End-month news May 2025
Jimoharries@gmail.com
Back to Narnia
The Narnia feeling is often strong when I come to Tanzania. Especially when I come up the hills to a place called Mbulu. It can seem like a lost world … in which much still goes on much as it did hundreds of years ago. That is only partly true. Things are changing at a pace. It still feels a great honour to be able to be here though.
I am to be here in Mbulu, hopefully, for up to 6 days. I am to go to a particular church, where a friend of mine is the pastor, tomorrow. Beyond that, I do not yet know. Often when I come here, many people are very keen for me to assist them in doing ministry here and there. I anticipate that this will be the case this time around.
God willing, I remain with about 4 weeks in total in Tanzania before returning to Kenya.
Great News!
I have for many years been involved in a church plant, in a very Islamic rural area near the Babati Bible school. In 2019 some enthusiastic students made a major effort to assist the pastor, then also a fellow student, to reach out to the people around his new church building, made of timber offcuts hurriedly put together in a piece of farmland. It was hard work, and seemed to offer little chance for success … I visited repeatedly over the years. The church seemed to be a small discouraged group ‘hanging on’ amongst great opposition. To cap it all – a neighbouring church would compete with this church on a Sunday by turning their loudspeaker on high-volume. One could routinely simultaneously hear both church services from either church!
The bicycle I am using this year, to get around in Tanzania.
Fast forward to 2025 … the pastor, who lives right on-site, is now married and a father of three. He built a kiosk – not to make money, he told me, but so that neighbouring Muslims could use buying something as an excuse to come and see him. He adjusted to their way of greeting; As-salamu alaykum. In due course, they were happy to call him ‘pastor’. They were impressed by how he lives in peace. They freely attend special events he puts on – ‘celebrations’. They come to him for counsel. They and their children are challenged to consider becoming believers …
‘Getting Weaker’
What does one do when age-related weakness increases? Well, obvious answer, if you can no longer work effectively on the mission field, ‘go home’! Yet, I have long been convicted, that a missionary who gets weak (due to age / sickness) ought if possible to stick around! It’s tempting to show ‘Africa’ only our strong side. As if we (Westerners) are super men who never grow old. Yet we do … and is that cause to run away? Or is it to swallow humble pills, to rejoice that the next generation has taken over, and continue to glorify God in all that happens even if one can participate less actively?
“I am Joseph!”
I shared a 10-minute version of the life of Joseph as portrayed in the book of Genesis, to a couple in a home I visited with a Tanzanian pastor a few days ago. My (male) host listened more than intently. When I had finished, he boldly declared “I am Joseph”! I was confused at first. I couldn’t recall his name. Then I realized he wasn’t called Joseph. He was identifying with the character I had described, someone whose efforts to be honest and hard-working had turned his family against him. Our host had sweated hard, and made careful financial decisions, so that he succeeding in growing his business. An outcome; shunning by his relatives. His relatives refused assistance he offered them, he explained. “They did those envy-envy things you know,” he added, looking at my pastor colleague. (Our whole conversation was in Swahili.) He probably did not realise that his discourse was, to me, yet again confirming my suspicion, that Africa’s (and humanity’s) problem number one, is envy.
In other words, people’s main problem is when other people seem to do better than they do! I shook my head in amazement (in a way that my colleagues would not have noticed) as I reflected on this. I studied African development in the 1990s. Scholars were certain at the time, that ‘religion’, including those who told the good news of Jesus, was like a blight preventing development from occurring. To help Africa required getting rid of such interference and concentrating on money and technology, they believed. 30 years later, I am concluding in reverse that the key to African (human, everywhere!) development, is helping people to cope with their envy, and that of others. The account of the life of Joseph in Genesis is just one Biblical story that points out how to overcome envy. The whole Bible has the same message. The key to African development, lies in dedication to the Bible!
Musoma
See here a recording of the graduation ceremony of the Mennonite Theological college near Musoma in Kenya that occurred on 17th May 2025. I was not in attendance as I am a few hundred miles away teaching at another college in Tanzania. Many on the video are my students, and fellow teachers, who I’ve ministered with in recent months.
A Big Hill in the Middle!
To get to this church, requires a one-hour climb on my bicycle up a big hill. Then, 45 minutes further with ups and downs. Nestling at the foot of the escarpment of the great Rift valley of East Africa, is the building people meet in here pictured, at the village of Bermi. It’s been my honour to visit them one Sunday annually, sharing God’s word with them, for 4-plus years now.
In Favour of Vulnerable Mission
Please pray for the ongoing work of the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission). I have just drafted a paper, that I want to offer to present to students of the University of Nairobi. Between other work, I continue to do a lot of writing, plus editing, of my work and that of others. Meanwhile we are hoping that the AVM will be core to a large research project that is to be based in a university in S. Africa.
Yours,
Jim Harries