Mid-month news March 2026
Jimoharries@gmail.com
Dear Friends,
My Two Weeks of Teaching
I completed my two weeks of teaching in Tanzania, on 27th February. I taught on the Work of the Holy Spirit to 17 students at the Mennonite college. The teaching went well.
This is a picture taken at the Mennonite church at which I worshipped in Tarime near the border of Tanzania, on my last day before re-entering Kenya.
What is it Like Living and Working with the Poor?
A friend recently asked me this question. I have moved shoulder to shoulder with people who from the UK would be considered ‘very poor’, for decades. What is it like? Why are the people poor?
I can try to answer ‘why are people poor’ like this: Communities oblige their people to follow certain life principles. Those born into a community typically ‘absorb’ what is going on from those around them. Hence they react to one another and to different pressures, in certain ways. In parts of Africa known to me, people’s responses to others and to life in general are of such a nature that what we in the West call ‘poverty’ is typically an outcome.
The above means that the ‘answer’ to poverty is certainly not simply ‘giving people’ money or things.
People follow principles of living, in ways in which they may themselves even be unaware. We also in the West tend to understand and think things without really realizing why and on what basis. For the poor, from the perspective of the West, what they do and how they do it, perpetuates their poverty. For them, it is just living life as it ought to be lived.
Living cheek by jowl with people in Africa over many decades, makes their ways of life increasingly ‘normal’ for me. It becoming normal constitutes a strange process of adaption. Things that were striking to me in my early days in Africa, I these days do not even notice. Not that I am simply ‘the same’ as my African colleagues. Far from it. Vast cultural gulfs (ways we think differently) still separate us. Yet, I have shifted a long way. Folks in the UK probably know what I mean when they compare how I do things, with people who have lived in the UK all their lives.
A key to provision of relief from poverty, is enabling people to be aware of who they are. Then in providing them with a structure(s) through which life’s issues can be addressed. This is a role of a missionary. People’s ways of life can be transformed when they give their allegiance to Christ. There’s no guaranteed mechanisms there. (There is no such thing!) But it is still amazing. I could say; miraculous! It is wonderful to watch an accumulation of ‘small ways’ in which the Word of God enables a transformation in people’s lives.
The Witchdoctor’s Craft
Give thanks for having got this book published, on 3rd March of this year. Its content represents what to me were an ‘ahaaa!’ insight about people’s understandings in Africa, that also speaks deeply to people in the West. It is mind blowing to me to find ways in which God’s Word speaks in lively ways to many contemporary issues. It makes me all the more determined to ever more enthusiastically engage in God’s mission work in Africa and beyond! Click here to see the book on amazon. (Buy your kindle copy for just 80p)
Other Activities
Once back in Kenya from Tanzania, I made a quick trip to visit my home-church bishop. I had not been able to visit him at home since he lost his wife last year. I then spent 3 nights with a German missionary couple. I had often helped the wife in the past, now I am helping the husband, to learn the Luo language. Since getting home on the 5th March I have been intrigued by a change in my home church. The emphasis of our midweek meetings was once entirely on ‘healing’. Now it is clearly on learning the Bible!
I am to attend an academic missions’ conference in Pretoria, South Africa, 17th to 21st July. Anyone interested in what the nature of the conference will be, can have a look here: https://iamsafrica.co.za/iams-assembly-2026-pretoria-south-africa/ Pray for me, as I intend to present three papers at the conference.
Mum
Thanks for your ongoing prayers for mum. She continues to be in a nursing home (rather than in hospital) where from the accounts I am hearing, she is being very well looked after. When not sleeping for long periods, mum is often up and down and walking around. Unfortunately, due to dementia, she is not able to clearly communicate or often even recognize people.
African Mission’s Translation Debacle
Watch this 10 minute you tube video to discover a translation debacle articulated by me, around a year ago.
Submitting to Local Leadership
Go to this link for information about a great webinar on ‘submitting to local leadership on the mission field’, being put on by the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) on 16th April.
Striking …
While cycling slowly through the villages in Tanzania a week or two back, I heard the shrill voice of a little Tanzanian girl. (My translation.) ‘Look. A white man! He is soooo white, he really shines. Come over here (to her friends) quickly and look at him before he moves past us. Oooooooh. He is sooo white!’ This kind of reaction from children is not untypical. It is ironic that while we might think we are overcoming racism in the West, things can be very different in Africa!
For Prayer
Please pray for my engagements with churches in my home area, to be my primary field for ministry, especially in the next two months.