News for End of October 2006

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Kenya.

Dark Continent?

The question of the 'dark continent' continues to hover over us here in East Africa. For some, such terminology is strictly taboo. To consider a black man to be 'more evil' than a white man, is not politically correct. Yet it is hard to get away from when hears African people here constantly accusing one another of being evil witches, adulterers, murderers, greedy and liars.

Not only is it 'hard to get away from'. It is hard not to do it! It is almost the point of the Gospel. If you as a preacher do not believe your congregation to be onstantly plotting evil in their hearts (whether they know it or not), then what have you got to say? The best, biggest and most powerful preachers invariably start off, it seems, with the assumption that everyone in the congregation is some sort of witch.

Hence the pressure to succumb to this same treatment is intense for YTC and STC (and I guess also KIST). Pray for us to be able to resist such temptation, and to adhere to the belief that God has forgiven those who believe in him, and that when he created the world he did say it was 'good'! (Resisting this temptation can make us appear to be irrelevant - particularly in Yala and Siaya where money and Western prestige are not on offer.)

Meanwhile, white people continue to get all the acclaim around here. It is like the task of the African is to try and cleanse himself from evil, and the task of the white man then is to feed him.

Give thanks for small victories! Pray for the Yala Theological Centre board meeting on Saturday (28.10.06). Please pray for me in my planning for my USA trip next year. Give thanks for the dedicated men and women who we have in our classes in the three Bible schools that I teach at.

Best wishes,

Jim