A LITTLE BIT OF ICE CREAM...!

THIS IS YUSUF TAJIRI, aged 8 years old.       He had just arrived home as of yesterday afternoon, having had a Tonsillectomy the day before.    His smile reflects the unexpected 'delight' of being fed almost solely on ICE CREAM ever since!

Yusuf has grown up in TYNDALE Cottage with Senge and Micah Yego since April 2006, when he was not quite two years old.   he has been the 'boss' of his age group, but in a most applauded manner; greatly loved and admired by his peers for his bold, outgoing, and good natured style.

His parents are (we think) both alive.   They are first cousins in their family, and according to 'custom' within their Tribe, it is impossible for them to be allowed to keep the child themselves.   Both were under age at the time, and it is likely they will not even have been told what happened to Yusuf.    WHY is he called YUSUF - he is not from an Islamic background?   We do not know.     It is no longer remarked upon here, and YUSUF is just very much Yusuf to us all, and very much a Joy and Delight.   He has suffered serious and recurring Tonsillitis since he was 2, and last year our doctors felt that to safeguard risk to his heart a Tonsillectomy would be necessary.   He has come through, as you can see, quite resiliently - by God's Grace, AND in part no doubt to the ICE CREAM that has followed it.   I remember feeling much the same and for the same reason, after my own Tonsillectomy when I was six - Yumms!!!

TODAY our very dear friends IAN and DIANA Hogley have left us.   They were with us for only a few days this time, but God willing we hope to see them again later in the year - probably September.   We have felt so very blessed that they are able to frequently visit Kenya and us!      Esther and I have known them since we got married, and we have remained friends throughout.     Additionally the Lord led them to also become involved in another Children's Work on the outskirts of Nakuru Town - RIZIKI Children's Home.     It was started by Julius and Esther Kivindyo, a very dear and loving couple, and you may remember that we also attended its Official Opening with Ian and Diana in 2010.  It has continue to flourish and care for needy children, and Ian and Diana will by this time be with them all.    They will continue for some days there till it is time for them to return to Huddersfield.

AND NOW HERE WE ARE ALONE ONCE MORE in Green Cottage and we are already halfway through February - we are left quite breathless by the speed of passing days and events.   This week-end is our School Half Term, so for a moment, at least, we feel held in limbo ...... before finding life forging ahead again into the next chapter of events - whatever they may be.    And after all it is only another ten months until Christmas.

The weather for this last week has been wonderful.  HOT and DRY, but not in the least uncomfortable, with light to moderate breezes, blue skies and peacefulness.    How fortunate we are!    BUT, a few days ago there was torrential RAIN in Nairobi, and yesterday our own area became suddenly overcast with cloud ........could it be a little shower might come our way also?    That would be SO refreshing, for after a while the DUST does get up one's nose, and the earth beneath the feet, is parched and cracked.   

BUT the weather HAS been good for building works, and now the back end of DRAKELEY Cottage has been completely repaired, and we only wait for the final drying before painting and tidying up.

THIS WEEK the builders have been mending cracks and replacing tiles on the inside bedrooms and bathrooms.   They have also completed refurbishing the Kitchen.   It all looks good.    And now this coming week they will continue down to TYNDALE Cottage to do the same for their Kitchen, and then back to JACARANDA as well.     We feel happy that the Lord has helped so much to be done on this side of the road.       Just the Driveway left - quite a big one made of earth and stones, muddy in the Wet Season, and DUSTY in the summer.      It has been endured since we moved into Jacaranda in 1975, but it will be nice one day to see the dust laid, and feet and shoes kept cleaner.

HERE above is also one of the most recent photos of the completed end wall of Drakeley Cottage.    The Contractor had to dig under and into the foundation eventually and then bolster and re-enforce it with more concrete.    Then a new Retaining Wall was built along the whole length with four Buttresses as well.     He says nothing will ever move.     We hope and believe so.    Once the site has been properly cleaned up and the grass re-grown it will all look fine.

FRANCIS and Eunice, Dad and Mum of the Home, are truly glad to have the full use of the two bedrooms and bathrooms back at last - after months of restricted and uncomfortable 'make-do' living conditions.    AND glad for the Kitchen Face Life as well - a  photo here included.     You may remember that last year we had decided to experiment and centralise cooking for the four Homes.   Each Home up to that time had used its own kitchen to prepare and cook its own food - with its own cook.    THEN we turned Testimony House Kitchen into the Central Kitchen for all four Homes, with just two cooks.    Everything was prepared and cooked there, and then distributed at meal times.     This did in fact save a lot of money.     But we also discovered that it took away some of the family homeliness from each house - it just wasn't the same.     SOOOO!    We have now returned almost to where we were - each house with its own working kitchen but without a professional cook.    NOW the Mum in each Home is the Cook as well.     This was not immediately seen as a good idea by the Mums, but NOW they wonder why we had not done it before.    It has brought so much more bonding between the children and the Mums. and now the Kitchen has become what it always ought to have been - a Meeting place to lend a hand, laugh and joke, and generally generate that homely, family atmosphere we have all these years been trying to improve.    Thank you LORD, for helping us to go on LEARNING?

THE FARM is carrying on.      Water still in our wells but not as much as we had hoped.    We can still water daily, at night, and it keeps us going well enough to grow enough.    But the air and earth is DRY.

The Gardens begin to look a bit more burnished than green - kind of shut down a little.     The Cows are fine.    One that calved latest contracted Mastitis, and although she recovered, lost a lot of weight and of course milk production.    The other has continue to supply ALL that we need alone.    Both bull calves born earlier have now been sold.      Our third cow and the BIGGEST is also in calf - may deliver by the end of this months - another cow we hope, rather than a bull.

AND the CHICKENS continue to lay eggs at least 50 every day at present, AND another 200 Broilers growing bigger every day.     Yes the Farm is working,

And so I will close once more, for another time.       Thank you for your prayers and good wishes always.

We feast upon them, and in return pray for you and yours just there where you are.     Truly this is 'Working Together' and it IS most remarkable.      God BLESS you all

John and Esther

PS_  To Dear Friends John and Alison ATKINS - we have become disconected from our end.    We would love to be able to write to you, so if you should read this please do e-mail  a contact address to us.

To ALL our friends and Family - if you have ANY suggestion for making this Blog more interesting, eye catching, or challenging please feel free to tell us.

DAYS GO BY!!! - FAST

YES!  YESTERDAY Testimony Faith Homes School was INSPECTED!!     The Wareng District Children's Department & The Area Advisory Inspection Team arrived at our compound at 11.15a.m.    There were 3 Children's Officers, a District Public Health Officer and two others.      Daryl was away in Nairobi making sure my sister caught her flight to Amsterdam.    SO I dug myself out of 'retirement' and showed them all round - First the SCHOOL, and then each of the four Homes.     We did not take lunch, but went straight ahead finishing at 2.20p.m.     We Thank God that we appeared to make an impression, and most of all that in the course of Questions and Answers before they all left, I was able to Testify to the Living God.      This was in fact the first comprehensive Inspection of our work by Government for some years.       They were very thorough, very inquisitive, and very courteous.     I doubt if the occasion improved my Blood Pressure, but I was grateful that I was able to walk them round for so many hours without either of my feet seeming to notice the exercise - a real proof God has touched them.  Hallelujah.      This will not be the LAST time - hopefully - that we shall suffer an Inspection.    They are supposed to be regular and, we hope that from now on they will be.    

ON THURSDAY, Daryl drove PAT up to Nairobi to stay the night with one of Esther's nephews, and his family, before flying off for Amsterdam on Friday morning early.     It was quite hard to actually part with her, and to see her GO.       In many ways what has been happening has a kind of unreal quality about it.    After all we had only met once before in April 2011, and now after only a month or so, she has gone again!!   Just, really, after making headway in understanding each other and getting to know each other.      It was the more difficult really since we could not devote all our time to her, as we still had our work and duty to do every day, and so she was often left by herself - though the weather was good .        We hope she will return again - and that then we can also plan how to be more with her, and/or for her to be more with us, and perhaps occupied in some areas with us.    I have just been on the phone to her in fact, and she has arrives safely in Scotland, , safely met by Harvey and Marion.    It was just lovely to hear all three on the phone, and I am believing they will ALL be back as soon as maybe to spend more time with us.      

Daryl arrived safely back her on Friday - after the Inspectors had left.

TOMORROW OUR TEAM FROM AUSTRALIA will also be leaving us.     There have been FIVE of them, led by Ben Potter.     They all have connections with Tyndale Christian School that send out a Team every year at present to work in with us, and to be a Blessing to us.      Mike Potter who is Tyndale's Headmaster leads this larger team at present - BEN is his son!     Following in Dad's footsteps very well.      We have enjoyed each one of them,  Ben himself, and friends Joel Garfoot, Sam and Lucy Whelan, and Maddison Anzil.      Ben and Maddison have had to cope with various medical attacks whilst with us, but came through with flying colours, their enthusiasm and determination undiminished.       HOORAH for them all.      They together took on - in the few days they have actually been with us - the exterior painting of the walls of Jacaranda Cottage - a LOT of work under the blistering sun.     They also PAID, from their own earnings laboured for in Australia before them arrived here, for the repainting of the roof (steep and perilous), and for the laying of a new cement walkway from the Road Gate to Jacaranda Cottage and on to Drakeley cottage.     There just was not time for them to be physically involved with everything AND give time (a lot of time) to the CHILDREN.     In between being SO busy for us the Team also spent two full afternoons with NEEMA Children's Homes, and the children of Miriam and Joshua's ministry.   



(L to R Joel Garfoot; Daryl Green; Ben Potter; Maddison Anzil; Sam Whelan; Lucy Whelan; John Green)



TONIGHT we take them out for a final treat laid on by our new Director, Daryl Green and his wife Carol, and which we also hope to attend.       We expect to eat CHINESE in town on this last evening before they flee from us.        They have managed to eat a meal in each of the four Homes, and thus have also had good family fellowship and fun in each house.     Everyone fell in love with them - one or two a little heavily - but none got hurt.                               Just heard from Ben's father MIKE!  He writes 'Regarding our school trip in July, we have 36 coming, the biggest group so far!   We will be arriving on 5th July and leaving on the 16th...'   WOW.    We are more than blessed by such a supportive school and student body - it is as if we have become part of each other - ONE BODY of people, growing stronger and stronger in our togetherness.    It is very AMAZING.

INTERNAL WORK on Drakeley Cottage continues.     The exterior work is now completed and is just awaiting the cement and plaster work to dry before finally painting.     Interior work has begun and perhaps next week will show more photos.    

THIS WEEK I started a new regime of drugs toward lowering my B.P. and B.S.     Sadly no change so far seen; both are still up rather than down.     BUT I generally feel well and energetic.     Don't see the docs again till the end of next week.     I think I can make it till then!!  Ha, ha!  Glorious weather here right now - the more so when we see what all of you in Europe are suffering.      BUT it feels as if we are in fact drying out, and that soon there WILL be a great dearth of water all round.        We shall see.

Esther is well and busy back in School now as an 'inspector'.     She just loves being occupied, and it is good for her.      This afternoon she is attending a Memorial Service being held here in Eldoret in memory of our daughter in law's aunt who recently passed away in India where she was to have surgery.     She was the wife of Janet's father's brother.       She was much loved and will be greatly missed; the entire family is truly mourning.      Esther is with Daryl, I being unable to get away due to other appointments.

God Bless you all.       We have heard that AENON is forwarding some gifts from some of you, so you will be getting our usual Thank You Note.       We love to know that YOU know that we have received and been helped by any Gift sent.      None of us here can ever thank any one of you enough for sending a gift - however small it might be even.           Certainly THIS transfer will be 'Stitch in Time' in which you are all a contributor.

John and Esther

SALVAGED FROM FIRE TO?

THIS IS JACOB!   He came to stay with us in Jacaranda Cottage yesterday.  He is NINE years old.    When he was one year old he became trapped with his paternal grandfather in a mud house which caught fire.   His grandfather died in the fire, and although baby Jacob was saved it was not without severe burns on his right side including the loss of his right hand and damage to his right eye and ear.
His father refused to look at him after the accident, and left the family soon afterwards.    Jacob's mother is lame and unable to find work, so she and Jacob moved in with his father's widowed grandmother, who ekes out a very minimal living from the sale of vegetables she grows in her tiny plot.
He has not gone to school, and has grown up very much alone and shunned because of his disfigurement.     To-day at nine years old he holds himself uncertainly, and has an almost frightened visage.     But he seems intelligent and bright.     With both parents still living this is not a child we would normally take in, but in fact he IS an orphan child, and more than that - an 'outcast' from his family and community.     It is hard to really understand WHY this should be so, but it is clear that he is unwanted, and perhaps an 'embarrassment'.
There is a little scripture in Isaiah 16v4 which says -

'..let my outcasts dwell with you!

Be a shelter to them'.  

In 2 Samuel 9 we read that King David took Mephibosheth, the crippled teenage son of Jonathon into his own house.   It is written there that Mephibosheth referred to himself in front of David, as 'A Dead Dog'!!   That is probably how he had been made to see himself - helpless and good for nothing.    But the KING took him in and sat him down at His own table. Yes I LIKE this.    It is truly a 'Jesus' thing to do.

We hope that the Lord will now help us to bring hope and life to this little boy, Jacob.   We hope to help him to 'stand tall' and with confidence, no longer conscious of his scars, and able to laugh and smile with the best.    He is the first child to join the Homes in 2012.      

MY SISTER PAT is expecting to leave for Scotland again on the 10th February - just a few days left.    It was a little stiff initially, but as the days have past we have come together wonderfully as family, and we can say that truly it has been a great Blessing to me, and to all of us to find her, and be part of her family as well.     We had hoped that she would extend her stay for another month at least, but she feels that she should return to Scotland and make sure her home there is safe and sound.   Nevertheless we hope to see her back again soon many times.

TYNDALE SCHOOL IS HERE AGAIN and we have an Advance Party to the one expected in July now with us until 12th February.      BEN POTTER, Mike and Danni's son is here with two young men and two young ladies - SAM and JOEL + LUCY and MADDI.      The boys sleep in Testimony House, and the girls sleep with US in Green Cottage.      They eat also with us, and also with each of the four Homes as they visit and have fellowship after their WORK!     Yes they do work, and they work hard!   Their main task is to paint the exterior walls of Jacaranda Cottage, and 'maybe' to also help lay a cement path to link Jacaranda with Drakeley Cottage.   It is demanding and tiring work for all five, but they have not flagged at all, and have remained in good spirits enough to play and spend their spare time with the children.  
This is the first time we have seen two groups from Tyndale coming out in the same year.    We  owe them all a lot in providing us with real assistance in improving and caring for the material needs of the Homes, as well as bring so much real happiness and joy to the children.        We are tied so much together that it really feels as if we are ONE.

Well this has been a busy week for all of us.      I also attended a Quarterly Meeting of the Area Advisory Council for Children for this huge County.        We were advised that the problem of Street Children was increasing with more than 3,000 on the streets of Eldoret today!     We also heard of an illegal and unregistered home for children discovered and inspected by the Children's Department on the outskirts of our Town.      They had gone there in response to concern shown by members of the locality who said that the children were being ill treated and exploited.       It seems that the 22 children living there in very confined circumstances (14 to a room measuring 6 x 6 feet) were not from Eldoret but other provinces.     The concern is that these children may have been brought to Eldoret for export via the Child Trafficking Business rife in Kenya.     These children might have been sold for body parts, sex or just plain servitude to the Middle East and even other parts of Africa.      Incredible and very worrying.   The Council recommended immediate closure of the 'home' and investigation of the owners.

Those who follow my personal health will be glad that having proclaimed the recovery of my foot from the pain and inconvenience of a 'bunyan', I can now continue and proclaim that my rising Blood Pressure has returned to even better than normal.      Surely the Lord our God is Good.     Truly He is our HEALTH and HEALING when we call upon me.      NOW for the Blood Sugar which continues to be a trouble.      I need to exercise say my medical advisers AND adjust my food intake.    I agree to both comments, but I am NOT a very 'spry' 71, having never in all my life been of a physically energetic disposition.     Also this place does not promote walking since the terrain is uneven and fraught with traffic.     BUY a Treadmill ?     Yes we have been looking at some, but they do not look very enticing either in design or price.     MUST I really walk for an hour every day till I sweat?    Maybe not, though I will do my best to walk and be on my feet more.       As for food and diet, I hope to see a Nutritionist with Esther next week - but in it all I am looking FIRST and foremost to the LORD Who is my LIFE.

AND THE WORK ON DRAKELEY COTTAGE has continued apace, and by NEXT Saturday I hope to include a photo of the finished exterior work attempted so far  ( though TODAY we have seen signs of further 'bulging' of the foundation in-fill in a different area!)     We shall see.

And so from underneath a clear blue sky giving free course to the burning rays of our Sun I must again break off and attend to other matters.      Bless you all for praying for us.    Accept of our united love and prayer also for each one of YOU

John and Esther
                              

HOLDING THINGS TOGETHER!!?

REPAIR AND MAIN-TENANCE has commenced on Drakeley Cottage.    To the right you can see the beginning of work to expose the problem under and above the damp course.    Basically it seems that two previous attempts to compact the infilling of the foundation at this end of the house failed.   This produced various troubles, from forcing the wall outwards, to also interfering with plumbing.     The Municipal Engineer has instructed us to put in three steel reinforced vertical columns  keyed into the wall together with a horizontal reinforced beam just above the damp course, about a metre from the ground level..   You can see in this photo on the right how this end of the house has really begun to bulge and move outwards.
It is SO SAD that a man with a Christian Testimony such as the contractor that built this house, could have been so willing to cut corners and even evade structural issues in order to make money out of his brethren.  Faults with the flooring throughout the house, general fittings and plumbing as well as many other matters have, during the four years of it's existence, necessitated continued and repeated expense in keeping it up and workable.         Yes Drakeley Cottage was completed in 2008 and has needed more help to remain in good shape than we have spent on Testimony House - an old (circa2010) MUD brick house - in 40 years.
I guess it is the same with human beings as well.     Some age faster than others - but we all age, and need constant maintenance!!!

(I am 71+ and overweight.     I have always been heavier than I should, but my heart seems in good shape.     Yet this year, suddenly my Blood Pressure has shot up and my Blood Sugar as well.     I have Diabetes 2 and I have not watched my diet as I should - BUT really I am well ,,,,,,,     But I now am aware that I have to take myself in hand.    In many respects I resemble the stressed stonework in the picture above.     My doc says not to worry, but not to be complacent.     For this month he has been changing my drugs almost every week with no apparent change in my situation.    Start a new cocktail of more drugs today!  - and oddly every new drug to try seems to cost more than the last one.........BUT my Bunyan is completely better, and I am walking more.     NO I am not physically discomforted, and I thank God that the GREAT Physician watches over me, maintaining me, and not just patching me up along the way, but healing me.      He provides and maintains the physical side of TFH and I know He will maintain and keep me in good repair and health.  Hallelujah!)   'IN HIM all things consist (cohere, are held together'  - Colossians 1v17

 To the left is another view of the ongoing work on the exterior of Drakeley Cottage.    We have dug down well below the damp course and foundation, and you can see the iron skeleton columns waiting to be fixed - one at each corner and another in the middle.     Already the worse  affected part of the wall - far lower right - has been repaired and straightened, and you can make out the recess being made for the horizontal retaining beam at the lower part of the wall.    
This this should all be completed this week together with the plumbing and drainage repairs and replacements.

THEN we shall go INSIDE and repair internal matters.     Immediately behind the wall shown above and starting from the near end is a bedroom for 8 girls, a toilet and shower, and then a Guest Room for 4 plus en-suit toilet/shower.      Internal walls have been slowly cracking due to a drop in the floor level.    At the right is a view of one of the shower rooms with a serious structural crack caused by faulty plumbing leaking water into the wall.  

The Kitchen also needs attention in respect of the flooring and work tops, and also three Shower/Toilets.       We expect that ALL of this work will cost around £1,000, and as I told you before these funds are already to hand as well as £2,000 more which we hope to use in further needed restorations in two other of our children's Homes.      Many of these material repairs have been pending some time, and it is truly a great joy to at last see them getting attention.      There IS a time for everything.
THE FAMILY PHOTO is of Francis and Eunice LAHOL and their two children.    Francis and Eunice are Mum and Dad in Drakeley Cottage now.    Mum and Dad are both trained Chefs in fact, and Francis actually grew up in Testimony House whilst Esther and I were Mum and Dad there (1984-98).    He was only 10 when he was admitted.   They are a happy family, and are proving themselves to be with big enough hearts to be parents to the 30 other children  that share the Home with them.    

On the 1st February, next week, we shall be welcoming Mike and Dani Potter's son Ben with five friends for a ten day stay with us.      They will come to lend a hand the Homes together, just a they and other have done before when their School - Tyndale Christian School - has also come to do the same.    It will be really great to have them here.    ALSO hoping to have Ian and Diana HOGLEY our friend from Huddersfield here again toward the middle/end of February.     A good beginning to the year altogether.

Esther is well and fine, and we both send our Love with Thanksgiving to you all

John and Esther

PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES

THIS IS A PHOTO OF Harvey and Marion my most recent nephew and niece!!     The are having a brief refreshment whilst shopping in the heat and tumult of Eldoret's rush hour streets.  They caught the sun - just a little - and may well already have lost it again since returning to freezing Scotland on Wednesday this week.  They also caught Testimonyitis and may never be free of it!   The children loved them as if they had known them for ever, and they had very good times together.      We are always delighted when folk come and want to take an interest in the children.     It is very rewarding to all concerned, and we just love to see them happy.
Almost every day of their two week stay they were followed everywhere by laughing and happy kids.     They are now very definitely Aunt and Uncle to all.
THANK you both for opening up YOUR hearts to our children and becoming immediately part and parcel of THEIR family as well as ours!    
Whilst here they did a lot of exploring for themselves, took a lot of photos and videos.     Also tried their hand at cooking, sport, and Marion even joined Internal Security and did a turn at the Main Entrance Gate!!       They were willing workers, outgoing and friendly to all.

NOW THEY HAVE GONE,  leaving their Mum, my SISTER, still with us for about another three weeks.     She seems fully of spunk and a 'ready for anything' attitude to our Mad Compound.       She is often left on her own, however, since both Esther and I both have time when we must be away, and about the compound.     But we still spend a lot of time and fellowship with each other and we hope her time here will be more and more enjoyable as days go by - perhaps she won't want to go home!!?

Just to divide this letter here are a few views of the School.     The first on the left shows the double storey tuition block at the end of which, in front of the tree, will be the 4 new classrooms joined on. On the right is where the new Boarding Hostel will be built.

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MANY YEARS AGO, in 1969 I was just beginning this ministry in rented property in MASENO, Western Kenya.     During that time I met a Norwegian Lady who was also working temporarily in Kenya.   Her name was, and still remains,  GRETA RIMINGTION.      We got to know each other quite well and then she returned to Norway.      We lost touch for many years but later she sent me a book that she had written and put together with illustrations of some of her Artwork.     GRETA is in fact a gifted creative artist.  She paints a lot, but she especially felt God leading her into ecclesiastical artwork.    This found an outlook in producing priestly stoles and vestments, and also altar clothes and fronts.       Reading her book and for the first time also getting to know something more about her Christian Testimony, as well as SEEING God's Spirit at work through her fingers was a very moving and wonderful thing for me.     It is remarkable and wonderful, the people God brings into our lives to leave a mark or memory that will in fact add to the sum result of who we ourselves individually are.   This photo was taken circa 2004.
I am going to share a little of her story here as it was printed in 2004 when she was 70.

FROM HER STUDIO in Son, Greta Rimington looks out on a calm and cold Oslo Fjord.   In front of her easel she is working intensely on a new motive "Shooting Stars".  It is the first in a series entitled "The Universe".   Whilst painting she finds that she is one moment in the present, and the next she is a small girl looking at stars with her father Claude Rimington.  At the age of 70 the artist is ready to tell her story, looking for the golden thread and the hand that has drawn the patterns in the tapestry of her life.   She strives to find a harmony that was once, but that then disintegrated early on in here life. 

Greta was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 13th February 1933.    Her father Claude Rimington was an English scientist, and her mother Soffi was Norwegian.    After a few years the family moved back to Europe, settling after the war in England.   Greta attended St. Helen's School for Girls in Northwood in North London.     On finishing she went on to attend The Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London.     On finishing, instead of pursuing Art, she decided to enter the Teaching profession.     She explored the possibility of teaching in Africa, but eventually took up opportunities to teach Art in Norway.

Her story is an alternating one of joy and pain.   Early on she appeared to be mature beyond  her years.   As she grew older she gave the impression of being an independent and adventurous woman.  Yet the ice that encased her heart as a child had created a shell preventing her from really experiencing joy to the full.

Only later in life does the cold heart start to thaw.   Her mother Soffi, died in 1982.   After her death Greta took the dramatic step of becoming a full time artist.  With the constant support of her father an ever widening circle of friends she moved into the most creative period of her life -painting, designing and decorating church interiors.   It was also at this time that she moved from an intellectual commitment to God, to a warmer embrace of Jesus Christ.   Her belief is in Christ as a warm and close life-giving force.  In her art she wants to give a positive indication of this.

At 70 Greta is flowering both as an artist and as a person.She is more productive than ever. Her inner journey has given hr more insight and answers.   She is no longer tied and bound by her past.   With a childlike inquisitiveness she is still on a voyage of discovery in art and faith.     

Greta is an inspiration to us all to keep on going on.     Especially those of us who have passed death to life, we need to enter into the never ending aspect of our Life, and cease looking for our physical death as at best an interruption.      We have every reason to look and to plan ahead.!

Much Love to you all.    I shall be giving the Word of God once more tomorrow morning and will value your prayers.     The last in the Series it will be of course Thou Shalt Not COVET..

Sincerely


John and Esther

 

 

 

 

 

SUNNY DAYS IN ELDORET

LIFE GOES ON HERE.         And this last week has reminded me of the early 70's when the January days were  filled with brilliant sunlight under clear azure skies, a gentle breeze helping to mitigate with the heat and the dryness.     In the midst of it all plans for School Development have been progressing, our teenagers sent off to College, trips to the dentist AND the doctor, School open and busy, and my sister, son and daughter in law all basking in the warmth, the altitude and the adventure of slowly getting to know US, and the 150 children that live here with us.       I think they have enjoyed themselves, though all have had their own physical 'high's and 'lows'.      Generally good health has prevailed against the threat of sickness.   Mainly it has been a case of adjustment to the difference in climate between here and Scotland.    
My sister, Pat, will be staying on with us till the first week of February.   But Harvey and Marion are beginning their trek home to Scotland on Monday morning, when they will be flying from Eldoret to Nairobi on the first leg.      We shall miss them.    They have made a lot of friends as well amongst the children, and I know that in a short time friendships have been made across generations, colour, and race.      Hearts have been won, and a lot of memories and happiness trapped on film, both still and moving.
The two little girls in our first photo have discovered a warm and happy friendship for each other.  The one on the left is the five year old  daughter of one of our staff, and the other is from Testimony House.   The one with loving parents and a stable home, and the other abandoned and without home or parents until she came to us.
Not sure if it was Marion or Harvey that took the picture - they have been taking so many - but it surely is a winner.       And also the one below it.     The little boy is also a son of a staff member, the brother of the one above.     Again in living here it is almost impossible to see any difference in the 'orphan' cared for and the children of stable families living with and amongst them.    I am always happy to see it, and these photos just underline it.
We are hoping that this short exposure to our happy, loving kids will entice Harvey and Marion back to us again soon.......??

The NEXT photo this week is one of building under construction in the centre of Eldoret.      I think it was taken to emphasise the way buildings actually go up here.    Not quite the ideal expected in the UK.     This building is being erected behind Eldoret Town Hall.  It towers above it totally spoiling the old sky line, and also the entire aspect of the main high street.
The Town Hall had been set well back behind lawns, and still is a fairly unassuming yet respectable civic structure pleasant to the eye.       From the Mayor's Parlour on the 1st floor you can look down the main high street, (Kenyatta Street) witch is one of the main shopping  and banking areas of the town, sloping quite steeply down to the river valley.    From the opposite end one could look up and see the Town Hall  as the centre piece of good town planning.        Not any longer though with this awkward, ill designed and sited edifice towering lopsidedly behind it.      Whoever allowed the plans to be passed, and the Civic Centre to be humbled beneath it should be fired.   URgh!!


Just a little glimpse of ELDORET the town - a town once spacious and airy but now crammed tight with traffic, humanity and restlessness.     No longer a quiet country town, but a growing County Metropolis, somehow taken by surprise.     It is now too fast and too crowded for me.      And soon it will catch up with me since where once Testimony was at the extreme edge, and verging on open fields, we are now almost surrounded by building estates, with hardly an open field to see anywhere.     How time changes things, and how LIFE DOES GO ON irresistibly and progressively.    

WE ARE GLAD to report that the funds promised to us toward building repairs and maintenance have just arrived, and that work on the sinking foundation of Drakeley Cottage will probably now be able to commence next week.    It will throw the 'Home' into a little confusion for a while, but there is no doubt that we shall now be able to save the house, and this is a great thrill to all concerned - including the children who are every excited about it all.

We are also going ahead with School Expansion, and hope to get Plans past soon to erect a further 4 classrooms in order to put in a second Stream of Secondary School classes.     The photo shows part of the area where development will be taking place.  For those who know the compound intimately the Basket Ball Court is sited in front of the photo.
As you know the School pays for itself from incoming School Fees paid by those parents from around Eldoret whose children attend the School.      These fees pay for the Teachers, consumable materials, and everything else needed to run the School.     Additionally the School - through these same fees - provided FREE places for each and every Orphan in the Children's homes.       Otherwise nothing else is diverted to the help of the Homes.   Thus the Homes stand apart and alone, dependant on God only.      Since Daryl has taken on the job of Chief Executive he has also made it his business to consider the School, and he has been given the job of watching over the building project.  

We have just had a word from AENON Trust, and we do thank all those who have recently send help to us through their kind assistance.      Spot on timing, as usual.   Quite amazing that it is so, month after month.
Yet we never get used to His Provision, and can never KNOW exactly what He will do or HOW.   We only know that He remains utterly FAITHFUL in answering the prayers of so many on our behalf.

Much Love from us all

John and Esther  

LOVE AND MARRIAGE ?

FROM SCOTLAND TO KENYA!    At last united with my Sister Pat, and with Harvey her son and daughter in law - Marion.     SUCH a joy to actually have them WITH US.  
Daryl went up to Nairobi as planned to meet them with Carol his wife and their eldest son, Jesse.   From there to Ngong about 40 kilometres away to the home of Esther's sister Mary where they spent most of that day (4th January) and the night.     There they met Mary's husband Joe, and their children and their families!!   Quite an overwhelming introduction to our side - the Kenya side - of the family of GREEN.    Then on the morning of the 5th they all made their way to ELDORET, arriving about 5p.m. in the afternoon.    Since THEN we have been enjoying each others company.


YESTERDAY, 6th January was Steven and Anji's 16th Wedding Anniversary.    The photo here was taken in our grounds on their Wedding Day.    We were able to get together with them last night via SKYPE. It was great.  

 My sister Pat had been married to her husband Donald almost 50 years before he sadly died.   Esther and I have been married 40 years.     So many people have evinced their astonishment that anyone can stay together for such a lengthy period in Marriage!   - MANY tell me quite seriously that these days the majority of marriages do not last even three years, and admittedly we hear of those that end within a year!
Are those that stick together for longer to be considered foolish?  

MARRIAGE is intended to demonstrate a permanent and enduring relationship; the relationship that there OUGHT to be between every man and woman - and GOD.     A relationship that will not be altered or upset by changing circumstances or events, but one that will be willing to endure with long-suffering the faults and failings in both parties, as well as to enjoy the admirable and loving qualities found in each other.
MARRIAGE - more than the incoming idea of 'partnership' (or 'Come we Stay' theology found here in Kenya and increasingly all over the world) - is meant to be seen NOT as a RISK, but as a considered and sincere COMMITMENT of a Man to a Woman, or a Woman to a Man.     (Gay Relationships are not found acceptable in either the Bible or the Koran.)
NO ONE should sensibly enter into MARRIAGE unless they mean to remain together for life, come what may!     I make no apology for presenting the Christian view of Marriage.       It has been around a long time, and prior to this wayward and sexually orientated generation, worked very well.    It rests on an Ideal that if followed through must affect all of Creation, and the Security of the Universe.
MARRIAGE, as it is set out by the Church of Christ, is more than a mere Contract, it is a serious Agreement made seriously in front of God, each of the two involved  vowing to the other that they will remain constant and faithful to each other for all of their respective lives - for better or for worse...........!  
THIS is something that a Home and Family can be built upon; it provides ongoing SECURITY and ASSURANCE that such home and family will always be there.     A reliable Point of Reference.  
The Faith that GOD existed, and was a Binding Witness to the Promises made between the Man and the Woman gave REASON for couples to persevere, endure and even suffer if necessary whatever might come to disturb or challenge the Marriage.        One could not, surely, walk out on God - breaking the promises made in His hearing?         It was not the EASY 'come or go' attitude found in so many unhallowed relationships of our current world.

HERE IN TESTIMONY FAITH HOMES we have tried to uphold the idea of Home and Family built on a Marriage in Church in front of God, and witnessed by family and friends.      We have endeavoured to proclaim to children who have been the victims of broken promises and careless relationships that there IS a safe foundation to built their own home and family upon, providing for their children what so many of them were deprived of, or just never had in the first place.     Oh yes!   We do readily admit that many have not readily followed our example.     Some HAVE entered into uncommitted and even loosely tied together relationships AND suffered the consequences - though some later brought themselves either to church or to the local administrative government to finally commit themselves to each other.    The had failed to find peace in a relationship that lacked trust and faith.

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones writes - 'What right have we to expect nations to stand by their promises and keep their vows to each other, if men and women do not do it even in this most solemn and sacred union of marriage?   We must start with ourselves, we must start at the Beginning.   We must observe the Law of God (NOT Moses) in our personal and individual lives.'


Good, Seriously entered into, enduring Marriage is the mainstay of our humanity.    If we are to rescue our own Generation and provide against the security of the next we must determine to uphold MARRIAGE, and thereby SAVE our home and family from a sure anarchy and repudiation of all human morality.        And remember nothing is gained without sacrifice.   We enter into Marriage determining to lay down our life for the other - indefinitely, for ever.   Your children will see it and feel it, and rejoice in the knowledge of your true love for each other, learning from it.

I believe that my sister Pat and I, having both to some extent been victims of a broken marriage and selfish parents, have been greatly helped in holding our own marriages, and thereby our family members in the home, together, realising how it felt to be without the security and warmth generated by a persevering, forgiving and loving father and mother that remained faithful to each other through all the ups and downs of life and also the let downs and disappointments experienced in each other.      We were indeed inspired NOT to be as they were, but to aspire and reach for something more lasting and certain.

We have both lived 70+ years without knowing anything about each other, and now meet, having lived very different lives in very different situations yet in marriages that endured well enough, to progressively deepen the friendship and loving bond that joined us and continues to join us together with the one we promised to live with till death parts us.

GOD BLESS you all, and if are celebrating this Year,   Rejoice for each year successfully spent bearing each others shortcomings in Love and discovering the growth of your own bond of love for each other.

John and Esther