End-month news Sep. 2026
jimoharries@gmail.com
Dear Friends,
Some Reflections: The Vanity of Mission
I listened carefully to the indigenous teacher articulating Christian theology and ethics using the Luo language. Hearing him was in many ways a joy! It was great to hear him articulate the efforts he had made to express himself using a language I have learned to love, after myself using it almost daily for 30 years. I found myself, (under my breath), saying ‘yes, … yes, … yes, …’
Later, I forced myself to think about the situation more carefully. Why was I so happy with what the African was doing? I realized it was: because he was agreeing with me and my people! He had been such a good student, that he was saying ‘what he had been told’ to. To find my own thinking and that of my people so evidently relevant in this distant location gave me an ego boost. It seemed that now, finally, the African church was on the right track. This was very reassuring.
Then I did a reality check. I know the churches around here pretty well. Indeed, many model themselves on Western churches, in an idealistic kind of way. They frequently fail to meet the standard.
Having this theological tutor tell me the kinds of things I wanted to hear him say, the kinds of things I’d learned in my studies and have taught myself, made me feel good. But then I had to realise – were they platitudes? Saying that one ‘should’ keep time, doesn’t make someone into a time-keeper. (The previous day, our first speaker was 4 hours late.) Just a few hours after the teaching session, it became very evident that, people could not IMPLEMENT what they taught. … It’s as if, to have done so would have required them to first un-be who they are.
Sometimes ‘activity’ is the best way forward. That is – get as many African students as possible through theological and ethical training programmes. Sometimes more thought is first needed: In the long run, will pushing people through such programmes result in the best outcome, best use of funds, time, resources, missionary personnel?? If not, then spending more time in prayerful reflection first is warranted before acting. Hence I spend time prayerfully reflecting: how to be a part of a church’s building on the rock of Christ through what makes sense to them, rather than what makes sense to people in Europe and America. Pray for me to be deeply inspired by God on this pivotal question.
Just an Explanation …
An old lady died. This was explained by a daughter-in-law in a recent fellowship that I attended in someone’s home, as follows: “Grandmother had a severe stomach ache. She was sure she had been bewitched. She went to a jatak. That is someone who can cut your skin with some kind of blade, so as to suck out the witchcraft that someone has put into you using evil eye. She still did not get better, but was still convinced that she had been bewitched. The following day when she was very sick, she was rushed to a hospital for treatment, but died on the way.” Had she not feared witchcraft / the evil eye, she might have survived. (Question: can ‘religion’ be irrelevant to one’s thriving?)
Another account (by a woman, aged around 30):
“We were to have a Gospel meeting at a particular distant town. I had never been there, so I very much desired to go. But, my baby was sick. I went to a hospital. The doctor told me the child needed to be admitted. I told him I just needed to go to the toilet. From there, I ran off, I found a motorcycle taxi, I went home with my baby. The baby hadn’t been treated, but If I stayed in the hospital with it I was going to miss the chance to participate in Gospel preaching in that distant town I really wanted to visit. People were surprised I was back so quickly. I lied saying – ‘I didn’t find a doctor there’. They asked; where did you go? I told them … they recommended another hospital. I said to myself: “This is of the devil. It’s my baby. The baby must get well.” I closed the door to my house, with myself and baby in it. I started crying out loudly to God to heal the baby. After I had prayed loudly for some time, I was surprised to find that people had come and crowded around my door. They had heard me crying loudly. They (neighbours and so on) assumed that the baby had died, hence they came to find out, to comfort me, and say there sorry’s. I opened the door. I said ‘the baby is fine, look!’ They filed in, checking the baby was well, and then left again. They had called my husband and said ‘your wife is crying for a dead baby’. They were wrong! Its too easy to forget about God, and to blame people for the sickness of your children.”
Conference: Evangelical Missiological Society
Pray for my participation in a conference in the USA on 9th to 10th October 2026. I am to present my paper at 20 minutes past midnight my time, 10th October. My paper points to ways in which ignoring difficulties in translation, while very convenient for Western scholars, leaves African people with a kind of non-functioning educational system.
I have also produced a video and written an article, that is to be made available to participants at a major conference on language learning for missionaries in the USA, 5th to 9th October 2026.
Language Student
Give thanks and pray – as from 22nd to 25th September a younger missionary colleague is staying with me so that I help him with his Luo language study. This German missionary is a fellow-member of the VDM – the German mission’s agency of which I am now a part.
Novel Writing
Give thanks, and pray for, my endeavours at writing my third novel. The intention is that this novel, as well as being a great fun and exciting read, inform people of the important challenges faced in contemporary mission in Africa and beyond, and how related issues are at the core of many of today’s global-wide concerns.
Trellis International Training College – no-go
My anticipated teaching at Trellis International Training College, unfortunately has not yet happened. I am not over-disappointed, as I remain with many ministry challenges for which I will as a result have more time (– including novel writing!) I do not understand why, promises that had been made for me to teach, were not followed through. Watch this space!
A very Academic but Enlightening Chapter!
My colleague in the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, Dr. Marcus Grohmann, has had a very enlightening book chapter published. It is not an easy read. But it says some important things. Let me point to one of them. Many of us think that, to help ‘Africa’, we should include Africans as much as possible in what we (Westerners) are doing. That is great in a way, but … The ‘but’ is, that it means that Africans are always being encouraged to imitate ‘us’ and do our thing rather than doing their own thing. Often Western organisations are far more prosperous than anything African people can set up on their own. Luring people to follow ‘us’ can be crippling for Africa – everything that happens has origins in the West. Everything only runs as long as the West is ‘supportive’. It runs on a logic that indigenous people don’t get. In this sense, the best thing one can do for Africa, is not to ‘include them in everything we in the West do’, but rather the opposite, keep them excluded, so they can do their own thing. Very very difficult! The book is entitled: Transcultural Entanglements: new perspectives for the study of intercultural theology and religions. (This is an interpretation by me of what Grohmann wrote. It is my own interpretation, which he may or may not agree with.)
Jim
Key Information
Jim is: Chair of the Governing Board, Alliance for Vulnerable Mission
Koordinator des Erweiterten Vorstands, Allianz für Verletzliche Mission
Jim’s Research output
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Jim’s Partnership with Stewardship Services, UK
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