Mid-month news August 2024

                                                        jimoharries@gmail.com

For archive of Jim’s news, and other information: jim-mission.org.uk

(Above image, with bible students, Tanzania, June 2024.)

Old Lady’s Funeral

I was struck recently by the discourse at the funeral of an old lady. This old lady had a stroke months before. Now there were questions as to whether she had been properly looked after when she couldn’t care for herself. There had clearly been accusations, that her granddaughters who looked after her didn’t feed her properly, and did not change her clothes or bedding frequently enough.

The bishop stood up. ‘No one should be blamed for not caring for the old lady,’ he declared. ‘This lady died according to God’s timing,’ he emphasized. ‘Nothing could have been done to extend her life given that God had already pre-determined the date of her death’, he added (or words to that effect).

I am aware that local carers may sometimes not give a sick person much to eat, so as to save cleaning away resulting faeces. Contemporary education occupies girls who might have been caring for relatives in learning, leading to a shortage of people with time to give care. Add to this general laziness … and you have a recipe for anyone who can no longer look after themselves quickly going on a downhill spiral.

What surprised me though, although in another sense it did not surprise me, is that the bishop had no more to say. One would have thought that a leader of God’s people would have been concerned that the poor and sick get properly looked after. That he would encourage carers to work hard looking after the sick. But that is difficult if it could be translated as specific accusation …

Islam in the UK

It has been difficult, since October 7^th, to avoid coming across many references to today’s Islamification of the West, particularly France and the UK.

This is crazy! What really troubles me about it, is the realisation of a personal failure. I was one of the people very active, starting in the 90s but particularly in the ‘zeros’, warning people about the nature of intercultural relationships in the UK and beyond. It’s sobering indeed to be sent to do mission work in a foreign field, only to find that people not only have not been listening to you, but that ‘back at home’ things have gone on a serious slide.

My ongoing work could seem a bit like ‘closing the stable door once the horse has bolted’. But, of course, there are many important challenges ahead:

1. A serious fault in the West has been an undue emphasis on avoiding what has become known as ‘racism’. Of late, this has been translated into the notion that Muslims are some kind of saint, hence the widespread use of the term Islamophobia to discourage any criticism of what they do. I began warning people publicly about the problems of anti-racism in 2006. I encourage my readers to look at the book I published on this theme in 2021). ( https://www.amazon.com/Western-Anti-Racism-Harms-Africa-Better/dp/1913181642 ) (Reviewed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14769948.2022.2039857 )
2. I came to Kenya thinking that I would be able to understand Kenyans. It took me many years of hard struggle to realise why I did not. There is a lot of naivety around. It is very common for Western people to come to do ministry in Kenya, then to be shocked by what they find, but later to say little about it so as not to be considered racist. This kind of reaction adds to ignorance about the nature of non-Western people.  
3. My own emphasis has been on working with African people as against Muslims. Yet there are many parallels in the need for caution if we think we can understand folks from different parts of the world. I am amazed at how naïve the UK has been on this. (In another way I am not very amazed, as it took my being in Africa for years for me to begin to comprehend what was going on and to undo the understanding I had been given in the UK. And, as I have said above, few Brits seem to have been listening to Jim.)
4. All the above have contributed to my promotion of vulnerable mission. Following widespread advertising, a small group of us gathered to set up an administrative structure to promote vulnerable mission in 2005. We failed. I could not convince fellow Brits regarding the urgency of this task. We set up the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) two years later in the USA. Now in some ways it could be said to be too late – the UK is on course to becoming Islamic and it is hard to see how to prevent it. But yet it is not too late. Hence I continue to promote vulnerable mission. This is a relating to foreign people other than from a high pedestal. Instead of being donors who communicate to them in our own languages, the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) advocates that some Western missionaries build on indigenously-available resources, while using local languages. This is how one can discover the actual nature of foreign people.

Home Church Growth, and Theological Student Back

It has been encouraging in recent months to see my home church here in Kenya growing. Some splits, between a year and 2 years ago, were a major setback. Join me in giving thanks to God for new developments.

The lad who I took to spend 3 months at a Bible college in Tanzania, arrived back in Kenya at the end of July. Good news from him: I note he is encouraged, very much valued that time learning God’s word and engaging in ministry, and (ideally) would like to go back and continue and complete the 3-year diploma course! Pray for him as he seeks God’s guidance for his future, and for us as we seek to counsel him

My programme for South Africa (Cape Town), 26^th August to 12^th September 2024, as it stands on 12^th Aug 2024.

(All locations from 26^th August to 13^th September are in Cape Town.)