NEWS FOR MID FEBRUARY 2007

Dear Friends,

I have moved to a different world. One in which food abounds and that has big people who live in big houses and drive big cars up and down big roads. This is America. What I can add is that Americans know how to work, and work hard. What some of them like the most about me is my British accent, so perhaps there's my best chance for being heard .

I have come to talk to the people running the 'mission enterprise' who send the people who come to Africa, and who make the decisions on what they do and how. I have already met a lot of them. I will not of course be able to meet them all. Many of the ones I have met are busy writing books. There are many books out there. But I have realised - if all these people are writing books, not everyone can be reading all the books, so even writing a book doesn't mean that you'll get heard.

Am I getting my message across? God himself knows how he will stir people's hearts with the words that I share, after I have moved on. But, I can say that I have been privileged to talk with a variety of people already, both informally and through lectures and seminars. Many of my audiences have been mission scholars and leaders. One never knows where new relationships may lead in the long run. There are a lot of people thinking seriously about mission issues. And few who have gone so far as to see the vital (to me) importance of using local languages and operating from poverty in missions.

In brief, my reception was good at Overseas Centre for Mission Studies in Connecticut and excellent at World Mission Associates in Pennsylvania. The US Centre for World Missions (California) is a much larger setup with a lot going on. I have another 4 weeks here. So far my time here has been upbeat and I am finding the context challenging. In addition to meeting many different experts in diverse fields of mission and preparing to give presentations I am working on some missions curriculum for the William Carey International University, researching and writing articles.

Thanks for your prayers for this time. Please continue to pray for Kima International School of Theology, Yala Theological Centre and Siaya Theological Centre, and all the folks over there in Kenya.

Jim