The Problem with My Prius

Toyota Prius

Now this be a simple bit of piggybacking on the latest news, but maybe, just maybe there is a lesson in the current ‘Toyota’ fiasco for all of us. The last two weeks have seen a bit of a hullabaloo over one or two minor faults with some of toyota’s cars. Normally I wouldn’t be interested as most of this is a media storm. However, I own a Toyota Prius, and was going to sell it before we move to Africa later this year.

That ‘timing’ in some ways is really quite funny. I’d been looking forward to getting a bumper pay cheque for my car… they are not cheap. This would give us some money to do this and then to do that. So the week I’m considering this, the manufacturer temporarily implodes. What rotten luck…..

We can put our faith in many things, and one of the most normal things in the world is to trust our own ability to provide and work out a given situation. In a way, that is exemplified by me looking forward to getting the money from selling the car. I was pleased that with our impending move, we’d have plenty of money coming in and everything would be ok. Who wouldn’t be pleased? the central question is where is my trust?

The media has also gone into overdrive and maybe we can learn a lesson from this. We understand our world from the information that we receive about it. Have Toyota’s suddenly become bad cars, well probably not. Honda just issued a recall themselves, other manufacturers do it as a matter of routine. However, the media have hyped it so much that we suddenly believe everything has gone wrong. Our view of the world can be similarly mis-informed. The messages we constantly face from our society are accumulate more, anything goes etc. etc. This over time can have an effect upon us. We believe something that is not true. 

Those two questions of where do I put my trust and what am I believing are actually linked. If our trust is in money, if we believe that money makes the world go around, then we will also be very distressed if money is not coming in, if we are not attaining that level of material success. I for one, am really trying to believe that faith in God makes this world go around. Then to do anything in this world is simply a case of trusting Him.

So as a couple of grand is wiped off the value of my Prius, I’ll smile Jude when I occasionally get worried about fiscal events and cash flow, sas Jon, “it’s only money”….

The Pope speaks out…

So Pope Ratzinger speaks out against the proposed equality laws in the United Kingdom, and in the same day i return to blogging. A coincidence, move of God, we may never know…

However, it does give me a subject for this blog post, namely the popes comments about the freedom of religion in the United Kingdom. If you want to look what all the fuss is about look here.

Well well well, in my opinion these incidents are only going to become far more common.

Why is that? If you are a secularist or a humanist, religion is pushed to the private sphere of life and becomes inconsequential. That shift, means that a value judgement is made about religious belief, ie. it becomes something that really isn’t publicly very important at all.

That is why the following quote makes sense to those who are not religious

Jonathan Finney, from gay rights group Stonewall, told BBC Radio 5 live: “People should not be denied access to services and employment purely because they are gay.

The fact of the matter, is that it very much depends how you are looking at this. If a religious organisation doesn’t think homosexuality is correct moral behaviour, are they not entitled to believe it? Does this debate not impinge on their rights and equality for them.

Again, secular society would say no, but that can only be correct if the opinion of secular society weighs more heavily than that of a religious institution. Unfortunately in the UK at the moment, that seems to be the case.

The argument is logically and practically, nonsense. That will not stop the pope from being battered for this though and this subject will come up again and again.

Religion is not purely a private matter. I lead a charity, Dignity that makes it a public matter, by helping those who know God to practically transform situations around them in rural Africa. In the UK, the leading provider of youth services is the church. Those who think Christian Faith is inconsequential should maybe start paying for the services and sacrifice that society receives. Then we would see just how on the margins the church truly is.

True Equality in society means dialogue and understanding, not wittling things down to the lowest common denominator. It means that foes can come together, those who disagree can live together in harmony. It may surprise people to hear that not everyone in the church agrees on many things, but we live, love God and work together anyway. Maybe just maybe that’s a much better model for our society.

By the way, I think those who are homosexual are always welcome in the Church…… so if you think I’m having a bash, grow up and read my post again.

Good on the pope for having the guts to speak out.

The Seasons

Well we’ve been back in the UK some 4 weeks now. One thing that really seems obvious is the difference in temperature that is a constant reminder that I am not in Africa. It’s a funny thought that was brought home to me when I spoke to Cornelius in Zambia. Last night, here it was -3 degrees, in Zambia it was 27! Seasons are so intrinsic to our lives, we simply cannot get away from them.

It was that thought that I shared with my board this Saturday as we met. Based upon Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, we talked about what seasons meant and how they worked. Like our very country, I do believe that God gives everything and everyone seasons with which to work.  For a few months we have believed that Dignity was facing a new season. Little did I know when I first said that earlier this year, how true it would turn out to be. Since then, I’ve decided to change country, push my foot hard against what God is calling us to do and to try and accelerate.

When you read Ecclesiastes, it presents you almost with a sense of futility about our life. We sow and reap, we live then die etc. Nothing seems to matters. But there is hope, in v14, it says that whatever God does stands for ever. Maybe God’s intervention in our life and in our world is like an Indian Summer (an unseasonally warm spell), a welcome change from the futility that an pervade our existence. When God’s season shows up, it can even bring light, direction, life and purpose to the very seasons we all find ourselves in. What God does, when we get caught up in it, makes a difference for everyone.

In Africa and for Dignity, I believe the season is changing, and very rapidly. There was a time where mission was all about Jesus, that has faded. However the season must change again. This time, in servant hearted work and empowerment, the gospel must go forward again, through the very people in Africa. This is no season for heroes, or dominance, it is time to give power away and to embrace everything that God wants to do. You see when a new season is presenting itself, there are things to do.

You must plant with the new season in mind, that’s why in Africa everyone plants as the rains are going to arrive. Sometimes even when the seasons of our life are changing, we feel a tug in our hearts that we cannot ignore. This isn;t failure, emotionalism or stupidity. It’s God’s call at the base of our beings to do something different. What does that mean for you?

The thing is, if we don;t respond to the season, it soon passes. There is a time where it is too late to do anything. Jesus encouraged us to work whilst it is day. People starve if they don’t plant before a season. What will the consequence be for our life and others if we do not align ourselves to what God is bringing?

Conversely, if you plant in season and the season does not fail, then you reap a harvest. There is fruit for everyone and everything.

For Dignity, for me, this is a time to sow, to plant and to work hard. A new season is approaching. That is true for our work, for myself and my family.

What season is God bringing to you? What will you do with it?

Think about it, it could change your life.

Jon

Villagers for Dinner

It is the last few days of my current expedition within Zambia. The time seems to have gone so quickly. It is now nearly November and I have been here since July.

The last few weeks have been a flurry of activity. I’ve probably driven nearly 2000 miles in that time as well. Yet despite all of the travelling, it has been really quite fantastic to see the reality of our vision right in front of us, in lots of villagers beginning to take up the task of reaching and helping their own villages.

It is precisely these people that we invited around to our house yesterday. In Mkushi, 12 people came, 6 of whom are the new organising team for the Life! Initiative here. The rest were spouses. I was a little tired after getting up at 5am to go to a men’s breakfast, a short distance, some 30 miles away…. I’ll never get used to that here! I then sat around at a bank for bank cards that never came and then went home to meet the villagers.

It’s hard to be hospitable to people from another culture. People don’t talk in the same way or share the same humour. So when surrounded by 12 rural Zambians, the only thing I could think of doing was getting everyone to share their testimony. This went very well and everyone seemed much happier after that.

Perhaps the biggest shock of the afternoon came when I learned that not one of the people in the room had ever been in a Mizungu’s(white persons) house before. Apparently people don’t get invited in usually in this area. In some ways I was quite proud that they were in and we were enjoying time together.

This I guess is the point of this post. I really really believe that God working through these guys, the villagers is the way forward. It is not in more aid or compassion from us. It is in these guys themselves surging forward. Many people even here believe that some kind of intervention from the outside will work. It won’t. Our lives are too different. So in everything, I’m trying to help those in the bush to reach the bush. That means they are my friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters in this task that the Lord has given me to do.

How could I not invite them into my home?

When people do not invite someone they are saying that they are different, probably better than the person not being invited in. I cannot agree with that. It would destroy some of the very principles I am trying to live and work by. God has arranged beauty and dignity in every person I meet, especially the villagers.

Africa’s only hope is to believe and recognise that.

For me and Jude that means to try and immerse ourselves in what God is doing in the rural areas of Africa. A new day is dawning, a wave of God that will release many rural people. This is the future in Africa.

It is also our future.

From early 2010 Jude and I will take a step towards directing this work in a more full time fashion. That means, if the Lord allows and if it is right, that we will move to Zambia for at least 9 mths next year, and perhaps more the next.

It’s the logical thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. It is our calling. It’s time that our life aligned to what we are called to do.

Having some villagers for dinner is really just the beginning.

Life 2009

I just wrote this for Dignity’s website. Thought I would also post it here!

It’s hard to imagine that just over 2 months ago, we arrived in the area of Mkushi, central Zambia. We arrived knowing a few spurious contacts and simply having a sense that we should be here. Within 24 hours of our arrival, accommodation and firm contacts with villages had materialised. It can be eye opening when you walk in the presence and enabling of God.

Fast forward two months and the work has opened up very well indeed. This year our work has been spread over 3 locations, here in Mkushi, Nchelenge in Luapula province and supporting some further growth in Lufwanyama area near Chingola. In each of the new locations, our goal is the same, to see community groups of villagers come together to begin studying the Bible together using a course called Rooted In Jesus. We are also trying to form small groups of leaders who can carry on the work and make it their own. These are the first steps in what we call the Life! Initiative! We really believe that God wants to begin a movement of people in the bush that will take their part in transforming the very communities they live in.

Over the last few weeks we have been spending time with villagers in Mkushi helping them to think through how to get the community together and then how to lead them. We visited Nchelenge to help our friend Cornelius build relationships in the villages to begin the work. Whist very fragile we were impressed at how many villages were represented from what is a remote and very rural location. Then in Lufwanyama a team from the UK has visited to inspire some villagers to have ideas and to begin to do them in the areas that they live. To begin our work in a village we get the community together and do a group session, then show the Jesus Film to encourage them. It’s usually a big event, it is not every day that a cinema comes to town. We have found this event is a foundational time for different community groups to actually come to something together.

The heart of all this change is the gospel and in particular the good news of jesus Christ expressing itself through people. It is our belief that through Jesus, we can be forgiven by God and set free from our own selfishness to meet the needs of others. There are many powerful ideas in rural Africa, from witchcraft and poverty to a lack of hope that manifests itself in dependency. Another powerful idea is needed to bring things back on track. The Christian Gospel it that very idea!

Some of the most encouraging things we have seen are the lives of people change. People have become Christians and they have got involved in their village. That is perhaps the lubrication and hope that keeps us going. To work in the bush is hard. It can be frustrating and discouraging but, it is when you see a change that you are encouraged to continue.

The next 4 weeks see two conferences happen in Mkushi and Nchelenge and the planting of many village groups in both areas. It’s a busy time! The most exciting thing is not the fact that we are working, it is that God himself is working in the lives of those who are villagers. They are learning that God can and will use them in the plans he has for their lives and their communities.

I often say that the work of Dignity is about people. I really do believe that as a result of our work, God’s Dignity will come to a whole new wave of villagers, who desperately need to hear and experience it.

The Corridors of Power

By Zambian standards, Rhapsody’s is a rather plush restaurant in the Arcades shopping mall in Lusaka. Whilst waiting for my car to be serviced I sat there, having a coke or two and using the wireless network of some company who have not been wise enough to secure it. It really is a nice place to relax. As I used my phone to write emails and the like, I became aware that everything going on around me was all about power.

Next to me sat three english people, 1 woman, 2 men. All smartly dressed, I overheard the words, “I’ll be at Gatwick tomorrow”, this pricked my attention and I started to listen in the subtle way that you do when you are eavesdropping. They were obviously from some NGO in Lusaka and they obviously had not been close to anyone in the areas and regions that they were talking about. Experts we would call them. A detached objective viewpoint. And yet, these people wielded expert power as a consultant. Their decision actually affect thousands of people. Yet, I wander if they know those people? I wander if they have a say or a viewpoint. Consultants don’t have a good name in Africa and I can see why.

On the other table was sat a demure looking Zambian lady, with a rather loud American talking to them from a powerpoint presentation on a laptop screen. Whilst I couldn’t hear the conversation I could see the dynamics of what was going on. Basically, the American was saying, “If you’ll only do this then everything will be OK”. No doubt because of funding or status, her Zambian friend was never going to disagree.

It’s all to do with power, and power is a real problem here. The consultants, the salesman, all they are peddling is power, influence whilst taking a payment of power and influence themselves. If you link to an NGO, you have power and as a result they have power as well….. it all stinks……

Michael in Mkushi told me a story of when he was invited to a certain white mans house. He had to wait outside whilst the man finished his breakfast. Michael decided that this was not a man to work with. Again power is the problem….

Then how about another friend who believed that we should do everything through him. With an over-bloated sense of ego he believes he is the gateway of everything. Unfortunately for him, God has other ideas and has simply circumnavigated him.

I struggle with this dynamic here, it really is insidious.

Yet there are people who don’t seek power, who don’t want to own it all. They encourage me greatly. I really believe that these are the people who really know God here. They are the one’s that are humble, the one’s that give power away and let a multitude of people live in the blessing of that. They don’t get political because they don’t need to, harmful politics come from a defence and grasp of power.

I really want to emulate these people. I want to be one of them. In my time here I haven’t mentioned the name of Dignity once to any of the villagers. Why? because for them to change their villages, who I am or work for is not important. It is Jesus who is. I try not to use any title that I may have, I just go by the name Jon, not even pastor!

I find this route tremendously challenging. Why? It’s challenging because somewhere in our life we’ve been taught that to leave a legacy means control and ownership of people. We haven’t been taught to give power away and be anonymous. The legacy we should leave behind is free people who have the freedom to do what your ‘given away’ power has enabled them to do. Maybe there are no thank yous , no accolades, in fact nothing… Maybe just the fact that your Father knows you have done the right thing.

I wander which one is more powerful? A legacy that dies when you die, or something that runs away from you in the hearts and minds of many people?

You decide…

The Call

Well it’s late in the afternoon, about 35 degrees and I’ve just ordered a Chicken Mayonnaise sandwich after lounging by a pool all afternoon. Such a hard life I know. If you hadn’t guessed by now I’m having a little time to recharge the batteries. I’m in Botswana, staying at a swanky safari lodge near Chobe National park. The kids have gone out with Jude on a game drive and I’m enjoying some ‘downtime’, aka. ‘kid free time’.

The thing is though, when I relax I start to think, my mind wanders aimlessly and then centers on a purpose, sometimes with quite devastating clarity. When I’m rushing around I sometimes don’t see the ‘wood for the trees’, however, when I stop, my thinking can be so much more God centered and effective.

In Jeremiah, which is a book of the Bible, it talks about the plans of God and how we interact with them.

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” declares the Lord.

Mulling it over this afternoon, lying by the pool I saw something that despite my reading this many times, I just had not appreciated. It’s simple really, but the plan exists first, the intention to prosper you and not harm you, exists first, then you start to seek God, you begin to follow him and you begin to find this God that has a plan for you. Now many of you will be thinking, well yes doh! Jon I knew that all along. Well maybe I did as well, but it just kinda hit me between the eyes this afternoon. What God seems to be saying is hey! JON! don’t worry follow me, trust me and it’s all going to work out, but follow me!

In our work and life at the moment this has tremendous significance. Something that has made me hesitate slightly in following what I believe is God’s lead in recent times is my children. How will things work out for them? How does our family work in running after the call of God? Jude and I have done many many things in many places, but those questions are always ‘live’. So after much deliberation and thought, my answer is I simply don’t know, but I’m going to have to trust God with it.
More than that, I really want to trust God with it.

Another thought I had was what happens if you do not follow God’s leading? If you like it is turning the question around. Let me quote Ravi Zacharias, I thought this was so profound I’m just going to quote it.

“So I apply a closing caution to every reader: God wants none of us to perish…Every one of God’s creation he wishes to preserve. His design for you is the best thing he has for you. Let God hold the threads so that you will some day see the beauty and marvel he had in mind when he created you. But there is a second application, if you fail to find this design, the biggest price you may pay is your children or those who look to you as an example. As you let God’s design be worked out in you, you will see it’s impact in others and for generations.”

Zacharias. Ravi, The Grand Weaver, pp. 171-172, Zondervan, 2007.

It has echoes of the Bible. What about those who love their lives in this world, and then they end up losing them? I don’t think that this is simply talking about eternity, It is talking about life in the here and now. As humans we seek to protect our loved ones, protect our finances, save for a rainy day. Some of that may have wisdom, but in hoarding life to ourselves, I really do believe that we risk losing it.

The last two or three years have been a strange time for me. At times I think Jude and myself have slightly floundered a little, wandering exactly where God is calling us, and what he is calling us to. However in recent times, we don’t have that same fuzziness, but maybe I think God was helping us as people to develop, rather than doing more things? Maybe that’s what the Lord has wanted us to really get a handle on? I don’t know, it helps me make sense of the last couple of years in a calling sense anyway. One thing I have realised it that all it takes is my obedience, the outworking isn’t anything to do with me. I do believe I am gifted at what I do, BUT IT REALLY is God who does that work in me. In any case, I see all of my failings, some of you reading this will never know about them! Or actually maybe you do…. don’t tell me, you’ll just get me discouraged. I suffer with that enough sometimes with the enemy constantly pressing that button in me.

One of the hardest things has been transformation in relationships as our direction has become clearer. There are many people I know who used to think that I stood for doing good things abroad. Well that isn’t really true, I stand for Jesus abroad, and for his Church to be a catalyst of change in rural communities everywhere. I really don’t believe the provision of ‘things’ changes anything, it’s all about God and poeple. As that has come more to the fore, some people have distanced themselves, maybe even I have distanced them, not knowingly, more just started walking in another direction. In some ways that pains me because I’m a very relational person.

Why am I writing this? Maybe because I realise that I and my work, are at the end of a season, the season of getting the direction right, of laying foundations. A new season is coming and it promises to be a season of God’s leading and I believe of Him doing some great things. All it takes to enter that new season is obedience, obedience to His call.

Here in Botswana I think I’m up for it, maybe considering the above quote, I can’t afford to not be up for it.

To defeat evil

I’m sat serruptitiously writing this blog post on my iPhone sat at the front of a conference. All around me people are praying quietly and well I’m no getting a word of this session at all. That because it is in Bemba, a language here in Zambia. St francis Anglican church nchelenge is built of concrete blocks. There are bear roof trusses with tin sheets for the roof. The temperature in the sun is upper thirties atthe moment, so it can become quite unbearable as the day goes on. At the gable ends of the church the bricks are not fully to the height of the roof, giving anything an unfinished look.

We are here running life conference which is what we do when some groups have begun to happen in an area. We are up near the congo by the side of lake mweru. To be honest it feels good to be here. That for me is significant as many times ove the last week, good is the last thing I have been feeling.

There are many well entrenched attitudes and mind sets that are to be undone. A lack of hope, dependence upon the outside are some examples. These are spiritual entities, and they must be undone through right spirituality and practice. In short by doing the work we are doing you are making an assault upon everything that would seek to keep the villages in darkness and hopelessness.

Funnily enough this comes at a cost sometimes. I sometimes suffer from anxiety. It is sometimes very prevalent just usually before I embark on some expedition or another. I wander sometimes if the enemy stirs that up around me just to make things difficult.

Then there are more subtle attacks. A powerful opportunity we have seen here is to help godly like minded villagers teach one another to help others. In doing this you practically undermine the idea that those from the outside are those who can change things. Ie. You oppose dependency. However other things come into the mix like selfishness and greed. There is a man who is great with bees who could help one of our teams to develop this. It was all looking rosy until I saw his proposed budget. He wanted about 6 months wage to do one session. Is this opportunism or somehing deeper. Lets sa I let him do it at a revised budget. He comes along teaches them and then wants to come again and again. Within time he has built his own little empire. He has created power within something hat we are trying to be giving power away. In short even though the practical outlet may be good. He spiritually stands for somehing else. He stands for the old way of feathering your own nest not a sharing of help and working together. So if we let him in he is swimming in another direction and as a person who wants to defend our young movement I have decided to not let him in. Rather than responding to the pressure of getting something done (and that is the problem of most mission sometimes) I want to let the correct attitudes and mind set grow from the correct soil. It is subtle but ever so important.

Mission is not about getting things done. Is is not primarily about helping people. Mission is about Jesus transforming people who then love and through them whole communities are changed.

Spirituality in this is everything. I look back over the las week and see all of the subtle attacks that have been done. Through discernment I can see where they are coming from and what will result if I am not alert.

The nature of our warfare is to die to ourselves, honour Jesus and love people. The end never justifies the means and the way we do something is perhaps more important than what we do. Problem is, most of us in the UK just don’t get that. In our rush for Influence we compromise ourselves to power fame and celebrity. Never realising that as we do so we our destroying the very thing we are trying to build.

The character of what we do is the only way to defeat evil in this world

The Death of Us

6 am Saturday Morning and we were off. A common misconception is that Africa is always hot, well it certainly wasn’t that morning. A mild layer of frost clothed the grass in the early dawn light. A bracing start to the day. The temperature is something to do with the river position and hilly nature of the area we are living – a temperature inversion. I’m sure the geographers reading this will explain all…

Africa is lots of early starts and this was no exception. A 500 mile journey north to the very north of Zambia and the sprawling village town of Nchelenge. It’s a little remote. Let’s put it this way, Nchelenge is not well known, many of the farmers in this area responded, “Where?” when told of our destination. It is not a path well travelled at all. Fuel can be scarce, so it must be carried. The route takes you past Kasanka National Park, the Kabanga Marshes and the Luapula Bridge. Then it’s past Lake Bangweulu. Then finally after a great distance by the shores of Lake Mweru and the Congo border is Nchelenge. At one point the road was perfectly straight for 50km, that’s 30 miles without even a hint of a bend in the road.

So why did we go this far? The answer is that God is doing something in the hearts of some villagers and we felt we could not ignore it. Mission is less of a well laid plan, rather a riding of a wave, God’s wave. It certainly doesn’t always happen in the same place that’s for sure. A friend Cornelius has got together with a few others and has begun something. Over 3 days we met many people from many villages who at some place in their being have a heart to try something different. They don’t want their communities to be divided anymore, they want to see the power of God move. Strangely enough, we are the outside influence to help that to happen.

Whether in an Anglican Church, a sun drenched and baking hot rural Catholic Church or a local school the story was the same. Rather than sell a vision of what could happen, we thought we would demonstrate it. We gathered different people, christian and non – christian and them come together. Even some Jehovah’s Witnesses came along. THe learnt together, prayed together and saw that they too had a contribution to make, perhaps the most important contribution, to give themselves to God’s work.

What do we live for? What legacy do we want to leave behind? What will you be known for? Cornelius and myself challenged these villagers with those very questions. Sometimes I feel saddened meeting those who have nothing. They are beautiful people for the most part, hard working but held down by a belief that they cannot do anything themselves. They actually have so much that we do not, and yet, they see nothing of it at all. I really do believe that the Devil’s work in poverty is to blind people to their own treasure. And yet, when they begin to see it, the results are beautiful. It helps me to overcome the cynicism and lack of faith that can grip your soul in this work. They can leave a legacy that lasts, a legacy built by God in people.

Our initiative is working, slower that I expected but it is working. It’s slower because it’s working at the people’s pace. Stories are beginning to emerge, people are changing. Just last week, 2 villagers came from Chingola to help those in Mkushi. Next week a villager from Mkushi is going to Chingola to help with bee keeping. They are beginning to be missionaries to their own people. It will take a while to emerge, but the fire is smoldering, beginning to burn.

The thing that bothers me slightly it that I can see where this is going. I can see that this is going to grow. The Lord is opening doors for us and the cost will not simply be an early start and a 500 mile drive. For myself, it will cost a lot more, for my family too. It’s not just me though, there are people the Lord has placed in many places and it will cost them too. It will cost a great deal, but then there was no battle in history that didn’t cost to fight. Make no mistake about it, what we are trying to do is raise an army of the poor and the downtrodden who will lead the poor and the downtrodden. There can be no other way. We’ve got to fight against the selfishness, sin and apathy that typify this continent and kill it. It’s a war, but a war of love and of good conscience.

For me, maybe it’ll be the death of me, but that’s precisely the way God wants it. The hardest discipline in the Christian Life is to die to yourself. Yet, this is the very characteristic we want to pray and act towards making happen in the rural villages of Zambia. So we’re looking for the move that God is doing, at the moment we’re in Chingola, Mkushi and Nchelenge, and the fire is beginning to burn.

I thought the other day about the CS Lewis and the phrase in his books that, “Aslan is on the move”. The great lion king in the stories moving to a great victory. In this continent, a place ravaged by sin, selfishness, poverty, dependency and everything bad, the great king Jesus is on the move and I intend to follow him.

Myself and I pray hundreds of villagers will join, as He is on the move.

In a good way, I pray that it will be the death of us.

PS. For those who have been pestering Sarah about my biopsy, it was great! All Clear!

Christianity….Raw!

The crowd had slowly gathered, one and two’s then maybe ten twenty, maybe up to three or four hundred. The light had faded and we could begin. The crowd chuckled, ooood and ahhd as we had successfully out-competed the drinking halls and people had gathered together for the evening. It’s unseasonally cold here in the evenings at the moment, so there was a chill in the air. The crowd laughed as Jesus turned the loaves and fishes into food for everyone. They hissed as Jesus was beaten. As Jesus was crucified there was a collective gasp. Robinson, a villager got up to speak.

Five minutes is all he needed, and then he prayed. Maybe 40 people responded and then the shrieks began. A man rolling and writhing around the floor, obviously a man having spiritual trouble. We would say that the man was posessed by a demon. We prayed for him and he was delivered. Some people were crying, others shaking quite violently. One thing we were not was ineffective.

As the film finished and all went dark, many villagers came and thanked us for the film, the presentation and what had happened. The village was Miloso and this was last night. I had gone on my own, as Jude and the kids had been travelling about, and boy it was late. The distances here are huge. I forgot an audio cable, for that omission I had to drive nearly 60 miles. Think of that, and that is local!

The film had not been seen in the village before and it had an impact. This is Christianity, Raw and unbridled. In fact, it is Jesus, raw and unbridled. This is what I do. I talk about Jesus, and try and bring his presence into villages, to some of the most precious people in the world. I really do believe that this is the key to transforming the villages in Africa.

This lunchtime, thirty of us gathered in another village location. This time, representatives of different churches and community groups had come together to see what could be done in the villages. In the last 12 days we have preached, given examples and cojoled people to come together, and it has begun to work. It is in fact hard to believe that it is maybe only 16 days since we began in Mkushi, so much has been done already. I enjoy a freedom and impact that I simply do not have in England, maybe I should start listening to that…..

Two leaders called Ranger and Caspar had come along with us. They are from Lufwanyama where the other Life! team is. This was villager to villager. I thought this could be a quite powerful spin off from our work. In our meeting they encouraged and helped the people to understand what could happen, They had in fact become missionaries in their own country. This is what is needed, a movement of people that changes things. I must admit, I am even more sceptical now that a lot of western mission actually changes anything at all.

People, people, people combined with the Holy Spirit are what is needed to change this world. A side impact, was that there is a cross fertilisation of ideas from villager to villager also, they will in fact help one another. That is a movement and in small ways it has already begun.

I’m tired of the fluffy let’s be polite Christianity that is so normal in my homeland, I want some verve, faith and reality. I see that in the lives of the villagers, I see that in the villages. I see that in the possibility that God will begin something wonderful here. Later this week I’m off to Nchelenge in Northern Zambia. Cornelius a friend has already gathered people. Think of that, we are not having to push everywhere, opportunities are opening up for this work, and we are being invited. Makes a change from just rocking up somewhere and making something happen.

My friends, Love, Passion and Transformation, empowered by the Holy Spirit, by God himself. That is Christianity. Don’t accept any imitation.

It’s Christianity….Raw!