Do you remember the lady at the gate? We’ve seen her a few more times since then, always saying she’s poor and needs food, but always with a different story. Sometimes multiple stories in the one day or the one conversation. She’s very skinny; she doesn’t look healthy; she’s shabbily […]
Should we seek God’s guidance in the mundane things? To an Aussie this might seem a bit absurd, especially if it’s the truly ordinary things, like the morning choice between Weetbix and Vegemite toast. Surely we need to begin at a higher level. Life direction. That’s where God’s will really […]
We ran our first semina at St John’s University last month. It’s a new initiative for the chaplaincy with two big aims: uniting the fellowships, and offering something relevant and engaging to students. When I say ‘we’, I mean Arthur and I initiated it and facilitated getting the fellowships together, […]
It is a very humbling thing to be the one white person in a lecture about black literature. My cheeks burned as the shameful theology of the Sons of Ham was recounted to explain why westerners have looked down on African people for centuries. I felt my own presence questioned […]
As we’ve held meetings with student leaders, we’ve been able to observe how they come to decisions. For example, when we ask for volunteers, no one steps forward. Even those who have been speaking up with strong opinions for the whole meeting will not step forward to volunteer themselves.
We’ve been planning with student leaders for an upcoming ‘semina’, like a day conference. One of the issues that came up was whether we should have a ‘sadaka’, meaning ‘offering’ or ‘sacrifice’. This is a collection, taken up at the end of a meeting. It happens at just about every […]
I’m now a month into my Swahili literature course at university. I’ve got some answers to the questions I had after my first week. For example, I know that Aristotle was only briefly mentioned in that lecture because there was more coming up on him, including some quite extensive readings. […]
Meet Jesus at uni 