able to do what you are doing.   You will be closed down"      Children are going to be thrown into countless unsuspected  upheavals that will once more set back their lives, and present them with new challenges..     

Some, indeed many, of our kids have been with us from when they were babies.    Most have been with us up to 12 years.  How will they deal with yet another big change?    Who cares?

The Authorities say it will be 'Good for them.'      Suddenly these children are going to be yanked out of secure, loving, settled situations into initially very disturbing scenarios.

Basically we do not disagree that the best place for any child is at home with its true parents and family.     They ought to find the best understanding and acceptance there.   BUT it is not always the case.    Not every abandoned baby or infant (we have had many of 3 and 4 years just left at a bus stop) will be welcomed by its discovered parents.    Not ever aunt, uncle or grandparent will want an extra mouth to feed or have to plan for.      
Foster Homes are the next recommended destination for homeless children.     But these offer no definite ongoing security to the child since they may still be adopted, or even passed on to other foster parents.    In many cases Fostering becomes just a game of 'ping-pong' where children are bounced from one family to another until the state of the child is worse then when it was first found in need.   But, again, we do not altogether disagree that a child fostered in normal family home can be better off than lost in an institutional crowd.  Provided it is not based on any financial consideration, as a reason to foster.

WE have been told that if we could agree to be a Foster Home, open to children coming and going, as they might be adopted, we could continue to operate.    To some extent we could see ourselves agreeing to this in principal, although it would still be the total opposite to the Vision we have toward helping needy children.       HOWEVER we are again warned that IF we did agree, we could only have SIX children in any one of our THREE Homes, which currently comprise of a family of THIRTY each.       Basically this rules us out, even if we agreed.    The COST of running one house for only SIX children would be far above our economy.

We have many Questions.     We have many real fears as to our changing society.  BUT, our Faith is in God.

The way things are going, it as if the desperate issue is to sweep all the kids without home or family under the carpet - almost ANY carpet that will cover up the fact that the Nation has a problem.    

This has been going on all around us for some time.  Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania have been closing Children's Homes in favour of 'fostering'.     Rwanda has done so on a big scale and is held up as a model example of how the future will be.      There are negative sides to this, but they do not hit the headlines. 

TESTIMONY started of as a family refuge and then HOME to whoever we had room for.
Esther and I became Mum and Dad in our own home to whoever would come to the door.  Our own children found us already with children who would be their brothers and sisters.    Each new family followed this pattern.      We did not see ourselves as foster parents, or our home as an 'orphanage'.       We refused publicity, because we saw the need of privacy for every child as if they were in there very OWN home.     We refused the idea of 'adoption' out of our homes because we saw each child as part of our own family.    We expected to stick with them till they could stand on their own feet.    Each of our Homes is in every way an extended Family -  Father, Mother, their birth children, and those that needed to be ONE with them.     A totally integrated family living, sharing, and growing together.    For FIFTY years we have seen this work, and been proud to see children grow up and take hold of their lives with honour and respect.      I think it has been better than a foster home.     But we are in no way an enemy of those who DO foster children, or adopt them, and if we COULD see every child happily and lovingly united with their true blood parents and family we would be glad beyond words.
More than FOUR HUNDRED (not a huge number) have come and gone from the Testimony 'Family' over the years.     We are glad for them all.       They were not all easy to get on with all the time.     They made us glad; they made us cry; they gave us hope for mankind.     Even those who have left us are still family to us, to all of us who have stood as parents to them  in the various family homes they have lived in.    We are proud of them.    We still care about them, and are glad to see them, and come to know their wives, husbands and children.    And they are glad to visit and remember the safety and the warmth of having found a home and family with us.
I guess the Government knows nothing about it, since they have lived outside of it and have little idea of it.    They must be forgiven if, in doing what they feel is best for the child in a general sense, they sometimes miss the mark, and err.    BUT ................
In the mid 70s the then Director for Children, visiting our home, said he thought we might be the only home running as we did - he seemed impressed!? BUT with millions of children still in need -  WHY CLOSE homes like ours?    WHY rake up healed pasts and wounds, and snatch happy, settled, and secure children back into more uncertainty.  Why turn away FREE aid and assistance and loving care for one's children......Why?      
We can Thank God for all the years children have been able to come in and be at home with us, and who have left us with God.    We can be thankful for the four hundred plus that have come and gone, and who are for the most part still alive and well, and settled in jobs and with their own homes and families.   It has been a Mission that has been successful.     Nothing has been truly wasted.   Good is still being generated from it.

AND, of course, we may yet see the Hand of God raised against this Plan of Man - it may, after all, 'gang all astray.'

BUT we now have to seek the Lord to discover how we will use the Three Homes, and two Hostels we have been using for Faith Homes.      They were built with God's Blessing, and we believe they still have to be VERY relevant to His Plan.     We need all of you who know us, and who have supported us, to pray along with us all; with Daryl,  God's Man on the spot, and all those who currently work with us.     There may be a kind of 'transition period' but we have been given no assurance of anything.      We have to wait and see, but we must not wait unprepared .    

Testimony School

will not close - it will continue just where it is.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We believe that there are exciting DAYS ahead.     TODAY all continues as if nothing has been said.     The sun shines, the sky blue, and the children of our homes are all enjoying their half term holiday.    Life goes on.      And GOD walks with us.       
NEXT WEEK we are expecting our usual Team of students and teachers from Tyndale Christian School in South Australia to join us for some fifteen days of friendly labour and recreation among us all.      Some will also be with Neema Children's Homes just round the corner from us.     We are looking forward to their arrival, and to the intertwined 'Adventure' of just being here with us.        Their coming is an added confirmation to us, at this time, that God who holds us all in His Hands, is not seeing an end, but a New Beginning, to his Plan and Vision here in Testimony Faith Homes.     

We do not want any of you to feel depressed or weighed down by what I have shared here today.       We NEED your prayers, for the children, even more than for ourselves.   Deep in OUR hearts we know that this ministry was given to us by God FOR Kenya to profit from, and we know it is HIS ministry not Kenya's, and not ours either - it is ALL HIS.    And He holds it all together with the children and all of us in HIS hands.       The OUTCOME will be of His making and we are not in FEAR or doubt about that.       Thus we seek your prayers that we may all lift up our hands together, and SEE the Purposes of God demonstrated.

Our much love to you all in His Name.

John, Esther, and Daryl Green

   

HAVE YOU RECEIVED A MIRACLE YET?

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?   Or do you go for Fairy Stories?       I DO believe in Miracles.    They are all around us throughout every day of our lives; we are just so used to them they seem natural and normal, like the sunrise and the sunset every day.     Do we need Miracles?   Yes we do?; without them them we could not exist, but we only notice our need in moments of sheer desperation, when we are faced with a life or death situation.    AND in recognising a Miracle, it has to be an event beyond the normal; it has to be more than natural; it must be SUPER natural.      Not 'unnatural' not out of step with nature, but MORE than expected.
C.S. LEWIS in his Essay 'Miracles' written in 1942, writes - 'When the Old Testament says that Sennacherib's invasion was stopped by angels (2.Kings 19v35), and the historian Herodotus says it was stopped by a lot of mice, who came and ate up all the bowstrings of his army (Herodotus Bk.11. Section 141), an open minded man will be on the side of the angels.    Unless you start by begging the question, there is nothing intrinsically unlikely in the existence of angels, or in the action ascribed to them.    But mice just don't do these things.'  SO the engraving above is an illustration of an event which would have been unnatural to the known behaviour of mice, on such a scale.    185,000 men are said to have died on the occasion mentioned in the Bible.      If not, then mice ate through the bow strings of 185,000 foot soldiers without being noticed or prevented..........    YES, I know where I stand on this - I am with Lewis, and the Angels!      And I feel more encouraged and strengthened in my Faith generally, that this is the case.    But I am not saying that we can have, or see, a miracle on demand, or even when we may desperately need one.      This has to remain with God.

Here in Testimony Faith Homes, the Two Hostels, Three Children's Homes, and the School daily exist, and continue. miraculously at a common level and experience.      If God did not Himself take care of our needs moment by moment then we would fail.       There are radical times when there is no money in the Bank, and thus no immediate way to purchase our need of food for the day.    If we were to write and share our predicament with friends, or the world at large, we would go into bankruptcy before funds could get to us for our relief.     NO,   but our GOD knows what we need and has already provided for its provision to us - even before we ask and have seen the need ourselves.  And if at times we are found to actually be without - before we can cry to Man, God will have seen and provided.     Truly a Miracle of life that has endured now for almost fifty years.       It is not necessarily a smooth journey, but one that, though it might be up and down, is not ultimately prevented by obstacles placed in the way.       And quite apart from daily provision crisis can arise.    During the last weeks we have been faced with one or to.    We look to God for serious attention to our prayer, and we hope for Miracles to sweep away the worry and anxiety that currently has come upon two or our Staff,  both old boys of the Homes.         We all together KNOW none of us are alone or without salvation, and we trust in that Salvation day by day - even on days when the threat of evil seem greater than we can contemplate.       THEN we must WAIT - for His Deliverance - and it may need a MIRACLE.        We know one can be there for us in Jesus Name.

FRANCIS, the husband of Eunice, houseparents in Drakeley Cottage is under attack by our Enemy.
Francis has for a long period of time, over a year, been suffering from a Sinus infection which would not go away, and which recently caused him to suffer an operation.   The doctors at this time decided that a growth needed to be removed.   They were unable to remove all of it.      NOW the infection has spread to his right eye, and this week he will start a series of SIX treatments of Chemotherapy.
The doctors (two separate consultants) have diagnosed Cancer.        CANCER is still considered even more frightening that Satan himself.      It caught Francis off guard, and all but brought him to despair.      His Treatments start this week.      We are, of course, all standing with him, and with his dear wife and family.    We are all encouraging each other, and BELIEVING together that Jesus will bring this Cancer to nothing.    Pray with us.    AMEN.         Francis became part of mine and Esther's family when he was 10.       Now in his Thirties, he has given many good years to the Lord working as a Houseparent with his wife.   They have a boy and girl of their own.

STEVEN, another of our old boys, who has been working for
the Homes for some years assisting with our Poultry and Farm Projects, suddenly attempted to take his own life about a fortnight ago.  He is now in hospital recovering.        Steve has been brought up in Jacaranda Cottage with Miriam and Joshua Mbithi.  He has been with the Homes since he was six, and is now also in his Thirties.   He has always suffered from depression.      He knows and loves the Lord Jesus, but we now see that all is not well with his soul.      He lives outside now, of course, and it seems that unbeknown to us he has sunk into bad company and lost his way in life.     He needs a miracle!     Please join us also in our prayers for him, and also  pray that we may be guided as to how to help him on.

Happenings of this kind can find their way into any family, and individual.     Our world is in fact full of degeneration in relation to the general health of the population at large, and also into the standard of life, and fearful prospects of life in our society.      Serious illness, old and new, increases and more and more cases of suicide arise, and at young and young ages.      Satan's 'Tide of Iniquity' is rolling in.     Despair confronts us.      The People who KNOW their God need to rise up and DO GREAT EXPLOITS in Jesus Name as a Witness, and Rallying Post wherever God has put them.

TODAY IS MADARAKA DAY, a National Holiday.     It commemorates, every 1st June, the granting of Independence to Kenya from Colonial Rule on 1st June 1963.    Everyone on Holiday,including School Teachers.       It has been peaceful, pleasant day.

When I began writing this Blog today we were quite without money even to buy a biscuit.    This afternoon we were notified (late) that funds had in fact arrived at the Bank yesterday afternoon but we had not been notified.     We Rejoice.      Yet again, proof, that He has everything in hand.

God Bless and keep you all through yet another week,

John, Esther and Daryl Green