NEWS END OF DECEMBER 2017

Dear Friends,

National youth conference of my home church, December 2017.

Give thanks for a very successful youth conference, held at the end of last week, in Kisumu. About 180 youth, plus many others less-youthful, were in attendance for 3 days of bible teaching and encouragement.

We went to the above youth conference in a tuk tuk – otherwise known as a motorised rickshaw. “Will seven fit into a tuk tuk?” I asked initially? I didn’t see how! ‘Yes’, I was told. Then there were to be nine of us. “Will nine fit into the tuk tuk?” I asked. Yes. Then two more were added “will 11 fit into the tuk tuk?” Yes, I was told. Now we are really going to be squeezed I thought … until I saw the other vehicles coming to pick up people from the conference when they were full. Then I realised that we weren’t really squeezed at all. 11 in a tuk tuk, was nothing!

A tuk tuk in Kenya

I must admit that I am chuffed as a result of a new development at my home. My children have tended to be interested in academics, and not so interested in cycling. I have not yet had an ‘engineering’ type. Now one of my 15-year-old lads is wanting to travel 8 miles every day each way to a craft-school to learn vehicle mechanics, as long as I loan him a bicycle, which he will maintain himself. I’ve sent him to learn bicycle repair from a local side-of-the-road repair man. I look forward to having a cycling companion some mornings, as the distant school he wants to attend (out of choice, even though there are other schools nearer by) is in the same direction as many of the trips I make!

Are you a Panadol Christian? A lady recently categorised Christians into three groups, according to the amount of faith they have.

1. No-panadol Christians – really have a lot of faith, so that they never get a significant headache, so don’t need to have any Panadol in their homes.

2. Panadol, but no coartem Christians. Moderate faith, hence they get occasional headaches, but they never get more seriously sick with malaria. (Coartem is the medicine used to treat malaria.)

3. Coartem Christians. These Christians keep Coartem to treat malaria, so have very little faith.

I have discovered in recent reading … that it is not just Africa, but people ALL OVER THE WORLD are desperate to learn English! Yet, English is a language of Western Protestant Christianity. Are all those people, in order to understand English correctly, going to ‘have to’ become Christians? The mind boggles … over what God is doing in the world.

Jim