NEWS MID JULY 2014

Dear Friends,

I look forward to inviting Peter Stagg from Andover Baptist Church in a day’s time. Peter is due to come on Saturday 12th, and to leave again 10 days later. Peter and I have known each other for a long time. He is very active in the church, and is also a member of my council of reference.

Ministering to one’s own children presents a special challenge. Most other folks know when I go to visit them, that I am there to share of God’s words and to encourage them in their Christian walk. What then of the children who I have reared in my home? Some have lived with me for 6, 10, 15 or even more years, so they know me pretty well. No point in ‘pretending’ to be holy when I visit them!

Please pray for time with visitors I am due to receive from Tanzania from 26th July. On the 26th, we should be together with them at the KIST graduation. Then until the 5th August three Tanzanian colleagues, all leaders from Church of God in Tanzania, are to stay at my home and to minister in the locality. On the 5th August we are to go to Tarime in Tanzania, then beyond perhaps to Musoma for a few more weeks of ministry before they leave for their homes and I come back to Kenya. All three are KIST graduates and are good friends as well as ministry colleagues. One is a church minister, and two are bishops.

An English lady married her African husband, from my home area, in 1962. Whenever I talked to her, one of the things she was most proud of, was that she stuck with him consistently through thick and thin for all those years. I guess many inter-cultural marriages have collapsed in the same period. Jill Inyundo passed away Sunday 29th June 2014. She had in a way been in a similar situation to mine – one European living entirely with Africans (their sons live in England), so I have lost a role model cum fellow pilgrim on a fascinating journey. Jill lived just 1 hour’s cycling from my home. Her husband survives her.

It is as if theological education has got a lot more difficult to do in Africa! In the past, the missionary decided what would be helpful and what he wanted to tell to African people. They accepted that as the genuine product from the West. The globalisation of information seems to have changed that. Students can easily find out what is being taught in America. Then that is what they want; the real thing. They don’t necessarily want something watered down (i.e. made culturally appropriate!??) for the African continent. Is this the end of contextualisation?

Jim