NEWS END OF JULY 2010

Dear Friends,

A friend's house was demolished by a freak flood. This was for him and his family little short of a disaster. What to do about it, and how to help him?

There is no question in my mind at all, that should I have asked him whether he has the money to rebuild, the answer would have been 'no'. There is also no doubt that should I have offered the money to help him rebuild, the money would have been accepted. I do not even want to go down the route of offering a 'loan' to help him to build. If he failed to pay back that loan, that would be the end of our friendship. There is no doubt either, that even if I did not help my friend financially, he would somehow find the means to rebuild the house anyway.

My friend did find the money, and did rebuild the house. Where he got the money, I do not know. Talking to him about the issue, has however not been easy. This is because I have little clue about it, as he perceives it. In Africa, freak floods like that do not happen without a cause. Everyone else in the community is probably quite clear as to the likely 'cause'. I however am only guessing (this is not my home community, or I would learn more through the local gossip).

That a freak flood that caused that destruction to this one house should have left all others around it standing has surely raised many questions. Almost certainly those 'questions' and suspicions required a cleansing to occur, which needed the sacrifice of an animal. I strongly suspect that the sacrifice occurred, but do not expect to be told the truth even should I ask whether it occurred. I certainly do not expect to be told that it occurred if I do not ask.

In many ways, living as a Westerner in an African community as I do, is to live 'in the dark'. I know only a fraction of what goes on around me. Amazingly, even that fraction seems to put me ahead of 99.9% of the rest of the Westerners who live and work on this continent. The most important things are generally 'left unsaid'. Pray for much wisdom to know how to testify to Christ while so often 'left in the dark'.

Give thanks for our recent successful KIST graduation. We are currently in the throes of closing Yala and Siaya Theological Centres, and visiting students. Pray for my ongoing preparations for my trip from September.

Details of this trip.

Pray for peace in the upcoming referendum in Kenya on 4th August.

Jim