Mid-month news October 2025
Dear Friends,
Making Sense of Africa
I always find this when I come to the UK. Discourse in the UK constantly deprecates the reality of life in contemporary Africa. It is constant! Almost every reference to (sub-Saharan) Africa seems to be based on some kind of misunderstanding. The assumption, is of similarity, parallels, same-ness, the possibility of profound mutual comprehension, and so on. In other words, British people at all costs, it seems, want African people to be much the same as them. They will not accept anything different. Ironically, many seem not to realise the implicit ethnocentrism that underlies this endeavour.
When the Change Begins in Us
Click on this image for more information on our January webinar.
Mum
After 6 weeks or so in Basingstoke and then Winchester hospitals, mum has a place in a nursing home in Whitchurch. Wessex Lodge Nursing Home is just 7 miles from Andover, a relatively convenient place for dad to visit, and near a train station for those from further afield. Pray that mum finds her feet there, and settles into a pattern of life that will be a healing for her.
Conferences
I last week attended some conferences put on by Global Connections, the UK evangelical coordinating body for global mission. Give thanks for wonderful opportunities to get to renew friendships and get to know people working in and for UK based mission organisations, as well as to receive teaching, and discuss key issues pertaining to global mission.
Bicycles available
I have been given the responsibility for disposing of two of mum’s old bicycles. One is an as-good-as-new foldable bicycle. The other is a 7-gear comfortable (with a good suspension) multi-sex bicycle that mum used to use. Anyone interested please let me know. The bicycles are in Andover, Hampshire. Must go before end of October.
Kenya News
As usual when I am in the UK, I don’t have much news from Kenya. I trust that ‘no news is good news’. I now have just two school-children at my home. A third will be joining them next month. Only one of these three is under 18. She is under the immediate care of a registered Kenyan foster carer.
Academic Writing
I am, in my recent academic writing, questioning the assumption that African underdevelopment is due to a lack of resources, education and knowledge. My observation increasingly is that Africa’s ‘problem’ is its predilection to envy. The effects of this envy are nowadays being mitigated by the impact of the Gospel through churches all over the continent. Deep transformation is happening in the lives of people. When envy is considered causative of misfortune, material / physical causation is occluded. Thus overcoming fear of envy is the beginning of ‘progress’, science and technology. People’s deep desire for equality that underlies envy generates poverty. Please pray that people who read my articulations will comprehend and perceive the centrality of the need for the Gospel of Jesus.
I am demonstrating that the underlying issue facing people is sin. The fundamental sin of humanity I am pointing to, is focusing on being better than others instead of on glorifying God.
Academic writing continues to occupy my spare moments while I am in the UK. Editing and correcting documents requires a lot of time and effort. When successful, my articles acquire high visibility. Academic writing is a major means by which the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) is impacting widely through scholarly audiences. Please continue to pray for the Director of the AVM Dr. Marcus Grohmann, especially in his preparations and fundraising for a large multidisciplinary research project based at a South African university. The project will explore ways in which missionary vulnerability and weakness (using local languages and resources) enables profound communication and a deep sharing of the Gospel of Jesus.
Around England
As I write, I am travelling to Norwich. From there, I go to Birmingham, then to York, back to Derby, and home to Andover, on my quick tour of England, visiting churches, friends, and supporters.
Jim