HOME SWEET HOME OR SOCIAL SCIENCE

THIS WAS THE SITTING ROOM OF OUR FAMILY HOME for 28 years.   Yes we were a Family - my wife and me, our three kids, and an average of about 35 others.   It was truly our own home, but it WAS indeed HOME to all who lived in it. It was, and still is, a Registered Children's Home.   More than 170 came and went over those twenty eight years, to that house - coming in sometimes as babes, and sometimes older, and then continuing until they could stand on their own feet as far as life and earning their own living was concerned
We did all we could to make this huge sitting room in what was an old Boer homestead, as homely, and as the centre of 'family' as we could.   We wanted to be able to open the front door, and welcome children and young people in so that they could feel 'at home' right away; children who had either lost or never had a home of their own.    They needed support, and they needed fellowship and to find a sense of 'belonging'.      At least that is what we thought then - and we still think so today.

We do believe that every boy and girl needs a loving home to grow up in.   A warm group of few or many siblings, with a caring Mum and Dad.   An affectionate, secure, and attractive refuge from the world outside.     Of course we understand there are homes and families, of a very different character and quality.    We know that family is often at odds with each other;  parents split up, the home is broken up, and everything seems anything but secure.     My wife and I both are products of such catastrophe, and perhaps that is why we have felt such a desire to help those who have also found themselves alone and even unwanted - homeless.

Children have been part of our family for sometimes only a few years, whilst others stayed more than twenty.   Those that have gone from us still keep in touch and visit us.    Some involve us in finding their life partner, and get married from that same house they grew up in.    We are introduced to our grandchildren - .   It has become an ongoing community - a place to run to, and remember with gladness.     We are glad we decided to expose ourselves to the risks and involvement of family life.
We are glad to see so many of our children building their own homes and families to a similar pattern.      Happy and enduring families are the building blocks of civilisation and nationhood.

RECENTLY, once again, we are hearing that Children's Homes like ours will soon be done away with.    Instead 'Holding Centres' will be initiated to hold children found on the street or elsewhere so that they can be ' sorted, categorised, and passed on to the Foster Home, Adopter, or other 'institution'.    This wisdom has been practiced in my own Country of the United Kingdom for decades without solving the REAL need - which is to provide a sound and SAFE foundation for children to grow up in.    It is not all the governments fault of course.    Family life is seriously challenged today, and the whole 'idea' of  a lasting marriage and family home is losing ground.
What will become of society?   What will become of our world.       Children fostered here in Kenya have a mixed predictable future.   Even with Government incentive Foster Parents are still seen to be more interested in the 'incentive' than in the child they are given to foster - many of these children leave the foster home and return to the street - something none of ours has ever done over 45 years.
The Government also, motivated by external forces as it is, is also insisting that kids that become 18 or over even if still in school or college, MUST leave the 'Children's Home' they grew up in and move into some other 'hostel'.    This is of course very bad psychology, but no matter.

SO Testimony House, and Testimony Faith Homes itself as a refuge for homeless children may soon have to re-think what to do.     A Home from Home, for countless children still homeless out there on our streets, yet unable to open its doors as a home - but only as a HOLDING Centre.  Some cold   heartless and purely institutional peace of social infrastructure.   We have discussed this with the County Department of Children's Services, and even with the minor gods that sit in high places in Nairobi, but to no avail.     Things are changing, and 'you will just have to knuckle down and get on with submitting to government regulations.'      It is a pity.    And it is a proven error in social planning and understanding.       What a sadness to see an error being promulgated so stubbornly in the face of common sense, no less.     When all of us now reaching out to kids are forced out of business I wonder what the government will actually do.      Will they do anything?   And who will thank them for it?

After 46 years in Kenya caring for children and watching them grow up, I have a lot of good memories of seeing them finally LEAVE, having gone through High, School College, and sometimes University whilst STILL anchored to the family home.  Able to return to us, to the family, for holidays and times of waiting when searching for a job.    IF we had turned them out at 18, where would they have stayed, what would they have eaten, and who would have been there for them in a time of need.    NO, it unthinkable to consider taking a child already having suffered the loss of home and family, and even of rejection, and then at a crucial period of life, make them go through it all again.     I personally went through it all when I was 16.     I survived, but not without a great deal of mental upheaval and emotional hurt.      I see no reason to do that to others when instead, with a little real care and concern I can help my children become men and women, able to stand confident and secure alone, with a job to feed them, and a foundation to steady themselves upon.  

I have said all this before on more than one occasion in writing up our other Blogsite (John Green's Notes from Kenya),      It is so appalling and frustrating that all that we have been and built up cannot now continue to be used to heal the pain and heartbreak of children, so that they become restored and happy adults.     My wife and I were able to build our home and fill it with the less fortunate whilst we all lived together as family.    We did it with GOD, and in His Spirit.      I may have just been for our lifetime.     It could have continued to provide examples of the many benefits of a stable, loving, and unselfish family life style.    And I can still say it, knowing that we were not perfect at all, and that we made many errors in our life together, yet without despairing, or giving or breaking faith with each other.     Give it a go - give GOD a change to make your marriage, your home, your family a BLESSING to and for others.     It will be well worth it.