News for End of December 2003

A weekend away from home and I visited some friends. Both young couples. One had two small children, and the other three small children. Both couples were living in otherwise largely deserted homesteads – surrounded by huts and other relics reminding them of departed family members. Both couples were living in tiny thatched huts. The men of both couples are heavily engaged in fighting with untoward spirits through the activities of their respective churches. One had visitors there whom he prayed for till midnight using candles to drive out the demons, and the other had just come from a crusade at which he had sought to relieve people from the powers of darkness. All around me was death, illness, hunger, struggle and a constant battle against spiritual adversity.

On getting home, I heard of more deaths, one of a friend of mine who owned a local shop with whom I had always enjoyed having a good laugh. He is called Jacob (James), as I am. People are coming and going to and from funerals.

Give thanks - that I have just taken a dose of 'kill or cure' malaria medicine, and pray that it comes to be effective (in cure and not in kill)!

Give thanks for my time here in the Dean's office at KIST. It has gone well. Pray for the permanent occupant to this chair, due back in just over a week!
Wishing all a good Christmas and a happy new year.

Isaiah 65:25 " ... The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain." says the Lord.

Jim