End-Month news May 2026
Dear Friends,
Doing it the Other Way Around!
I was struck by a thought recently. In the West, we try to structure the physical world in such a way, as to render people emotionally satisfied. In Africa, we are trying to render people emotionally satisfied, so as to be effective in the physical world.
Meeting Ex-students
Going back to the Bible school I taught at (1997-2011) has had me meet with my ex-students. On 14th May … there was an ex-student in a café where I was wanting to eat a snack. I began teaching him way before he ever went to a college, in about 1995. He was a star student as he did his BA. We then taught together for a number of hears. Within moments of our meeting, he was quoting things I had said in class about 25 years before. ‘I’m on board with you 100%’ he added. Sometimes one appreciates this kind of encouragement!
The Principle of Sacrifice
There is often much talk about African people’s belief in the ‘prosperity gospel’. Some preachers offer graded prayers – the more you pay, the more likely the prayers are thought to be effective. Others, particularly people in the West, condemn that practice. I was privileged a few weeks ago to be in a church congregation in Tanzania as that ‘doctrine’ was outlined as clear as a bell, by one of the preachers. There was no doubt in his mind, in a subject he called ‘sacrifice’, that giving is the foundation for a prosperous life. The more you give, the more you thrive!
After the service, I spoke to an old man. He had already told us that he had been baptized in that church in 1960. In our conversation, he told me that he had subsequently left the denomination, and joined what we would in English refer to as a Pentecostal denomination. Now, coming back to his original church, he found the resistance to Pentecostalism he had initially experienced to be gone. Healing was a big part of the service! He was impressed. It seems that much of Africa is going this way.
What happens is not, it seems to me, how ‘healing’ services would be conceived in the West. Much that goes on would be condemned by Western standards. Here though, people love doing it ‘their’ way.
The above ought to be frustrating to Westerners. The latter want African people to learn physical cause and effect. Children do spend years and years learning this in school. But, evidently from what I hear in church, they might not believe it.
‘Intense Appreciation’
I use the term ‘intense appreciation’ to describe what I am receiving, now both in Kenya at Trellis college, as well as here in Tanzania, at the Mennonite college. That is, a ‘massive’ appreciation by people, for the fact that someone of European origin, has taken the trouble that I have, that enables me to fluently engage them in their own languages. Students and staff alike sometimes follow what I say very closely, so as to assess the indigenous pedigree of my use of their languages. I’m sure I don’t get 100%, but I seem to be up there somewhere. (This is the case for my use of Swahili, and in a sense even more so for when I use the Luo language.)
My acumen is partly an outcome of my taking a lot of time and effort to study language. More particularly, it is due to my efforts at positioning myself so as to be ‘vulnerable’ to local people, e.g., by living close to people, and relating to poorer sectors of a community, that consistently use their own languages.
Respect – friend, or enemy?
People often talk highly of ‘respect’. That seems very right. We ought to ‘respect’ one another. Yet, I don’t find that term much in the Bible. What I find instead, is ‘love’. We should love one another!
One would have to do a lot of research to say a lot more … but simply speaking … respect-for is related to fear-of. Here in Africa many people seek to respect the old, including the dead. This effort at ‘respect’ can be extremely destructive! The more one respects the dead, it can seem, the less one respects the living. The dead get to be looked after (nice coffins / graves, ways of remembering them, lavish funerals, etc.), while the living perish (poor hospitals, no money for schooling, lack of investment into infrastructure etc.). I suggest it would be good to do – more about love, less about respect!
Language Learning
I participated on-line in a conference for language-learning of missionaries in the USA, in 2024. I subsequently submitted a paper proposing a ‘radical alternative’ means of learning language. The organizer of the conference made this comment: “The committee welcomes your proposal and of course loves your topic and heart for language learning.” The next conference, to be held in the USA, will be in October, and in-person only. I feel it is important that I consider attending this conference. To do so would cost me around $2,500. I ask for your prayers on whether I should attend. Maybe this message is a fleece, and I’ll go if I get enough donations up-front! Conference website: https://www.icllonline.org/icll14
For Prayer
I am prayerfully beginning to consider what I will share at Trellis college later this year. One issue I face, is how much to reveal the flaws of Western-centric mission. I do not want to deconstruct contemporary mission to Africa from the West. Yet, a great deal of the contact between the West and Africa is extremely Westo-centric. Often it is very clear – African interest in and taking on board of what comes from the West, would not continue if there were no financial incentive arising from ‘pleasing the white man’. Pray for my preparations! (I am also invited to give a lecture to the whole student body at the college I am to teach at in Tanzania in July.)
The Days Ahead
Due to a funeral, I am to be in class teaching for over 8 hours, Monday 25th May. Pray for stamina! 1st June I am to travel to Nairobi by bus, then to fly to UK on 2nd June, to be in UK till 30th June. Pray for my time with mum, who has serious dementia and is in a nursing home, not able to talk coherently, and apparently living in her ‘own world’. In July, I should be back to teach at a college elsewhere in Tanzania. For a week near the end of July, I am to be at an academic missions’ conference in South Africa. I am to present a paper that contrasts how ‘holistic’ people in Africa receive the Gospel differently than do ‘dualistic’ Westerners.
Best wishes,
Jim