Mid-month News December 2024

Mid-month news December 2024

Dear Friends, email: jimoharries@gmail.com

Please pray for my mother. She’s still in hospital in Basingstoke, UK, as I write …

Note this event, 6th Feb. (There will be a similar event in the German language the same evening.) Details pending … watch this space. (Participation will be by invitation only, but you can ask for an invitation.)

This picture is on the wall of the staffroom of the Mennonite Theological College of East Africa where I’ve just been teaching. It seems to well illustrate what a lot of people spend their lives doing!

Children led the entire Sunday service on 1st December at the Mennonite church I attended in Musoma town in Tanzania. Apparently, they do this once per year. Even the preachers, were young boys. We were shown a drama, of Jesus at the temple when a boy. They did a great job, the picture is part of the children’s choir.

An amazing transformation.

When I taught here for the first time (since 2012 when I taught for 10 days) in June, I had a total of 16 students, but for the first week an average of only 5. This time around, there were already over 20 students in class on the second day. I brought one Kenyan with me, from my home area in Kenya, to also be a student.

As usual, it took me a day or two to ‘get’ where the students are at. I could then adjust my pre-planned syllabus! There are zero materials available for teaching African students. (Except those that one is supposed to adapt from the UK or America, in English or translations from English, that do not work very well!) I taught the certificate students. They are taught using Swahili. (From diploma on, by law, teaching must be in English, even though almost no one knows good English, but every one is good at Swahili. Pray for the policy of African governments in this respect.)

I ended up with 24 students. They are young people who opt to do some basic theological, Biblical and leadership training, on the basis that they feel called by God to commit themselves to the church.

Dirty Feet

Give thanks, that I ‘happened’ to attend a Mennonite service, while they were preparing for foot-washing. Washing another man’s feet, is indeed a thought-provoking exercise. Thinking of the wars starting up around the Middle East was sobering to me. That is, it seems, without Christ, people prefer killing each other to washing each other’s feet. (Which is not to say that Christian people are immune to war, unfortunately.)

Below, pictures from my church visit on 8th December 2024.

Jim