mid-month news April 2026
Mid-month news April 2026
Dear Friends,
To UK for June?
I am planning to come to the UK in June, if I can find somewhere to stay within easy travelling distance from Fareham. Mum is in a nursing home in Fareham, Hampshire. I want to be near her, so as to spend time with her and visit her as often as possible during June. If anyone is aware of someone who may be able to put up a missionary around Fareham for the month of June, please let me know. (I need to know soon so as to book my flight before doing so gets too expensive. I have some leads, but nothing definite yet.) THANKS.
The Ondeto Churches
A man called Ondeto died a year before my arrival in Kenya in 1993. If I recall rightly, the police had to force his followers to bury his body, as they were so certain Ondeto was going to resurrect.
Ondeto’s followers consider him to be ‘Jesus’ for the African. Thus they accept all the Bible’s teachings, but in their minds displace Jesus with a familiar looking Ondeto. They may even have images of a white Jesus in their churches as well as of Ondeto. But most likely, the most prominent images, are of Ondeto – it seems always the same photograph mass-reproduced so that copies get everywhere.
The difference for these people seems to be, that when they picture Jesus in their minds, he is not a white Jesus in Galilee, but a black Jesus figure in Luoland in Kenya.
Many of the churches I work with have an allegiance to Ondeto. It is hard to know how deep their allegiance is. In some ways, it is a great thing. Jesus portrayed as a white man, stands for what is foreign and not understood, or understanding. Ondeto fits the local scene like a glove. After all – Ondeto’s words are Jesus’ words! Proponents of Ondeto teach and preach from the Bible.
How to relate to these people whom God loves? Pray for me to relate to them wisely, and perhaps to be a part of broaching the ‘gap’, of being someone who looks more like the white Jesus, but has time for them, and makes an effort to get onto their comprehension-page.
For Ondeto’s picture, go here.
The Jigger Flea Church
Jigger fleas live in dusty and dirty places. Too small to see with the naked eye, they enjoy jumping onto people’s bare feet. Once on your foot, they find human blood sweet. A female buries just below the skin, and then develops into a small sac of eggs that ‘ripens’ over a few weeks. At such point, one’s foot itches, and can be painful. Eventually the eggs burst out, and the lifecycle starts again.
A particular church that I have often attended seems to have a jigger flea problem. I once told the pastor about it in a phone message. I don’t think he appreciated being told. It’s a church that I like to avoid, for obvious reasons. But, should one avoid a church just because one might leave with a flea incumbent in one’s foot? (One of the rules in that church, is that you shouldn’t wear shoes.)
‘Stolen Bibles’
I attended a house fellowship of an indigenous church a few months ago. I was asked to share from God’s Word. I did so.
The following day, I could not find my bibles. I had taken two Bibles with me, one small-print Bible in Swahili, and one ‘regular-size’ Bible in the Luo language. I actually cycled the 5 miles or so to the home I was in. Only the wife was there. She knew nothing of my bibles. I was mystified, and assumed that they must have ‘dropped’ somewhere from my bicycle.
A few days ago, I went back to the same church, who were this time meeting in a different home. Near the end of our gathering, I remembered the Bible issue. I asked the folks there ‘Have you seen my bible? I had two bibles, and I haven’t seen them since that last time when I joined your fellowship’. The fellow sitting next to me looked a bit pug-faced, then he said ‘Your Bibles are very helpful to us in the church. Now we can read God’s word to people. If we have people from other tribes come to our church, we even have a Swahili bible, so can read God’s word to them as well’.
Hmmm. There was no intent there to return my Bibles to me. To members of that church, it seems my Bibles have been promoted from being ‘private bibles’ to being ‘church bibles’!
So, prayer valued on this! Should I recover my bibles? I think I should.
African ‘Mothers’?
In parts of Africa familiar to me, ladies are almost always addressed in a way that lifts and show-fronts their maternal nature. Here in Kenya, almost all women aged from 20 to 60 are addressed ‘mama’ (mum). Women relish and cherish their role as ‘mothers’. Their whole life revolves around this. This can be very striking to me, when I think of ways back in Europe many seem to despise motherhood and associated domestic duties.
Sometimes when one reads about ‘women in Africa’, one gets the impression most of them spend most of their lives cowering under the heavy hand of a violent husband. … Now, there are some like that, but … many are not.
The Days Ahead
Please pray for my various planned outreaches. Until mid-May, I hope to continue outreach to churches local to Yala, Kenya. 16th April, I am to be interviewed in a webinar. I am to record a podcast with some Americans on 29th April. For the last two weeks in May, I am to be teaching Biblical Interpretation to certificate students at Mennonite Theological College of East Africa, in Musoma, Tanzania. I am to present a paper at a Bible Translation conference (from Tanzania, the conference is to be in Germany) that runs from 28th to 29th May. Thereafter, I may spend a month in UK. From UK, I should be going directly to Tanzania to teach at another theological college for the month of July. Except, 16th to 22nd July I am to be at a mission’s conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference is put on by the IAMS (International Association for Mission Studies). Thanks for your prayers.
Yours,
Jim