I’ve been thinking about friendship recently. Almost eight months in, our Australian friends are starting to ask us if we’ve got local friends in Dodoma. Our September supporters’ letter says, ‘We certainly have people we know and talk to on a daily basis — but that’s not necessarily the same as friendship!’
Scot McKnight opens The King Jesus Gospel by relating several stories about the confusion of the word ‘gospel’. He reckons evangelicals by and large use the word to be ‘how you are saved’ and that this results in a culture where the key thing is to get people ‘over the line’. […]
It’s a well known adage that parenthood is an opportunity for everyone else in your life (or randoms who see you at the supermarket) to let loose about how you should be parenting. Even if it’s commentary rather than condemnation, there’s a fair bit of opinion. It’s not hard to […]
Our conversation partners are into exams and holidays but that hasn’t stopped us chatting with students! This week I met J, a third year nursing student. Though he’s a free Pentecostal, he thinks that the most important thing is to be a Christian first. There were two hallmarks of Christianity […]
During our language classes, our tutor acted as cultural interpreter as well. One piece of advice he gave us was to think about what Australians do and then assume the opposite. Here are some ‘opposites’ we’ve been told about or discovered: if you want to protest your innocence, indignance or […]
1. A spare tyre on the back of the car can save the day. We got rear-ended by a van while stuck in traffic, however there was no harm to our car (or us) because the impact was cushioned by the spare tyre. 2. Maps are no one’s friend. The […]
With the start of Ramadan imminent, we chatted with our Muslim conversation partners about religion. We learnt that Ramadan in Swahili is actually ‘Ramadhani’. The ‘dh’ sound is more like ‘th’ and the ‘i’ on the end is an ‘ee’ sound. It sounds like ‘Ramathanee’. We were interested to hear […]
Meet Jesus at uni 