NEWS END OF APRIL 2013

Dear friends,

It would be great to have a vulnerable mission presence at the mission-net congress to be held in Germany over the new year. Volunteers please get in touch with me. It is a four or five day congress, and the main role would be paying for and then manning a stall at the congress. Details.

The Mennonite Bible College I was to go and teach at next month in Tanzania has hit financial crisis. This has resulted in re-opening being postponed for a month, and may mean that I will not get to teach there as I had planned to do in May/June. Please pray that this could still work out.

An orthodox father taught us on the 1st 10 verses of Chapter 1 of Joel on the 22nd April. A very allegorical interpretation in which everything in Joel also has its contemporary meaning. I had not realised that the name Joel means ‘Yahweh is God’. That meaning was constantly related back to life and context in Egypt ! As locusts were God’s instruments of retribution then, so locust swarms are all over Egypt in opposition to the new Islamic government. I am to teach from Joel Chapter 2 in a few days.

Moving door to door encouraging believers is a fascinating exercise. Many people around clearly have many problems. From a Western way of thinking, many of their problems come back to an enormous respect given to dead people in this part of Africa. In Christian terms, this could be seen as a failure to recognise the singularity of God’s rule. God praised the Rekabites for their keeping to their people’s traditions in Jeremiah 35. Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego’s keeping to their people’s traditions was something different (Daniel 3). How exactly different, is a question I am discussing with different groups around my locality.

I am pleased to be able to report that I have passed the course on teaching using the internet, having achieved a 90% grade. Here’s a copy of my certificate to prove it!

I now need to work with my director, to begin teaching, perhaps in January 2014.

10pm recently, we heard this strange singing sound from a corner of the sitting room. On investigating, something small and black left at (it seemed!) about 100mph. Then the sound came from a chair. Yes, it was a mouse, and it had climbed under that chair! 100mph and it was off again. The same singing continued from the corner where we keep hoes. I saw him; an African Spiny Mouse, that could sing incredibly well! Really melodious. That night I heard the mouse, or his friend, moving around the room where I was sleeping, singing as he went. Hmm.

The African Spiny Mouse

As from Saturday 20th April 2013 I am now a proud possessor of a kitten. We’ve been thinking about such an addition to the family for some time. Mr. African Spiny mouse above convinced me to make a move, and I managed to get a kitten that was born at the Coptic hospital!

Here’s all about out upcoming conference in the USA: Download the flyer for the Vulnerable Mission Conference September 2013

Jim