TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES HAS UNTIL MAY 2024

just about 2 years, before having to re-apply for Registration

as a Charitable Children's Institution for a futher 3 years.

Will the Government agree to let us continue? We have no idea.

Will they come and repatriate our children?  We cannot be sure. 

GOD INSPIRED US

just a very few of us,

to make a Family for those Needing one.

We never were an Institution

just a Family in the making.

God opened the doors of our hearts.

We WAIT on, and for, Him, as we have done,

day by day since it all began.

Many of the children that joined us here

grew up, and left us to start their own family, but never far

from our thought and memories.

The Family

grows, Marriage by Marriage.

And it has been such Blessing to us all -

 -to see so many of our little girls grow into Womanhood, and Marry;  and to be able to Give them away on behalf of their parents,  to start their own new family, with a Man of their choice.     And how equally proud, to stand with so many sons,  and to see them begin a family of their own,in front of God, and witnessed by such a Family Gathering.     (opposite a photo of our 'son' Molem Piera with his wife on their Wedding Day.)   A GREAT  PRIVILEGE, AND A GREAT BLESSING,  and HAPPINESS TOO.   Families stick together, and we have enjoyed being glued together into this one.    And we have seen it come together as one entity, yet still maintaining, individually, its individual history and roots.  When those who come, reach the time to leave home, they do not leave each other behind, but keep track of each other - and even of us.    They drop in for a chat, a cup of tea, even a meal.    They gather at reach other's Weddings, support each other in sorrow and in joy.

                                                                                                       

And Yes, they attend each other's Funerals too, joining together even more poignantly to grieve, and shed a tear.    All those who have spent time with us at Testimony Homes, whether in Testimony House, Jacaranda, Drakeley or Tyndale Cottages, remember each other, both the good, and not so good.   In a Family, each member counts, and has value.     This took time to develope and to achieve.  But it has happened, and one day it may happen to Kenya as whole...........

And this sense of belonging has spilt over, and into the lives, of those who, as employed adults, give their strength and lives to helping to keep everything going, so to speak.   The Mums and Dads, the clerks and other staff, that do all the nitty gritty things that have to be done for so many, living together, and adjacent to each other, including the upkeep  and care of the buildings.    I put this photo up recently, but I will include it here, for they need to be remembered, seen, and appreciated as part and parcel of Testimony.     We are ALL TOGETHER a very real FELLOWSHIP.

Esther and I, together with 4 Married Couples, (the mums and dads) are here,

all resident, plus clerks, administrators, thirty other men and women

who come in daily from across the town.

They all make it possible for us all to live here safely, cleanly,

and cared for - five of them that came to us as children,

and have finally stayed on to give back what they found here, for others.

What we have here is valuable to society at large.

But we are not individually, or collectively, by any means perfect.

We are all, young and old, human, and flawed.

What we have, and who and what we are, is by God' Grace.

In the End

HE is the Owner, the Governor.

He alone can close us down.

BUT

We are all 'pilgims' in this world; just passing through

This World is not our home.

And it is a Shrinking Ecomomy that besets us now,

just as much as a shrinking freedom in putting

our Faith in God, first.

This last year has been more challenging to us all, with Covid 19 restricting so many things, and putting extra pressure on our own economy, inside Testimony Homes.   We were all penned up inside our compounds for so many months.    Then we underwent a series of utility supply breakdowns;  our water supply was cut off, and then electricity, NOT because we had not paid our bills, but because the Rains had held off, and water seriously rationed.     Electricity cuts, sometimes for days at a time due to faulty Transformers in the locality, and to falling trees bringing down power cables.    Suddenly in the  midst of Summer  the skies became overcast, and unseasonable COLD temperatures made for dull days.   A year full of of anomalies, and unepected jolts along the way, like Esther discovering she had Cancer, and even more, up to day, with one of our boys, home visiting us from America with a coveted Phd.,  died in his  sleep, in our house. on the second night of his visit to us.    And our general well-being, at the same time, continuing to dwindle, month my month, and slowly we have had to pare down our daily expenditure.  It has been, all in all, a rather harrowing time for us all.    BUT we have stood firm in our prayers, and  in our trust in God, and in His Word.      We have been here before.    

 I heard this week that it costs $1,100 to keep  a child in residential care in BENIN for 1 year. 

The article did not describe the kind of Care that is given.   We spend approximately Ksh.46,600/- per annum per child.  This, again approximately, is Ksh.127-200 per day!     In the UK the internet tells me it costs upwards of Sterling Pounds 3,000 per WEEK  or approx. Ksh.67,550 per day.    We all seem to be doing well here by comparison,  BUT it is harder and harder to find what WE need, week by week.

OF COURSE Kenya's economy is suffering the same as the rest of the world, and our cost of living has trebled since the Ukranian War began. ( NB no one believes this is entirely the fault of either the Ukrain or Russia).      BUT definately life is deteriorating.    Can the man in the street survive.  Not easily; not without great restraints.   ARE WE AFFECTED.    Yes, of course we are.  and we wonder how we will survive.     We have often been in this situation.    We have always  come through it.  Is is always different.

We have not sought a way of escape, but - like the 'boy on the burning deck' we have waited for the Command to move from above.     We are not our own.    Father has put us where we are, and told us to WAIT upon Him for what we need.    And this we will do, quietly, and obediently, together, praying and trusting, and REJOICING for every day He brings us through.

IN GOD WE TRUST

ESTHER  and I are both fine.    She is due to go for her 2nd dose of Chemo on Thursday this week.     She has done well this past month, and regained her appetite, but this week she noticed her hair is falling out.   She is in good spirits, and we together have been much comforted and encouraged, even in the midst of losing one very dear to us.     God has Blessed us together  as ONE, and we are GLAD to be together in His Hands.

It is a little COLD at present, still.    We are headed for our 'winter season'.

Steven is coming over to visit us again on the 24th of this month, and will hopefully bring our grand-daughter, Tonia with him.   We are so happy.

I have writen often,  I have wanted to restate why we are here, and what we are here for.   And I have wanted to make sure you can share with us, and pray effectively for us at this time.    We are SAFE in the arms of our God, whose arms you all are.      God Bless you and carry YOU all through the alarms and excursions of life.    We are thinking of so many in the U.K. and in America at this time,  and all of our friends in Denmark, India, and Australia especially.     We know the Shadow of our Time is upon all the World.     BUT He has Promised to Keep all those who are His.      May He Bless and KEEP YOU also in the Name of JESUS the King.

Lovingly,

John, Esther and Daryl Green, 

and ALL with us in the Testimony Family Worldwide.

                         

 

                                    

 

I CAME ACROSS THS PICTURE TODAY.    It took me back to a little town in north Yorkshire, England, during World War 11.    I was six years old.    I too had looked out of my bedroom window into the darkening night sky.   And I was wondering what tomorrow would bring.   My Mum was out at the 'flicks', and I was alone in the 'one up, one down' little house in Starbeck;  alone except for my Dad's mother, sipping tea by candlelight, near the fireplace.   And my Dad was out at the Pub getting drunk, as happened every night.    It was a momentous moment for me; a moment between heaven and hell, between an almost nightly terror, and a sudden shaft of Light, that began in me a slow but sure realisation that Someone outside of myself, and those I lived with, had me in mind.     I 'tingled' all over with that revelation.

My Mum ( I later found she was not be birth mother) was often out with a boyfriend, and my 'Dad' as stated, often drunk at the Pub, down the road.     Money was short in the house, and most evenings rang with rowdy, and violent domestic fights.    Not the most peaceful, or stable home to grow up in.     It got worse before it got better.....much later.

But, I did manage to get to School - sometimes - and was introduced to God by my Mum;    Every night before I slept she would pray with me a very simple prayer.     I was never removed from this family by the Authorities.    God took care of me.    And, as  I look back I can see that if I had not gone through what I had to, I may never had been prepared for what God had for me to do here twenty or so years later.

WHY am I remembering this now, in front of you all?    I am not sure.    But it has to be connected to the Governments Ten Year Plan to close Children's Homes in the pursuit of finding a 'Family Home and Life for every orphan in Kenya.     Hundreds of children have passed through Testimony Faith Homes since it first opened in Augusut 1969.   Babies, little kids of all ages, and teenagers; boys and girls.

SO many have had their moment looking out from here, to the future, wondering what it held for them.  And also remembering from where they came.     Its a very good thing to do, if you can.   It can clear your hindsight so that you can better see and understand where you have come to NOW.   Every step you took was a planned step, to bring you to His Purpose.        

But along the way our hearts and minds can bring us both joy and sorrow - and a sense of 'aloneness' can, most of all, lead us astray into despair.  And it will manifest in many different ways, from 'pits of gloom', to overwehlming anger and self pity.     I know of no way to combat this, unless it be for one's understanding to be illuminated to the reality of GOD; the One who made us, and is able to enable us to overcome every situation life may bring us to.   Christ is the Answer.      WHY?    Because He will never, in our life time, turn His back upon us, or refuse to answer our call, whatever the cause.      Because He revealed Himself to my little life,  and I no longer feared what Man could do to me.     God was, and IS still today, WITH ME.    Nothing sensationally noticeable, just inner assurance.

CHILDREN NEED this Anchor, as they sail their life upon the choppy waves, and storms of life, in this very uncertain world.      And they need it from the onset; from their Conception in the Womb, to their Birth into this chaotic world.    They need to find it in the Love and Care of a happily married loving couple to teach them God's LOVING KINDNESS, as they interact in a home that provides a steadfast backdrop to that LOVE no matter what happens.

WE IN TESTMONY FAITH HOMES & SCHOOLS

BELIEVE IN

Marriage, NOT Fornication or Adultery

We believe in 

'FOR BETTER, OR FOR WORSE'

And Till Death Serparates us.

WE BELIEVE IN

'FORGIVENESS & RESTORATION'

that will SAVE Marriage

HEAL broken homes and lives.

WE ALL NEED to WORK AT THIS

FOR THE SAKE OF OURSELVES, OUR CHILDLREN,

AND THE NATION WE ARE PART OF.

save your children

SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

WE GAVE OURSELVES 

(as a Man and a Woman

joined in Holy Matrimony, together with our own offspring

that God gave to us)

TO OPEN OURSELVES, AND OUR HOME

to, and for, children who may, for any reason, 

have lost their own family home.

We patterned ourselves on the idea of 

a Kenyan Extended Family

One Family extending itself to those

having suffered loss, temporaray or permenant of the same.

TO DAY WE ARE ALSO KNOWN LOCALLY AS

the Testimony Family

NOT

that we seek to replace or negate our children's birth families,

BUT that we might strengthen ties that bind,

and 'stand in' for Mums and Dads,

who were unable to provide for their childrens need of

Love, Home, and Family Support

I believe that many children have found what they may have initially lost.

I believe many have found the Love of God, and been able to forgive,

and to turn bitterness and anger into compassion and understanding.

And in the process the majority

found themselves becoming 'family' in a much wider sense

to strangers, and foreigners, breaking common barriers,

and becoming one with all mankind.

As a Residential Children's Home

we have served a purpose.

John and Esther Green

Testimony Faith Homes & Schools

1969-2022

 THE STATE TO PHASE OUT

CHILDREN'S HOMES,

RESETTLE ORPHANS

(today's Standard Newspaper 10th June 2022)

ONCE MORE KENYA UNSETTLES THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN.   NOT ONLY DO THEY DESTABILISE DOZENS OF LONG STANDING STABLE RESIDENTIAL HOMES FOR CHILDREN IN THE  COUNTRY, BUT THEY ALSO PUT THE CHILDREN WHO RESIDE SAFELY WITHIN THESE HOMES INTO A STATE OF TOTAL INSECURITY, WITHOUT ANY PLACE TO RUN TO FOR HELP.

 

THIS is a photo of a Wedding; the Wedding of our son Steven and Anjela Green, taken way back in 1996 when Testimony Faith Homes was already 33 years old as a Home for Children.    Children who had grown up with our own children in the same house as ONE family - young and old - all came together, as one family, on that day, to continue to demonstrate that we were ONE FAMILY.         They STILL meet together, and support one anther, and consider each other 'family'  even now, twenty six years later.       A very good example of how Children are able to find Home and Family in a Residential Care Home.

AND THIS HOME

Testimony Faith Homes & School

Has survived for 53 years without state support and without appealing for help

from the general public.

A Christian Family Home and School

Dependant upon God 

AT THIS PRESENT TIME

Testimony Faith Homes still has a resident population of 130 children and young people aged between 3 and 18 years, boys and girls.   All reside in FOUR family Homes,

here in Elgonview Estate, Eldoret.

And these children have been brought up in divergent family homes 

of thirty in number, including the house parents, Dad and Mum, with 

their own children, totally integrated as a family in each of the four houses.

THESE CHILDREN

HAVE COME FROM MANY DIFFERENTS BACKGROUNDS.

It IS true that SOME of them do have one parent, and some may even have two.

BUT when they were brought to us, it was not a matter of poverty 

that brought them to us.   And some, where it became possible,

were able to return to their own home and family, but not many.

Only those who we were sure would be loved and cared for by

loving and caring parents.

A Home & Family must be having Love & Care

in it, in order to make it work.

WE also believe it needs GOD in it.

The latter is not a generally accepted necessity, 

but we beleieve it is.

WE, THE MANAGEMENT, 

OF TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES

have enjoyed fifty three years of endeavoring

to assist children from all over Kenya, hand in hand with Government.

We will always Thank the Government for the opportunity.

BUT WE DISAGREE

with this latest 

Government Policy,

and have done so, since it's inception more tnan 20 year ago.

We do not accept that ALL Homes should be Closed.

WE BELIEVE THERE IS STILL A NEED

for US to continue on.

Our children are settled.

They are loved and cared for.

They do well in School.

They are well behaved.

They value each other as Kenyans, and as human beings.

IF HOMES OF OUR STANDING,

AND THE CHILDREN THEY CONTAIN, ARE SCATTERED

BACK TO THEIR RESPECTIVE ROOTS, WE BEELIEVE

MUCH DAMAGE, PHYCOLOGICALY, AS WELL AS

PHYCALLY, WILL RESULT.

So many of our children where brought to us in need

 of Care and Protection, from the very Parents and Environment, 

they they will now be returned to. 

To do this will, without doubt, bring serious repurcusions.

It will set lives back years, and bring to useless waste

innumerable years of careful nurture, and even education.

We NOTE that the application of this Policy is to take a proposed TEN years, but the sense of instability and insecurity that will immediately be felt, will already begin to achieve a great deal of damage.  It can be said that children in Care Homes over the last 20 years have already been forced to consider being uprooted once again, and this time more apprehensively than ever.

The Reverend Doctor Samuel Kirui, in his early Fifties, is no longer with us on earth, but with the Lord.   But I am not jealous for him, now;  for I know that he will not be there with Jesus BEFORE I am, or even before ANY who right now believe in the Gospel here on earth, or even before any who may have died in the Faith before us.  The Bible says this in 1. Thessalonians 4v`4-18F                  hi

The Bible says that all those who die in faith, believing and trusting in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will in fact SLEEP.        We shall ALL sleep.     We are quite unconscious of 'time', whilst sleeping, and when we wake it seems as if we just set our head upon the pillow.    And so it will be 'in some mysterious way' that all Believers will find themselves, on leaving their body, immediately present with the LORD, and with all those who have died, or who are WAITING, still alive, for their time to come.     What an AMAZING moment that will be, and very especially for those who were, without realising it. asleep - to wake up and find themselves unaware that time has passed.  We WILL all 'seem' to 'arrive' TOGETHER - What a day of REJOICING that will be.     But, for us still bound to time on Earth, we must from time to time, suffer the separation  that physical death brings.  BUT, for the 'Believer', as for our dear departed brother Sam,  it will, and must be, that seemingly, in a blink of the eye, as they even 'hear' the sound of the Trumpet, they find themselves with us who they left behind.      No one will SEE the lord BEFORE another.    We shall ALL see Him together.   It is a mystery, but it will happen.

Sam had begun a ministry called Barnabas Leadership Ministries.     He had a real passion and desire to stir up young men and women to places of leadership in he Kingdom.     So sad if it has to close or be discontinued, just because Sam has gone.     We do pray for those who encouraged Sam in this work, Mike and LeeAnn McGee and family,  that they might also pray and see if the Lord might provide for another 'Leader' to keep BLM alive and active.

Sam was not WITH us physically for a long time.    He came when he was approximately 15 as a boy who needed help; his family had suddenly ceased to finance his education, and he was left stranded and alone.    It  so happened that we met each other on that day, and he came home with me to spend the night.    The next day we sent him back to school, and he remained boarding with us.   This was in 1965 and he boarded with us for eighteen months, after which we only saw him during vacation times whilst he was in College, and less frequently after 1969 when he began pastoral work.   Then after he left Kenya for U.S.A. we saw him physically less and less.    He became more engrossed in furthering his Education, and we cannot say that we know a great deal about his many years, until now, that he has spent there.    But he persevered and obtained his ambition, and finally achieved his Doctorate, in May 2021.    But he kept closely in touch, and he himself became a real part of the Testimony Family; very much loved, respected and appreciated.    We cannot help but miss him. 

We would like to remember all those in California who have helped and encouraged, and generally interacted in Sam's life over the years.    Thank you all for loving and encouraging and assisting to guide and council him.      We know you did it In the LORD, but we also thank you for your open heartedness and grace. 

one last photo

To the left is Moses Ongonga, now Pastor of AIC Fellowship Church,

Eldoret, will be burying Sam on Wednesday.  They were both

students at Kenya  Highlands Bible College in 1968/9

Esther and I were grateful to have them as 'sons' in Testimony House.

I am in the middle

And SAM on the right, Graduating.

TOMORROW  is Tuesday7th June, and at 1p.m. our time, at the AIC Fellowship Church in Eldoret there will be a MEMORIAL SERVICE for Sam.     Please do come if you can.      THEN on Wednesday Sam will be buried at Equator where his brothers and sisters live.    Sam has always kept in touch with them down the years, and neve fails to visit them when in Kenya;  he had planned to visit them at the end of this week in fact.      More than a bus load will be attending from the Homes.

Thank you all who have been in prayer for us, and for the family, and who have visited, phoned, e-mailed and written with their sympathy encouragement.    Bless you all.  

John, Esther, and Daryl, and all at Testimony Faith Homes

 IT IS WITH GREAT SORROW

THAT WE MUST SHARE THE SUDDEN

CALLING AWAY TO OUR LORD JESUS, 

DURING THE NIGHT,

OF OUR BELOVED SON 

Samuel  Kirui

Sam arrived here on the 30th May, having already been  ministering in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.    He was SO happy to arrive here with us here at Green Cottage, always his home when travelling in Kenya.      But he was looking very tired, and after his first day of planned ministry here in A.I.C Fellowship Church, he just ate a good supper, and immediately retired to bed to sleep.  It was about 7.20p.m. our time.    It is thought that he left us to be with the Lord about midnight.   He seemed to have just GONE.    His body lay peacefully on the bed, quite undisturbed, his eyes closed.

His Master called, and he at once obeyed that Heavenly Voice, and was gone.    We who are left behind must do without him for a while.     But he lives still, and we shall rejoice together in the future, just as if no interruption to our fellowship and relationship ever occurred.

All of Sam's Family

Testimony House, Testimony Faith Homes