NEWS END OF JUNE 2015

Dear Friends,

After the end of my almost 3 ½ months of furlough, I am in an awe of gratefulness! As I reflect on the previous 3 months, I have been hosted by NUMEROUS people up and down the UK, Germany and Egypt. Everywhere I have gone, I have been joyfully and lovingly received. I have been well looked after and fed. People have loaned me their bicycles. I have had the loan of a car throughout my time in the UK. A special thanks to my parents, whose home has been my UK base. Many thanks to all those many people who have opened their homes to me and made my furlough manageable and wonderful.

I joined a group of people in Andover for a prayer meeting on my last Sunday evening. “We meet every month to pray for you”, they said. Just for once I was with them. Thanks-you especially for groups like this who engage in prayer for myself, ministry, family and circumstances on a regular basis even when I am far away.

I am putting together provisional plans for a 2-month visit to the USA in the autumn of 2016. It seems right to make such a visit contingent on receipt of a designated gift of $7000 (about £4,500) up-front to cover costs of flights and contribute to my required income for 2016. The aim of the visit will be to promote vulnerable mission, especially at Seminaries and Christian universities. Please get in touch with me if you would like to contribute financially to this USA trip or for more information. (The plan is that if I don’t get the designated gift by autumn 2015, then I don’t make the trip.)

One day in the UK, everything normal for the UK. The next day, spending the night up in the air with a brief stopover in Egypt (at the airport only). The next day, back in a different world! Unfortunately, 4 children have infected wounds on their legs, and another has a severe ear infection. Then came ‘baptism with fire’. I joined an afternoon fellowship of my home church at someone’s home on my first full day in Kenya. While we drank tea, the rain started, and it didn’t stop. I waited for almost an hour, and it still didn’t stop. That meant off with my bike for 4 miles home through rain and mud while it was getting dark. (Running through mud is actually easier when pushing a bicycle. The bicycle adds stability as it acts like a third leg.) In UK having light bicycles with numerous gears at low altitude on tarmac roads made cycling a bit of a doddle. Now I am back to a heavy bike, often heavy load, one gear, high altitude, mud, rain, heat, and everything seems to be harder work . . . Thankfully I got home safely.

Since then . . . I am glad to say that the children are responding to treatment with antibiotics. I am getting back into my rhythm . . . although it is always strange at the beginning, to think that that ‘other world’ (UK) is so different but happening at the same time.

Best wishes,

Jim

For information on my latest book see: here.