End-Month News July 2026
Dear Friends,
Please find my news below.
Conference, Pretoria, South Africa
This IAMS (International Association of Mission Studies) conference, attended by about 250 delegates from around the world, was held at UNISA (University of South Africa), 17th to 21st July 2026. Three of us in attendance from the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) were Dr. Marcus Grohmann (left), myself (centre), and Dr. Danny Hunter (right). Marcus directs the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission). Danny is research coordinator for Frontier Missions in the USA. Joined by two speakers on-line, we had a total of five presentations, at our own thematic panel entitled: Mission after Empire: a self-critical reconsideration of Western engagement. All presentations were well received and provoked considerable challenging discussion.
This was an academic conference. Many of those attending were professors from universities in different parts of the world. It was for people concerned with mission studies as an academic discipline. Academics studying mission have long been an important target-audience in my writing. I was amazed as, time and time again, people who I got to meet and converse with at the conference, told me that they’ve been reading my articles and books for a long time, and that they very much appreciated them. This was a confirmation of the value of work I have been doing over many years. It shows that vulnerable mission has become a mainstream-theme for many in mission studies.
Church Visit in Pretoria, South Africa
Conference organizers arranged for us to visit a church on the Sunday of our conference. Myself and 8 other delegates were taken to a Presbyterian Church, about half-hour’s drive from UNISA (University of South Africa), that was our conference host. One of the most striking things for me with this visit, as per previous experience in South Africa, was how a Church thousands of miles away from my home in Kenya, could do things in a way incredibly similar to those churches I know. The dancing, the regular drum-beat, people in the congregation just starting off songs when they felt like it, and so on, happened at this church much as it does in Kenyan churches. It seems that African people even in distant parts of the continent have a lot in common.
The Aims of the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission)
Some may be asking, what are we trying to achieve in the AVM? We would like to see more missionaries from the West to the Majority World engaging ministry (or at least, one or more key ministries) entirely using the languages and resources of the people being reached. Why do we encourage this? Effective ministry requires understanding. Understanding arises if one can listen. Bringing in of foreign money and use of not-local languages by a missionary, puts lids onto their understanding of what is going on locally. Operating on the basis of limited understanding prevents the West as a whole from realizing the impacts of their domineering influences in Africa. It makes planning difficult, strains relationships, distorts local comprehensions of what is going on, and so on. In short, without vulnerable mission, Christian mission engagement can easily become domination through financial manipulation
Missionary Colleague, gone to meet her Lord
I just received news that a missionary colleague, who was in Kenya for about 8 years (?) in the early 2000s has just succumbed to cancer. Julia Pring has since lived in the UK. I was able to pay her a visit last month while in UK. She certainly looked poorly at the time. She has moved on to eternity. She had a rough ride in her missionary service here in Kenya back then. The kind of rough-ride that we in the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) are trying to ‘save’ missionaries from. For something of Julia’s story, listen here. She was very dedicated to God’s service, an example to me, and I’m sure to many.
Update – the days ahead
I write from Babati in Tanzania, anticipating attending the graduation ceremony of the Bible school here on 25th July 2026. I appreciate your prayers for my plan to spend a few days in Nairobi starting Monday 27th July, visiting some of my ex-children. I should be home (in Yala, Kenya) by the end of the week. Two weeks later I am to head back to Musoma in Tanzania for a couple of weeks of teaching at the Bible school there, on the Old Testament. Soon after that, in Kenya, I am to begin my new challenging teaching responsibility at KIST (Kima International School of Theology), now known as Trellis International Training College, that is about 12 miles from my home.
Yours,
Jim