Mid-month news May 2025
jimoharries@gmail.com
Dear Friends,
Appeal
I am grateful to those who have offered to assist me with supplementary funding. Please make your donations to here: https://www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/jimharries or write to my financial manager Peter Stagg at his email address here: peterdavidstagg@yahoo.co.uk
Wouldn’t get Dizzy!
One of the churches I periodically visit, so as to share the Gospel with them, has a variety of methods to bring healing. One I have frequently seen, is to make people spin around, until they get dizzy and start falling over. It seems to be believed that their being so dizzy destabilizes the incumbent untoward spirit, so that various methods – like having the possessed person roll around on the floor, run around the building, or be sprayed with holy water – ought to be more effective at promoting its removal. On this particular occasion, I noted an amazing woman who, no matter how much she was spun around, did not get dizzy!! Of course, she was there so as to get healed, so eventually, she played along.
These kinds of practices by local churches can help you to understand the urgency of my work – that aims to share God’s Word with people in deep and meaningful ways using their own languages.
New housing
See here for a video of the context of the house I am now living in in Kenya. The large building is used for worship by my Kenyan home-church.
This picture illustrates how termites can decimate the timbers in a house. Much of this 3 by 2” timber was eaten up, leaving it far too weak to support the roof of my new house.
A view of my new (old) house. On renewing the roof, I subsequently replaced some of the iron sheets.
Here is a view of the side of the same house. Number 1 is a hole that I found, that was dug 30 feet deep with a view to building a toilet. The toilet was never built. The first thing I had to do when moving in, was to fill this extremely dangerous hole. 2 is the kitchen that was attached to my house as it was used as a church guesthouse, that unfortunately easily fills the house with smoke. 3 is the church building itself.
I actually spent just three nights in my ‘new’ house, before setting off on my annual trip to Tanzania. As I write, I am in Babati in Tanzania, one of the teachers at this Bible school.
Bible Translation Conference
On 2nd and 3rd May 2025, I attended a two-day conference on Bible Translation, held in Germany. (I of course joined them by zoom!) Here is the recording of the presentation that I gave. (From Tanzania, where bandwidth is not always good, it made sense to pre-prepare a presentation and post it on you tube rather than to try to present live.)
The response following my presentation was amazing. Although people’s speaking in German, with a poor internet connection that at one time resulted in my dropping off-line completely, made it hard to understand everything, I got the impression that my audience were deeply stirred. In short, Western people tend to consider exorcism an ancient ritual of dubious foundations that can do a lot of psychological damage. This is, partly at least, because they fit exorcism into their own dualistic worldview. In this worldview, spirits that are exorcised are evil beings that are not-real. In Africa, I suggested in my presentation, what is habitually exorcised, are sins, or the effects of sins, especially envy. The attention received in an exorcism ritual in some ways parallels the receiving of attention associated with modern ‘counselling’. Those being exorcised in the name of Jesus declare their faith in the God who made heaven and earth who, unlike the gods of their forefathers, loves people rather than being envious of them. Accepting that God is filled with love for his people, is often difficult.
Amazing New Book!
The new leadership of the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) has led in the writing of a jointly authored book entitled Vulnerable Mission for Practitioners. The production of this book, has me appreciate just how helpful it can be to have a change in leadership. I had been defeated to produce such a book over the years. It is for PRACTITIONERS. That is, it uses simple language to articulate how some missionaries and development workers should engage vulnerable mission in their work and activities. It makes a fascinating read, and is very challenging.
Kindle version available from Amazon for just over £4. Details: https://vulnerablemission.org/vm-for-practitioners/
Old Missionary Friend
John Rowse visited us in Mukinge Mission Station, in 1990. I never forgot his message – imploring us to recognize God’s grace. Especially emphasized by him was, that a Christian who slips into sin and doesn’t have the chance to repent, has not lost their eternal life. God’s Grace is bigger than that! I knew that he spent a lot of time in Tanzania. Fast forward to May 2025 … and an old grey haired man was here a few doors down in the guesthouse in which I am staying. It was none-other than John Rowse – still spending months at a time in East Africa away from his Australian home, sharing the very same message, of the love of God!
Jim