NEWS END OF FEBRUARY 2011

Dear Friends,

Value your prayer as right now I seem to be going down with malaria. I have started using medicine, so hope it will soon diminish and disappear!

Please pray also for the process of searching for an office to relieve pressure at KIST. I am following up three possibilities; one at a local seminary (Anglican), another at a church headquarters (not Church of God) and another at a government university (this latter is a lot closer to my home in Yala so would mean a lot less travelling). I am hoping to be able to vacate my KIST office and house by April.

We are to have our Yala Theological Centre board meeting on Wednesday. Please pray for this. The explanation I am being given on all sides for the lack-lustre performance of YTC is not new! People are looking to the church for material rewards. Their faith that prayer ought to bring money is being ever-strengthened by apparently escalating projects from the West bringing money into my home community through numerous, almost endless, avenues. Whereas in the West we often see getting our daily bread as a different issue to that of prayer and worship, this is generally not the case here. Well meaning foreigner's actions intending to support African churches and Christians financially (as well as other donors who take little notice of the church), is resulting increasingly in the success of ministries and fellowships being assessed according to their financial fruitfulness.

Give thanks that I have been able to replace my computer that crashed about 3 weeks ago.

Give thanks for a good visit and ministry with KIST students to Kakamega prison on 27th Feb.

Best wishes,

Jim