Testimony Faith Homes was founded in 1969 by a young Christian Missionary called John Alexander Green. He left England for Kenya not knowing what to expect, and having never been to Africa before. He knew that God had sent him to Kenya but had no idea what He had in store for him. John initially worked as a Chaplain at Siriba Collage in Maseno, Western Kenya, and often travelled to nearby towns and villages preaching the Gospel.
 

In 1969, John met Wilson Swai, a young teenager, destitute and in need of a home. He took Wilson in and cared for him and his brothers. Wilson was to become the first of hundreds of children that John and his wife Esther cared for at Testimony Faith Homes. This 20'x40' mud house in Maseno was where Testimony Faith Homes actually began. A simple house without any modern conveniences such as running water, electricity or sewage! It sported a sitting /dining room, three small bedrooms with outside kitchen and a pit latrine. No glass in the windows, no ceiling, no inside doors. The FIRST four boys came to live there with John in August 1969.

They moved into a few different properties after that; two larger houses on the same Compound and then into the private home of the Anglican Archbishop of Kenya, The Rt. Rev. Festo Olang (he was then living in the bishop's house in Nairobi). For some weeks in 1971 they were camped out in the Sports Pavilion of Maseno School, and then in 1972 they moved to a place called Ramula in Siaya District, about 15km from Maseno. This was a large compound previously used by the colonial administration as a Chief's Compound. It had been empty, unused, and derelict for ten years! It comprised a semi open-air Magistrate's Court building (which they used as dining/kitchen) and some six small cottages similar to the one they started out in. It had a few local shops adjacent, but otherwise was quite far from anything, almost on top of a windswept hill.  They had to fetch water from a quarter of a mile away and had no power or sewerage.   Throughout this time God provided for all their needs. They had shelter, food and clothing often donated by total strangers. The call to Faith was beginning to take root in John’s life.

In August 1971, John married the love of his life, Esther Wanjiru. They had met when John went to the school where Esther was teaching, to speak at their Christian Union meeting. It was to Ramula that John took Esther, transplanting her from an orderly, fairly well appointed High School where she had primly taught English and Home Science to demure high school girls, back to what must have seemed almost primitive circumstances amongst an instant family of sons aged 12 to 18; most of them rough and unruly!

On boxing-day of 1972, God provided a new location for Testimony Faith Homes in a town 130km away called Eldoret. The property was ideal for the work. It was a 70 year old seven bedroomed mansion (built of mud brick and wattle), with 5 acres of beautiful garden. This was to be and remains the NEW Testimony House. John and Esther had just arrived back from a trip to UK where their first son Steven was born. The Lord had raised up the money to purchase the new house outright, and so they no longer needed to hop from rented property to rented property.

Over the years, Testimony Faith Homes have acquired adjoining plots of land, on which they have built and developed 3 more children’s’ homes, and school.  The homes are called:

Testimony House – this is the main house, so named to remind all of the power of Faith in God.

Jacaranda Cottage  named after the Jacaranda trees that formed an avenue leading to the main

Drakeley House – in loving memory of CMS missionary Cathy Martha Drakely

Tyndale House – named after Tyndale School in Australia who have had long standing links with the homes, and regularly support them.