MID SEPTEMBER 2018

Dear Friends,

Please pray for Angela Merridale. Angela has helped me enormously for years and years in various administrative roles. She recently broke her arm in a fall. She said it is still painful. Of course, this means she can’t do all the work she was recently doing.

Give thanks, that I have recently (28th August) passed my 30th anniversary. That is – I have been a missionary in Africa since August 28th 1988.

My home church recently had a good conference in Kisumu. I was there day-time for all three full days, thanks particularly to missionary colleagues who gave me a room to sleep in within the town. The conference had many highlights. It was the first conference with the new bishop in office. We had an excellent message given by the national chairman of our church youth movement. There were other very good messages! Numbers were up on recent years. There was a lot of new and especially younger-blood involved in the conference.

A sign of the times: I sat in a local café waiting for a cup of tea. As I waited, I brought out some papers and a pen to do some writing. When some old men sat there saw me do so, they started laughing at me! I guess writing by hand with a pen is considered more out of date here in Africa than it is even in the West!

My cousin Philline and her husband Raphael (both from Germany) are to visit me from 15th September. They are to be here with me for about 9 days. Then we are to head for Nairobi then Tanzania until 30th September. The same day they leave, 30th September, I am to travel to Lebanon. I am planning to visit a friend there for one day, then to attend a 3-day conference. The conference is to look at issues of patriarchy in mission.

See here for a latest review of African Heartbeat.

Thanks to those who are writing to tell me how valuable a read they are finding African Heartbeat. I’m always glad to get feedback!

Those interested in discussion are welcome to comment on these three discussion sessions I have recently posted on academia.edu:

1. Tandem Riders Gender Bias and Evilspirits in Africa.

2. Prosperity Gospel in Zambia; problems of engagin African theology using English.

3. Writing Illiteracy Amongst Pastors in Africa; examples come from Kenyan Swahili..

For insights from an Australian living now as a Coptic monk, see here.

Jim