End-month news April 2026
End-month news April 2026
jimoharries@gmail.com
I am one of the contributors to this blog-discussion of how to be charitable to Africa in a helpful way.
Our cat decided to have her kittens in this bag under a bed in my house.
June Visit to the UK
I have made arrangements to spend June in the UK. My main intention, is to spend time with mum. To this end, I have found accommodation near Fareham in Hampshire, the location of mum’s nursing home.
Please Pray
Looking ahead, we are thinking about inviting one of my one-time boys, now middle-aged, to come and join us in my home where I am now living, to be part of the team prospectively looking after orphan children in the future. Pray for this to work out if it is God’s will!
Handed Over
Give thanks for the privileged position that I find myself in. That is, as a result of last year handing over both of my ‘big’ responsibilities. In February 2025, we held an online event, in which I formally handed over the leadership of the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) to Dr. Marcus Grohmann. That was, after founding the organization in 2007, and chairing it for 18 years. It would not be an exaggeration at all to say that, since handing over, the AVM has advanced in leaps and bounds. (Pray for Marcus, who is in the throes of seeking funding for a large research project that is to examine the impact of vulnerability on fruitfulness of missionaries’ ministry.)
In April of 2025, I handed over the leadership of my home, from running the home together with the same housemother for 28 years, I handed it over to a 28-year-old lady, reared in my home from birth. This is also going incredibly well. The one-time housemother and I remain on-site, advising and ‘present’, but no longer carrying any major responsibility. Give thanks!
The above frees me for some critical work. Pray for this on an ongoing basis. Particularly my increasing rate of participation in conferences, webinars, podcasts, and other means of sharing the things that God is telling me are important to be involved in.
Giving Thanks to God
We had a special evening of giving thanks to God, at home the other night, as it is now a year that we have lived in this house. From the picture, of course you can tell that the three boys are dramatizing the pigs, and the other person standing behind them is the prodigal son, in one of the skits the children put on.
Being a Single – Male – Missionary
I here consider singleness in men as different from singleness in women. I will not discuss the situation for women.
Single male missionaries are reputedly rare. Why am I a single (male) missionary?
My being single as a missionary is an outcome of a conscious decision. I made a decision, over the early years of my missionary service (the 1990s) to remain single. (I continue to long for relationship with a white woman, but Miss Right, who can deal with my living situation, has never shown up.)
A deep reason for my remaining single, is so as to facilitate ‘informed’ ministry. This is rooted in my understanding of Africa, and my understanding of ministry. There is great irony in today’s Africa. Supposedly, it is very open to being understood by foreigners. There are supposedly few barriers to foreigners who want to share in African life. Foreigners can be very welcome, and people quick to open their homes and desire relationship with them. Interracial marriages happen. The wide spread of English in Africa makes it easy for white people to interact with Africans.
In part at least, the above ‘openness’ is an outcome of, and closely related to, Africa’s severe dependency on the West. Almost the whole formal sector in African countries known to me, is modeled on, is an imitation of, the West. That includes, how the government functions, the educational system, how large-scale businesses function, legal systems, and so on. Africa needs constant guidance from the West in order to facilitate their own contemporary civilization.
The above system, whereby Africa is desperate for everything that is Western, has side-effects. We could say: the whole continent (judging from parts of the continent with which I am familiar) is like a sponge soaking up what is European. The sponge works, by presenting itself as if Africa is a kind of underdeveloped version of Europe. That identity is vitally necessary for Africa’s thriving, and even survival.
This is where singleness comes in. In other words, Africa sets the rules of the game for its visitors. The rules of the game are ‘we want to benefit from your presence in the way that we understand’. Africa wants to keep Westerners Western, so that Africa can imitate them. What is African itself, is hidden, concealed, a source even of shame (as well as in some ways pride), kept out of view. (It is also hidden, as the West refuses to acknowledge it.)
‘Africa’ believes it can become Europe. It does not take this as an intelligent process of adapting what it is now. You could say: it sees it as putting on a mask.
This ‘putting on a mask’ is unproven in the long term. It is hard for an ancient people to ‘become’ someone else. People cannot not be who they are. Focus on the mask means little or no focus on who Africans actually are or what they might actually become. Africanness, a grasp of which is essential for the going-forward of the people, is constantly hidden and obscured by today’s system. Those who endeavor to learn from it, are pushed out.
Part of the ‘pushing out’ comes from Europe itself. European ways of life are not designed to facilitate Europeans living harmoniously in not-European communities. European social security and economic systems following their citizens when they go to live in Africa renders those with Western citizenship into floating islands of enormous power, whether they like it or not. Local people compete for them. Another example, Western safeguarding (child protection) regulations render close mixing of Western people with Africans, unless Westerners are in charge of everything, close to illegal. Both of the above, and many other pressures from Europe and the USA, create and sustain an implicit apartheid.
The only way I see to penetrate the above barrier to progress, whereby Africans constantly (it seems) prefer imitation to understanding, and Europe keeps Europeans European, is for a Westerner in Africa to remain single. Only, it seems to me, a single male, who can control their sexual desires, can penetrate the barriers I have described above. That single male, to be ‘vulnerable’ to the people, must confine himself to local languages and resources in key relationships. Only that single male can acquire the kinds of aptitude that Africa, actually, needs, that gets beyond imitating what they cannot understand (how the West lives) and replace it with potentially, a model of civilization that makes local sense.
To me, the above is foundational and vital. For me to marry, to ditch this assignment, can amount to little less than murder. Murder, that is, of the nature of a trained lifeguard at a swimming pool who refuses to leap into the pool and deliver a life-ring to a drowning person. (The person may not know they are drowning.)
Some ancient churches can facilitate formal celibacy in categories like monasticism or consecration, and look after their celibates. Most Protestant churches have no such facility, forcing singles to sink or swim alone. Pray for God’s grace to continue swimming, even without institutional props.
BIG Funeral
Funerals are enormous logistical operations in my home area in Kenya. Thousands of pounds are spent in hosting and feeding hundreds of people, often in obscure rural locations. As I headed to this funeral by bicycle in mid-April, swarms of motorcycle taxis passed me on the narrow mud road crowded with walkers. On arrival at the site, there was a score or two of parked cars. Food was available for free at the home of the deceased. The funeral ceremony was being conducted at a location across a valley from the home. All this was a couple of miles from the nearest tarmac road. I arrived after the funeral service had started. I stayed for about 4 hours. I left before the service had ended. Endless neighbours and relatives spoke warmly of the deceased, often taking a great deal of time oblivious of the fact that funeral-goers might have preferred to get home early. I sometimes think that up to 10% of the funeral time can be spent saying ‘hurry up’ and ‘let’s not waste time’, appeals that get ignored. This funeral was not of a great celebrity or famous person, but just of a beloved wife of a local farmer. … (On the very date that I wrote this, a friend sent me this account of African funerals!)
Decolonial Subversion
Please pray, for my anticipated participation in a ‘decolonial subversion’ discussion, hosted by a UK university, to be held on 25th May 2026. Two of my articles are amongst the five ‘readings’ to be discussed. (If you want more information, I’m happy to forward an informative email to you.)
As war is, yet again, a prominent topic in the Middle East, here’s a quick summary of the history of Islam to better inform us on what is going on.
Best wishes,
Jim