End-month news June 2024
End-month news June 2024 From Jim Harries, +254721804282
Dear Friends,
I have been at a Mennonite Bible college (pastoral training college) since 11th June 2024. Classes began on the 17th June. I now have nine students, seven young men and one woman, I guess average age late 20s, in my class.
The Mennonite college is about 8km, out of town, from the Coptic Orthodox compound in which I am staying. I am cycling to and fro. Both college and compound are located in Musoma, on the shores of Lake Victoria, about 60 miles south from the border with Kenya.
Myself and students
I first visited this college about 27 years ago. It was at the time a thriving place with (I think) a score or two of students staying for terms of 3 months duration to be taught by a team of teachers. Now … ‘terms’ are just 2 weeks long, and happen 4x per year. Permanent staff number two. The dining hall is not used. Students eat in their classrooms. The dormitory is empty for most of the year, and of course most of the kinds of social programmes and so forth one can do with long-term residential students are no longer there. The college has a relatively new library building, stacked with books. Very few are in Swahili, some are of particular African focus, many seem to come from libraries of retired American pastors ‘donated to Africa’. I spent some time looking through the books. Being almost all authored by Americans limits the books’ relevance. The missionaries who made much effort to build up theological libraries in prior decades couldn’t have reckoned with the coming of the internet, where many up-to-date resources are easily available.
Swealtering
Sitting outside in the cool of evening darkness, my collar got damp with sweat. On the lakeside, little rainfall now, hot sun all day long – gives you an idea. Reading, writing, class preparation, and research, seem difficult in these circumstances!
Very close to a main road here in Musoma in Tanzania, this road that used to lead to the lake, has become a part of the lake. Lake-water hyacinth is growing around houses abandoned to the Lake by their occupants. The level of water in Lake Victoria has been higher than ever this year. Lakeside tourist businesses have suffered particularly. (From my research, the level of water in the Lake fluctuates. We are now back to levels not seen since 1964.)
Dominating Modernity Distances
The population of today’s East Africa seems, by all accounts, to be determinedly (if mainly at a surface level) trying to modernise themselves. That is – the spread of Western influence grows every day! ‘Sweeteners’ are not required – people are determined. An irony is, that at the same time as (apparent?) modernisation accelerates, Western people themselves become scarcer. For example, large groups of residential missionaries that were commonly found 30 or 40 years ago, are these days rare.
Perhaps the greatest puzzle that ought to be considered is: If Africa is so competently modernizing, given Western efforts at declaring inter-ethnic equality, why are Western people not emigrating to Africa on masse? I don’t mean to form cultural islands on mission stations or in urban havens, but to integrate into indigenous communities? (As in the West, Black immigrants are expected to integrate into communities of white European people.)
The lack of vulnerable exposure of people of European origin to grass-roots life in Tanzania is very noticeable. Walking through Tanzanian towns, I constantly face what would in the West be considered ‘racist abuse’. ‘Oh look, we have a white man here’, or ‘look at that white man’ or ‘white man, what are you doing here’?
Christians and Muslims
A clear dividing line in Tanzania, is that between its Christian people and its Muslim people. Regions vary in the density of their Islamic population. Ironically, those areas that were once slave-trading centres are now the Muslim strongholds. Thankfully in Tanzania, Muslims and Christians largely live peacefully. It is strange though, how a once more unified population is now so divided by Islam’s rules.
On route to the Bible college.
Other News
Give thanks that in addition to my teaching, I am also doing pastoral work with the Coptic
Orthodox church. This includes some visiting, praying for the sick, fellowships in local slums, and attending services, Bible studies and prayer meetings when these arise. I very much value doing this in addition to my formal teaching.
For Prayer
Please continue to pray for my anticipated trip to South Africa for a conference, speaking engagements, and cataract operation, at the end of August. Pray that my travel / health insurance for the cataract operation cover the cost of this travel and treatment! Pray for my preparation for South Africa, that includes exploring a little of the history of the country so familiarising myself with particular issues in South Africa and how they are understood and addressed. Cape Town, at which I am to be based, seems to be the academic hub of the country.
Give thanks for my time in Tanzania. I am due to return to Kenya on 29th June.
Pray for my academic activities. I continue even while in Tanzania on and off, to produce articles and other academic output. Please pray that all this be glorifying to God.
My home church in the UK meanwhile is celebrating a 200th birthday! Details on what the celebration will look like here: https://www.facebook.com/andovercommunity/posts/pfbid0CAsQcSVGi1HKbZNb8dneKHfMYpN17gNrUdQLsXzkEQSh4triVH7RwfnggyN1Qw4dl
Pray and give thanks also for the work of the Coptic Orthodox Church. They have just officially opened a new hospital in Salgaa, near Nakuru, in Kenya, an area renowned for its prostitution. (For more on Coptic hospitals: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=coptic%20mission%20hospital )
This news can be found archived here: jim-mission.org.uk