Mid-month news April 2025

Mid-month news April 2025

                                                                        Jimoharries@gmail.com

Dear Friends,

Please find some news items below.

British People go to Church

I find this fascinating: More people attending church in UK, says report.

Ministry Opportunities and Positive Things

When I cycle from my office in Maseno instead of my one-time home near Yala, most journeys are 6-miles longer each way than they were. As always, I find it an enormous privilege to just be able to show up at an indigenous church gathering, and to share the Gospel with people, in their own language(s)!

I think sometimes they do wonder. While it is great to sit and talk and get to know people before and after a gathering, this does not always happen. Sometimes I arrive after an event has begun, and leave straight away afterwards. (If one hangs-around, and women start cooking, then one has to hang around for longer!) So, I can cycle 20 miles, just to sit in their church, and share for 15 minutes, then cycle 20 miles back again. Yet in another sense – that is wonderful! It shows a love for the people.

As I write being in Nairobi, I just attended a fellowship in the famous Kibera slums (a short walk from the Coptic hospital). Although some of the slum’s contexts are maintained to attract donors, it is still amazing how hand-to-mouth people live, how low the life-expectancy can be, and how people miss out on so much that we in the UK tend to think is ‘necessary’. Getting to this slum-house required maneuvering through a maze of narrow passages and pathways, up and down stairs … Eventually we sat, shared from the Scriptures; ‘be encouraged, serve the Lord’ … etc. One lady, who I had got to know a little, and used to sweep in front of the Coptic hospital early in the mornings, was now in the mortuary, I was told.

I will, God willing, spend Thursday evening till Monday morning at the Coptic mission that is focusing on reaching out to local Prostitutes. Usually that provides many opportunities to share from the Scriptures. Pray that I will be able to do that clearly. Monday I hope to meet some missionary colleagues.

I just want to express to everyone, how appreciative I am of the group of young people located in different places in Kenya, who were once staying at home as my children.

Join me in giving thanks to God for all the wonderful things that he does.

Yours,

Jim

PS Please note that my above newsletter is not written using ‘universal English’. There is no such thing as ‘universal English’. This is not a legal document. It merely represents a perspective, written using English by a native-born English person who has long lived and functioned in East Africa in local contexts using indigenous languages.