My Dad was a drunkardI

was born in a family of eleven children. We were all from the same mother. My father was a drunkard. He verbal-ly abused us children

and called our mum names in our presence. As long as I can remember, my father never gave us peace at home. Often he would spend all his salary on beer, come home to find mum cooking whatever little she could put together, and kicking the boiling food or milk without a feeling. It was not unusual for him to drink all his money away and then call mum to send him bus fare home after being away for three months. Occasionally he would bring a kilo of meat, but it would be so soiled from his fall-ing to the ground in his drunk-enness that he would eat it on his own. I hated growing up there.

Life was especially hard for me because my father was a primary school teacher. In his last years in the profession, he had trans-ferred to a school near our home. I dreaded going to school to have the pupils tell me how badly my dad had behaved the previous evening. Mondays were a night-mare.

Because of my father’s con-duct, I felt ashamed and grew up a very withdrawn child, all the

way to teenage. Would this ever change?

Many teenagers today are trapped in a dilemma just like I was. Many have a background like mine. Maybe you are one of them. You may be asking,

“What do I do if my parents are not living together?”

“My parents are separated.

How do I relate with each of them?”

“Mine are divorced. Where

do I belong?”“What if my parents are drunkards, abusive and irre-sponsible?”

“What if they supply all my needs, give me all the money I need and they are never home?”

“What if my parents fight and quarrel in our presence as sib-lings?”

“What if my parents are not Christians?”

Modernity has brought very difficult times to our lives. Due to busy mothers who mostly work away from home, house-helps are taking over the role of bringing up the children. Teenagers usu-ally find it hard to obey absentee parents. Wrong relationships de-velop when parents are separated from each other for long. In Nai-robi, a popular radio station prides itself in hosting one of the most popular shows that “bust cheating spouses”. Apart from the media, many other things — includ-ing change in our value systems — have affected the way the fam-ily unit lives. It is being bashed from all sides. What do we do as teenagers and students who are affected by these realities?

Our ChoiceGod has allowed us the privilege to choose the relationships that we get ourselves into. However

Issue 005 September - December 2008

Continued on page � »

And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the unholy, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. ~Ezekiel 44:23~

Many teenagers today are trapped in a dilem-ma just like I was. Many have a background like mine. Maybe you are one of them...

Timazi is published once a term by Trinity Fellowship, a Kenya-based non-profit, non-denominational, charis-matic movement of the Holy Spirit that exists to pray and work for the revival of New Testament Christianity by sending forth the Gospel of salvation, healing and deliverance to all who are oppressed of the devil throughout the land, especially to young people in learning institutions and local Churches. The editorial board welcomes

brief letters, comments, contributions, responses or questions on topical issues. To correspond, contact:

P.O Box 65194, Ruaraka - 00618. Email: timazi@trinityfellowship.or.ke Tel.: 020 8560459

Producer: Johnie Gathuku Editor: Peter Mbugua Senior Writer: Paul T.A. Said Lule Contributor: Margaret Gathuku Layout, Art and Design: joebarasa@gmail.com Circulation: Denin Ominah

W e dedicate this issue to all of you who come from families that are not stable. Most of you have had to put up with

abusive parents, violent homes, alcoholic fathers, absentee dads or divorced parents. You could even be an orphan. We write to let you know “tuna kufeel”. There are about ten things in our lives that we do not choose namely; our gen-der, tribe, birth order, ageing, death, siblings, parents, mental ability, physical features and the time in history that we live in. On top of the list are your family and the generation you live in. Someone once said, “It is not what happens to us that determines our future, but how we re-spond to it”. Many students have silently reacted wrongly by growing bitter with their parents, withdrawing from others, rejecting themselves or losing their purpose in life. Others have vio-lently reacted by joining gangs, turning to alco-hol, abusing drugs or using abusive language, etc. These wrong reactions are very common among our peers and we may think we are justi-fied to behave like that. However, none of that will bring a lasting solution to our pain. This issue will explore biblical ways to respond to our situations. We also know that most of you have been dragged down by your past and therefore are not free to serve God with abandon!

Young people that have served God’s pur-poses in every generation in history have faced the same great challenges with their family backgrounds, yet they chose not to be bitter or blame their past for their problems. They chose to forgive their parents; they trusted God to give them a new beginning; they looked up!!! We may have read in the Bible about Joseph, how he refused to grow bitter with his brothers but forgave them (if you have not, this bulletin gives you an opportunity to do so). After many years of languishing in prison, Joseph rose to become the prince of Egypt. We are told also about Esther whose parents died while she was young. She refused to be bitter with God, and instead became obedient to her cousin and later rose to be the queen of Persia. We read of Jo-siah who, though raised by wicked, idol-wor-shipping father and grandfather, chose to serve God wholeheartedly and restored the worship of Yahweh at the age of eight. Time fails me to tell you of Perez who was born out of incest, refused to be a victim of his past, and built a godly heritage in his family. Or of Jabez who refused to be identified with the bad name his mother gave him.

Arise and take responsibility of your actions, thoughts, attitudes and words! God is calling

there is only one relationship that we have no choice about: our family. We did not choose our parents, siblings or the homes to be born into. Most of us do not accept the families we were born into. Yet God in His own divine choice chose to place us in our present fami-lies. You were born by your parents and into your home by God’s design! If we reject such design, it will be very diffi-cult for us to accept the Designer-God! Before we were born, God prescribed our unchangeable situations, including our own physical features, in accord-ance with His plans for our lives. ““Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?” (Isaiah 45:9, NKJV).

Joseph is a biblical character who was born to a family of brothers who hated him. Although he did not under-stand it then, later on he knew that his being there was meant for good (Gen-esis 50:20). God is actively involved in designing the unchangeable things in our lives, such as our parents. This means that he allowed all the factors and circumstances that surrounded our conception and birth! And he has chosen to work through them to raise us up. Since the fall of man, God has had to work through imperfect parents to accomplish His purposes in this world. Your only choice when you are in a family like the one I grew up in is to accept that family.

As I grew up with my father, I never thought he deserved my respect. I never respected him as the head of the home, because I thought he did not deserve that position! That amounted to fail-ing to accept him. But even then, I do not remember any incident that I spoke back to my parents, neither a time I de-fied their orders because of who they were. One thing that I respect my mum for is that in all our suffering, she taught us to respect our dad.

Honour Thy Father…In the year that I finished my K.C.S.E. exams, I got born again. I started to read the Bible daily and my view of life changed. Gradually I discovered that the Bible taught I was to honour my parents (Ephesians 6:1). I chose to re-spect and honour my father and moth-er. One of the things I agreed with was that they were our parents and they

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Producer’s Comments

Rev. Godfrey Dawkins General secretary TF, Richard Njau AKA A-Star, Enoch Mohol (Director Faith Ventures), Johnie Gathuku and Henrie mutuku

Page 2 May - August 2008

deserved our respect regardless of their status. Everything else was secondary to that!

Wrong MoveLike me in my initial withdrawal, many teenagers give the wrong responses to these family chal-lenges. When we respond wrong-ly, we do not please God, the One who is able to help us. On the contrary, we hurt ourselves.

Low-RatedOne of these wrong responses is poor self-esteem. We low-rate ourselves. We end up reject-ing ourselves mostly because we grew up in homes that denied us happy childhood. As I look back in my situation, I realize that no one took time to speak to our lives, but more often than not, we would receive utterances that only spoke negative things in our lives! This would cause us to think that we had nothing good in us and ultimately such feelings resulted to self-rejection. People with self-rejection find it very difficult to relate with others. They imagine that others will also reject them. They wrongly feel that since they are not good enough, others will reject them also. If you are self-rejecting, you are likely to withdraw from your peers. You may constantly complain that no one cares, loves or understands you. You might make friends with a new-comer who looks caring and loving, but soon that person may gradually move away from your life because of your demand for his or her at-tention, and that brings back the cycle of withdrawal. If you see hope of being liked, you are likely to over-impose yourself on other people who have a chance of lik-ing you. But if you give up being liked, you may be resigned, de-motivated, sluggish, careless and un-kept. A don’t-care attitude has taken over. The good news is, this decline is not necessary. You can deal with your emotions early and avoid the downward spiral.

Marriage? Not For Me!Another very common response is resentment for marriage and family life. The argument here

is that if marriage is what I saw at home, I would rather remain single. This lack of role models in our families imparts very nega-tively on our growth as Chris-tians. When I was growing up, I had sworn never to get anywhere close to a man, let alone get mar-ried! We need to be very careful that this thought does not take root in us because it is an ungodly reaction. God instituted mar-riage for many good reasons, one of them being that marriage is the only institution within which God can raise a godly offspring (Malachi 2:15).

BitternessAnother response that accom-panies the first two is bitterness. This is entrenched animosity, which in reality is hatred toward another person. Most students do not understand that they are bitter. They say they have been hurt or disappointed or offended by another person. My vow not to get married was based on bitterness.

Bitterness is usually a response to suffering. When our parents did not treat us the way we thought they should have, we consider that as suffering. It is important to understand that suffering is part of our Christian life. Bitterness is simply the re-sult of not seeing suffering from God’s perspective. Regardless of whether a person recognizes their bitterness or not, the destruc-tive consequences are the same. I never realized that I was bitter with my father; I always thought that I was hurt and disappointed until someone helped me to see the truth.

Bitter students suffer from physical, emotional and spiritual consequences. If bitterness is allowed to continue in your life, your immune system will be dam-aged and this exposes your body to other physical ailments, for example, stomach ulcers. I suf-fered from them for a long time, but with time as God continues to deal with the issues of my life, they have gradually disappeared.

The other thing that bitterness does is that it causes a continual drain of your emotional energy; the result is destructive depres-sion. Furthermore, the person whom you are bitter with begins to control your life, your thoughts and your attitudes. Such control will actually set standards of be-haviour for you. If unchecked, this could very likely cause you to become like the person who made you bitter because your behaviour

standards are pat-

terned by them. This is very dan-gerous because usually we are not aware of it.

It is possi-ble for students to carry on with Christian Union activities with

the underlying motives of bitter-ness. It is also possible to deceive ourselves that we still love God in our bitterness. In 1 John 4:20, the Bible says that we cannot claim to love God if we hate our fellow men. Such deception is subtle and brings spiritual bondage. The Apostle Paul tells the Ephesians to be careful that no bitterness, wrath, anger and evil speaking should be heard among them (Eph 4:30-32). Instead, they are to cultivate kindness, forgiveness and tenderness.

DepressionUsually, depression is the result of bitterness. One’s emotions are usually low and dull. Noth-ing seems to be exciting. There is no energy to undertake even important assignments. With-drawal from others is a common sign. Depression leads to a sense of hopelessness. Matters are best

dealt with before they degenerate to depression.

Right MovesSo, what should you do if you are living in a family that is not func-tioning properly?

AcceptThe first step is to accept that things are not what they ought to be. Accept that your father, mother, sisters, brothers and yourself, are not yet what God

would have wanted them (and you) to be. Do not be in de-nial or try to hide from reality. Recognize that since the fall of

man, God has had to work through imperfect parents to accomplish His purpos-

es in this world.

ForgiveSecondly, if you are bitter, admit it and deal with it. How do you deal with it? Through forgive-ness! Forgive the one who has failed you and caused you to suf-fer. Instead of being bitter, it is important to learn to forgive and release our parents to God. Con-sider Joseph in the Bible: He was sold to a foreign country by his own brothers as a slave. He spent many years there; he was falsely accused of a heinous crime that ruined his reputation. He was imprisoned and shackled in iron that bruised his feet. He could have become very bitter by dwell-ing upon what his evil brothers had done. Instead, he said to them years later, “…you thought evil of me but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). He chose to look at them as agents of God in his life for his growth. Choose to dwell on the good side of your parents. When we focus on the things that we think we should have received from our parents, we will become bitter, but when we focus on the good things they have done, we will turn that bit-terness to gratefulness! Though you may not agree at the moment, their being alive is one thing to thank God for!

The following steps could help us to overcome bitterness through forgiveness.

Work on godly character, not

Bitterness is usually a response to suffering. When our parents did not treat us the way we

thought they should have, we consider that as suffering

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May - August 2008 Page �

Recently I watched as many students were sent home for going on rampage in a smaller version of what we saw some

senior citizens do in this country at the begin-ning of the year. Fires were lit but out of a dif-ferent motive this time. We burnt our own places of abode — the dormitories we live in! I contem-plate with a lot of concern over some of the issues the students were protesting against. The most interesting bit is that students can protest against being punished. Have parents stopped caning their children?

I remember two incidences in my earlier years when I was seriously caned. Now, I don’t have a very good memory, but I will never forget that Sunday about 21 years ago when I had gone to church barefoot and in dirty shorts to the embar-rassment of my father. That one was the milder version of what I later got, which is quite vivid to this day: I was punished because a close friend had caused a barely visible crack on the wind-screen of my father’s Mini Morris — this was a flashy model of a car those days. How was I to stop a moving pebble anyway?

There is one outstanding feature on both the beatings. I was held by the leg, lifted off the ground and hit “aimlessly” as if I was a dangerous cobra. In those days, the only ‘sacred’ body part was the stomach, but I remember screaming, “Unanichapa tumbo… utaniua!”

As children we believed that any blow to the stomach would kill someone, but I thank God because my father’s knowledge of the Scriptures (or lack of it) had not led him to practice the command in Deuteronomy 2:18-21.

God’s standardsMy father’s version of correction was certainly in the extreme, and we do not recommend it here. But we need to know that the standards of God regarding discipline have never changed. It was His design that a rebellious son and a fool amongst others be corrected through beating, and with the rod.

I therefore state that the mess in our fam-ily unit which is being spread on to the larger society is partly caused by parents who have refused to obey and instill discipline in us.

Answer the following questions as you meditate on the verses outlined and find out if it is right for Christian students to scream against corporal punishment…

What drives away foolishness? Prov-erbs 22:15

Why shouldn’t discipline be with-held? Proverbs 23:13

Who should be whipped? Prov-erbs 26:3

What are the implications of the rod? Proverbs 29:15

What does lack of punishment do? Proverbs 19:18

How do we know if a Father loves his son? Proverbs 13:24

You see, Biblically, a parent is responsible for caning the child. The motive is to correct the child when he has done something he should know to be wrong. The beating is a way of in-flicting measured pain that will act as a reminder that such and such a thing is wrong and unac-ceptable. This is a parent’s job.

But then most of you are enrolled in school these days before you know how to say, “Bla”. The opportunity your father or mother would have seized to correct your bad behaviour is not there because you are in school the whole day or term! But because God demands that you be dis-ciplined immediately you do wrong, we are left with two options: either the teacher follow you home and to your father’s work place to watch

you being caned for what you did, or your par-ents delegate the godly job of caning you to

a God-fearing teacher who can do the job properly. The latter is the better option.

The government through the ministry of education had lived with this godly op-

tion for years before ungodliness set in. Now, the decision has been rein-stated, which should still have been okay to do without consulting you, but alas, we live in a democracy, and your views were collected the other day. So here we are, back in the good old ways in which fool-ishness has to be driven away in the style that works wonders… the cane!! Next time the well-built teacher takes up the thing to drive some senses through your rear end, please say a thank you prayer to God because the teacher will be exercising a God-given, par-

ent-delegated authority to drive out something bad and make you a man

or woman of great destiny.

Our prayerOur prayer as Timazi is that the job will

be done by men and women who love you too much to leave you un-caned. But also

who will do it in a godly manner, hopefully without thrashing the stomach or the head.

You are not as bad as cobras, yet!!By the way, if you were properly caned up

to age 7 and you chose to be of good character through the work of Christ Jesus, the rod won’t

bother you because it won’t come near you!

Should Students be caned? Q: Dear Pastor Pablo,

My parents quarrel very often espe-cially about money. They even do it in my presence, and in the presence of my younger brothers and sisters. My dad goes away from home for days, and when he comes back there is always a fight where he was and who he was with. Every time it happens I feel so ashamed and peace-less. I don’t enjoy school holidays at home, but I have to be there to cook, clean up and do most of the house chores which I find tiresome and boring. What do I do to cope with the situation?

Desperate.

****A: Dear Desperate,

You have done well by not settling in despair but choosing to write for help. Your question has two elements to it. Let’s start with your parents’ quarrels.

First, do not take the shame of your parents’ behaviour upon yourself. It will interfere with who you are. Your parents’ mistakes and intolerance with each other are to be blamed on them, not you! In that regard, you have done nothing wrong. Why should you be the one to bear the shame? Let them bear the consequences of their mishandling of each other. God does not charge you with any wrong-do-ing. Let go of the shame. Say to yourself, “You have done nothing wrong. Let mom and dad handle their personal issues. You are not guilty.”

In addition to that, though, make an attempt to reach out to your mother and father separately. Ask your mom if there are ways you can help to ease the financial burden. Maybe the help you are giving in the house is what your mother needs to cope with her budget instead of em-ploying a domestic worker while you are at home. Ask your dad if you could cut on some expenditure in order to help him and mom cope with their financial obliga-tions better. But even if there is not a lot you can do along the financial line, your concern will speak to your parents, and they may fight less in your presence.

The second element of your question has to do with house chores. You will be tempted to stay away from home and spend happier times with your friends than work in the house. Don’t fall into the temptation. If you are the elder of several children, God desires to see you set a good example of taking every task

Page � May - August 2008

on possessions. This deter-mines our inward peace and the degree to which God will bless us (Philippians 3:7-8).

Thank God for your parents and the things they did right (1 Thessalonians 5:18-19). We all need to do this. Take time right now and write down five things your parents (or guardians) did right. There may be more than you think. Then thank God for each of those things.

View your home as God’s agent to become Christ-like. It is important to look at the issues at home as God’s chosen tool to accomplish His purpose for your life (Genesis 50:20, Job 1:20-21, 2 Samuel 16:9, Luke 24:34).

Learn God’s purposes for suf-fering. God has many pur-poses for us and we will expe-rience most of them if we go through suffering (Hebrews 12:6-7, 10-11, 1 Corinthians 11:31-32).

Remember that you owe God more than what your family owes you. We usually pray that God would forgive us our sins as we forgive our offenders. Read the parable of the un-forgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35. Bitterness makes us worthy of God’s penalty. Consider also that all sin has eternal consequences. If God has forgiven you, should you not forgive others?

Forgiveness involves changing your attitude toward your of-fender. This means that you are no longer hating them in your heart or wishing them harm. On the contrary, you desire the best for them.

The last step is to voluntarily choose to invest in the life of our family members. Jesus taught this principle when He talked about the second mile in Matthew 5:41. Roman rule during the time of Jesus was very oppressive to the Jews. A Roman soldier could require any man twelve years or older to carry his military pack one mile in any direc-

tion. The first mile was invol-untary service but Jesus taught his disciples to go the second mile as voluntary investment of something valuable. This principle creates love for the offender because we are doing it on our own volition. Pray-ing for our family members and doing great things for them voluntarily will turn es-pecially the hearts of our par-ents toward us.

Our responsibilityOne of the stipulated responsi-bilities toward our parents is to obey them. In the Old Testa-ment, it was a grave mistake to rebel against one’s parents. The punishment for a rebellious son was death by stoning! (Deuter-onomy 21:18-21). The magnitude of discipline for such rebellion has not changed. In the book of Prov-erbs, we find many Scriptures that warn against rebel-lion. Proverbs 30:17 says, “The eye [that] mocks at [his] father, and despises to obey [his] moth-er, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it”. Ravens only eat dead things. They poke the eyes of such just to make sure that the prey is dead. This Scripture may mean death in several ways, and most likely physical death! Check out also Proverbs 20:20, Leviticus 20:9, Proverbs 6:20-21, Proverbs 15:5. The obligation to obey our parents is therefore squarely on our shoulders. Conversely, there are blessings for those who hon-our their parents. It is in fact the first commandment with a prom-ise… that you will live long! Read also the story of how Noah’s sons covered their father’s nakedness when they found him drunk. See the blessings that he spoke over Shem and Japheth and the curse upon Canaan (Genesis 9:20:27).

One would ask, “What kind of parents deserves my respect?” In Ephesians 6:13, the Scriptures teach us to obey our parents. Note the Bible does not say we obey

good parents. It requires that we obey our parents, in the Lord. This Scripture applies to all of us who are under our parents’ roof. As long as their command does not contravene the principles of the Kingdom of God, we are re-quired to obey. However if they ask us to do things that would lead us to sin, we are not to obey that. We do not obey our parents because they cater for our needs but simply because they are the God-given authority over our lives.

Although in my heart I re-sented my father’s behaviour, we all obeyed him. I never answered back rudely. The obligation to obey our parents, however, ceases when we get married, but we re-tain the responsibility of honour-

ing them. Exam-ples of showing honour to parents are taking care of them in their old age, talk-ing well of them, buying gifts and going home of-

ten. Whatever our age however, we are instructed in Scripture to always be responsive to our par-ents counsel (Proverbs 23:22). We also need to understand that authority is not placed on us by God to harass us but to protect us, to provide for us and to guide us! If we reject authority in any form, we expose ourselves to the destruction of evil principalities! God calls rebellion the sin of witchcraft (1 Samuel 15:23). The way we respond to the authority of our parents is most likely the way we will respond to the au-thority of God.

DeceasedIn case our parents have passed on, God is aware and He has a special purpose for our lives. First, we need to pray to God sincerely and thank Him that He is the Father to the fatherless (Psalms 68:5). Secondly, we need to develop a servant’s heart. This includes commitment to

see those you serve succeed, and treating them with the attitude of reverence. Timothy in the Bible lost his father and was brought up by his mother and grandmother. Paul adopted him as his spiritual son (1Timothy 1:2). In such or other circumstances, we are in the hands of our guardians or adoptive parents who are as good as our parents and I believe they are the right ones for us. God chose Pharaoh’s daughter to give special training for Moses in the royal courts of Egypt (Exodus 2:1-10). Mordecai brought up his young cousin Hadassah when her parents died, and this is the girl who later became Queen Es-ther in Persia.

Freedom at LastYou must be wondering what became of my situation. Well, I am happily married, for starters! God turned my heart around in regard to men and marriage. He helped me to know His purpose for marriage and that His stand-ard for it was different from what I saw at home.

Long before I got married, though, I made a trip home to my father while I was still in campus and we talked at length about our past. Although he never told me that he was sorry, I knew that he regretted the way he had treated us. My father is still not a Chris-tian today. In fact, he still drinks. I pray that some day he will know the Lord, but for now I have cho-sen to respect him. I may be out of his house and therefore may not be obliged to obey him, but I honour him. I buy him gifts and call home often when I’m not able to go. Today, I can say my father and I are great friends!

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The way we respond to the authority of our parents is most

likely the way we will respond to the

authority of God

May - August 2008 Page 5

Think of the title above for a moment… No Place Like Home… What comes to your

mind? That there is no happier place for you grow up than your home? Or there is no miserable place on earth like your home?

Imagine yourself in each of the following situations. What would happen?

What would happen if you got an ‘E’ in the exam of your fa-ther’s choice subject for you?

Would you come to your parents for advice if you were ap-proached by a teen friend to start a romantic relationship?

What if you had a prob-lem with the discipline master… would you tell your parents?

For most of you, I guess no. But imagine a scenario where your parents exercised on you some level of protective control combined with warmth, accept-ance and friendship. Imagine your parents or guardians encour-aging you to have some high de-gree of autonomy in certain areas of your life. Visualize a situation where they set limits for you that are reasonable, and when you feel like they are controlling you too much, they explain why in such a way that’s you are able to clearly

understand. See the pic-ture of your parents or guardians listening to your objections and ad-justing, becoming flex-ible when you point out some truths. Can you see yourself discussing issues like your going out for an overnight prayer meeting and agreeing in a way that satisfies both you and them? Imagine this was your life since you went to primary school!

D r e a m i n g ? No. Some teenagers have grown up in this kind of environment. They have

grown up to develop healthy, re-sponsible behaviour, self-accept-ance and self-control. They can trust and accept themselves be-cause they have been trusted and accepted.

Only in dreamsUnfortunately for most of us, this ideal scenario is only exist-ent in our dreams! We have had to reckon with parents who, at best, pay our school fees but are absent from home for more than half the time, and at worst parents who are indifferent, irresponsi-ble… almost non-existent. How unfortunate that our society is surely and swiftly plunging into the sea of confusion! You are living in what is now called the ‘Post-Modern’ age. ‘Modern’ is a term that refers to an age gone by, a historical past, especially up to the 1950s. The age we are living in is beyond the modern, there-fore, ‘Post-Modern’. But there is more to the meaning of ‘Post-modern’. It is not just a period in time. It is a period in which hu-manity (especially in Europe and America) has reacted to the social values that dictated how people should live before the 1960s.

Post-modernity has new val-ues and behaviour unique to this age. Post-modern thoughts, val-ues and behaviour are communi-cated through literature, musical

and dramatic arts, philosophy, and even architecture, and they are penetrating all countries of the world especially through mu-sic and TV. In this post-modern trend, some social realities in family life are new. For example, the parents of today have become so busy that their time is too cost-ly to share, even with their own children. The children of today do not respect authority like chil-dren in the ‘modern’ age used to. And they think they have “good” reasons why that should be so. In many cases, ideas of post-moder-nity are a reaction and resistance against values that governed so-ciety in the 1950s. They affect things such as sexual morality, financial prosperity, relationships and religion.

Societies all over the world are changing, but post-modern thoughts are mostly changing them for the worse. And as they change, families are suffering.

For example, many parents (and children) want to prosper materially. So the parents work harder. They become busier. They want to earn enough money to take care of their families. Life is more expensive in some ways than it was when your parents were children. Things cost more although the standards of living have also risen. Your sister may be wearing shoes to go to primary school. Your g rand-mot her may not have worn shoes. To cope with ris-ing standards of living, parents decide to work extra. But when they do, they do it at the expense of other good things. And it is going too far. When a parent works away from home so long that children grow up without knowing him or her, it has gone too far. When a mother leaves her children with house-help all day and spends only three tired hours with them out of 24, it has gone too far.

If this is happening in your home, please realize that your parents may honestly think that they are on a good, hard-work-

ing course to prepare a life for you. They enroll in courses and projects that they believe will make life better for you. But still, it has gone too far. The problem is, post-modernity soon begins to give them ideas of prosperity that cause them to worry about what they have and how society views them. They start wondering if they will be seen as materially successful or as failures. In an at-tempt to achieve what will make them look like success, they al-most forget investing time in the children for whom they were sup-posed to be labouring.

For most, ‘Me’ comes first and so ‘My rights’ must not be in-fringed upon, even by their own family. No wonder the family unit is not working! It’s not func-tioning. It is dysfunctional. We have ended up with parents who are uninvolved in their role as parents, mostly because their own lives are so stressful that they do not have enough energy left over to provide guidance and support for their children.

When as a student you see this happening and you do not under-stand why, it is very likely that you will react wrongly. Most of you students are at a crucial stage in life (teens) when you are forming your identity. This is a lengthy

and complex proc-ess. You are trying to know who you are, to define your-self. It is almost im-possible to overstate the importance of a healthy, working family unit at this stage. Spending time with your par-ents is very impor-

tant here, although this is also the time you want to be independent and discover the world.

Self-obsessionA child begins to develop the concept of ‘self ’ very early in life, at toddler age. That explains why we hear our two-year-old sisters and brothers constantly talk of “my doll”, “my car”, “it’s mine”, “I want…” They seem obsessed with themselves, but actually they are in the process of beginning to define the boundaries of their own

No Place Like Home

And so we will not go around behaving as if the world owes us an apology for the trouble we have gone through in

our homes...

Page � May - August 2008

lives. The desire to ‘own’ things is an indicator that they are start-ing to know that they are distinct persons with a world of their own. This process of self-identification does not end in childhood. It continues into teenage and later. For this self identity to develop properly, it is important to have a healthy environment. The best place to provide that environment is the family.

When we talk of a healthy en-vironment, we are talking about how people in the family relate with one another. Different fam-ilies relate differently. But there are some crucial ingredients that each family should have. These are parental control and parental warmth. Parental control refers to how restrictive your parents are, and parental warmth refers to the amount of affection that your parents display. A balance between these two contributes to the healthy development self identity. That balance gives a sense of direction, purpose and meaning to life. That is why it is so important to have a ‘bouncing board’ for our ideas, our thoughts, feelings, values and behaviour. When you fear that you might do poorly in a certain subject, you want to hear what another person feels, preferably a mature one who can give valuable advice. When a boy or girl suggests a romantic re-lationship and you are confused or in the dumps, you need support-ive shoulders to lean on, not mere criticism. And when curiosity takes the better of your judgment and you do something foolish and awaken the wrath of he discipline master, you need the courage to go to your parents and tell it all without taking with you police security. That is what parents are for. In a healthy home, parents are the people to go to. When you need to know whether it is okay to choose that career in IT or medicine, you should be able to discuss it with your parents and hopefully you will find reassur-ance, good advice and confidence to make the decision.

SafetyWithout the safety net that pa-rental control and warmth pro-vide, we feel lost. We are unsure.

We are afraid to plunge into life. We do not trust ourselves. We are unable to accept ourselves. Since we have not heard or experienced healthy critique from an authority figure that loves and cares for us, any criticism, however lightly put by our peers or teachers, means everything. It can crush us. We dislike ourselves because we know of no one who likes us. Conse-quently, nothing we do seems good enough.

Fortunately, that should not be the end of the story. If your parents have not been the people to go to, you have choices. For those of us who have been born again through the blood of Jesus Christ, we do have a Father. We have a Father who is not absent, indifferent, or unavailable. He is always with us and He cares. He is able to meet many needs that our parents were supposed to pro-vide for (and probably failed) and even more. God is our Father. When we turn to Him, He makes us His children (John 1:12), cho-sen of God (John 15:5, 16), and we acquire a new self (Ephesians 4:24). All things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17), we become co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), citizens of heaven (Philip-pians 3:20), a royal priesthood, holy, and God’s own someone! (1 Peter 2:9-10). Because God has accepted us just as we are, we can accept ourselves. And because He wants to make us beautiful on the inside, we can cooperate with His transforming power.

And so we will not go around behaving as though the world owes us an apology for the trou-ble we have gone through in our homes. We should not display all manner of rebellion, rudeness or anger so as to let everyone know that we have gone through terri-ble suffering in our lives. Neither should we imagine that we are to be excused when we behave like this or make mistakes. No. We can take responsibility and be ac-countable for our own lives and decisions. Shifting blame to our parents for what they did or did not do, what they were or did not become, will get us nowhere.

The Lord declares in Ezek-iel 18 that people will no longer

quote the proverb: “The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (verse 2). If you eat sour grapes (or lemon), your teeth feel itchy or set on edge. The verse says that when fathers eat sour grapes (commit sin), it is their own teeth that will itch, not their children’s. And if children suffer the conse-quences of sin, they should blame it on their own misconduct, not that of their fathers’. “The soul that sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him” (verse20). We must rise and take responsi-bility. After all, that is what ma-turity is all about.

What if you think your parents did a very poor job and made your home environment unhealthy or even hostile? It is not too late. You have another option. You can choose a mentor. A mentor is a guide. It is someone who knows your strengths and weaknesses and helps you to get to a place of success. A spiritual mentor is a spiritually older person who helps you grow in an area of life where he or she has grown and succeeded. We did not have a choice for parents, but now we can choose whom we want to make our sounding board. As a young man you may choose a spiritu-ally mature man who will guide you in negotiating this turbulent path and help you acquire focus, direction, purpose and meaning to life. As a young woman you can have a spiritual mother who can listen to those tearful stories that are so hard to talk about with your biological mother. A mentor needs to know you, so you should be prepared to open up your life and supply the information that will help the mentor to assist you.

A good men-tor has several key qualities: He or she will be spiritually mature and growing, a person of prayer who does not lean on his or her own understanding of things but trusts the Lord. He or she should be wise, someone whose children (if any) show signs of having grown in a healthy home. The mentor should be a person who can keep confidence, not some-one who will rush to friends and spend evenings discussing with others the amazing things you told him or her yesterday. A good mentor will be loyal, choosing to stand with you even when you make mistakes so that you may be helped, not abandoned in your need. You should choose one who is also not too busy in life to see you as often as you need.

Tomorrow a new dayPerhaps you regret that you have made too many mistakes. Take heart. God is a God of another chance. Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it. Walk into tomorrow a new man or woman. Look up. Make a good decision today. Take the right direction to-day. Take responsibility for your life. You can smile again. And whatever you do, promise yourself and prayerfully trust God that when you are finally grown up and have children of your own, you will provide a healthy environ-ment for your children by giving them reasonable parental control and parental warmth of love. If you cannot say it yourself, at least let your children say it some day, “There is no place like home.”!

May - August 2008 Page �

Nyundoo, maze mbona God ali allow my paros wa divorce?”

Eh, man! Hiyo ni swali hard... unajua kina Marto’s mum passed away

last term? ”

“I will not complain about my parents

anymore, I will appreciate them just the way they are...

Nyundo Sayz

Rightly dividing the word of truth. Beryl Rabet in a teaching ses-sion in Ng’ambo Secondary in Marigat.

Page 8 May - August 2008

“A Christian will find it cheaper to forgive than to resent. Forgiveness saves us the expense of anger, the lost of hatred, the wastes of spirits.”

quotable quote...

Hannah More

Room 310 copyright 2004 by Jack T. Chick Publications.

Reproduced by permission of Chick Publications.

Website: www. chick.com”

Continued from issue 4...

Fin

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sue,

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begi

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