News for End of January 2004

* The topic in this discussion turned to 'love'. We opened our Bibles and read Revelations 2:4: "To kata kamano pod an kodi gi wach ni, koro ok ihera kaka ne ihera mokwongo" (But I have one issue with you, now you do not love me as you loved me at the beginning.) "That applies also to us" someone said. "The missionaries (from Europe) who first brought the church taught us to love one another, and we did that. But then later missionaries started coming with aid money to hand out. This means that some of our leaders have grown very rich. Nowadays instead of loving each other we are jealous of each other, distrust one another, and struggle and fight so as to get a share of the aid from the missionaries."

*Volunteer sought: to manage the www.jim-mission.org.uk website. Please contact me

*Give thanks for progress that we are making in YTC. Pray that it continue! Please continue to pray that we find someone else (or even 2 people) to help us in teaching. We plan to interview applicants on 13th March. We also plan to have a meeting of (as many as possible) local church leaders to make plans for YTC's future and development, on 28.02.04.

*I wrote a course on ‘widows’ a few months ago. Give thanks for the positive reception that this course is getting. Widows’ plight is indeed very often extremely difficult here. The course is giving people the opportunity to discuss this and seek for solutions.

*Father’s visit impending! Please pray for the visit of my father, from 3rd to 23rd of February 2004! This is the first time he is visiting since he came to Zambia about 14 years ago. I am looking forward greatly to being able to show ‘the old man’ some of my haunts!

*Give thanks – for a few days of intensive reading research in Nairobi libraries on African philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics earlier this week. Give thanks for the SIM (Serving in Mission – an international mission organisation that I was with until 1993) spiritual life conference that I am currently attending at a conference centre near Nairobi. I intend to return home on Monday.

*Pray for the course with the Coptic Orthodox church that I plan to begin teaching next Wednesday, and for the two YTC and two KIST courses that I am also teaching Jim