Red Twin and I have been talking about contextualisation: the necessity and complication of putting off your own culture to live in another. It’s always a compromise. Everyone draws the line somewhere different. But it’s more complex than simply working out what you’re comfortable with. What do those in your current country think? For […]
Let me paint two pictures of Tanzanian church services. The first is a Good Friday service. It’s long and the ministers are dressed up in their robes. It’s an Anglican service. And there’s something familiar about the way the congregation responds: the mumbled words after the Bible reading, the faces […]
Each Good Friday we pause to consider the son of God hanging on a cross, humiliated, broken and weak. And for many of us, I suspect that this is deeply guilt inducing. We know we should feel thankful but we secretly formulate this year’s list of sins: gossip, nagging, making-good-things-ultimate, […]
Cathy Ross’ lecture on women’s perspectives on contextual missiology offers a fascinating discussion of the role of women in missions and how we are to view this from both a Christian and feminist perspective. First, the situation. Historically we know that women have been deeply engaged in the work of mission, […]
Instead of learning about babies in Tanzania at the baby clinics yesterday, I learnt a lot about Tanzanian culture and myself. For a start, I learnt the difference between wazungu treatment and wageni treatment. The first is for white people and it’s about making Tanzania look good to westerners; the […]
eating: rice and beans. missing: dark chocolate (any chocolate!) learning: ‘African babies do not cry’ is a myth – at least according to the baby next door! making: passionfruit curd, mousse, ice blocks, slice – our vines are prolific! thinking about: how stress manifests. Neither of us feel particularly stressed […]
We finished the ‘beginner’ Swahili textbook last week. What does that mean? Grammatically, we can now give reasons and explain consequences, use relative pronouns, describe things and people, include time references, make comparisons, and say things in both the active and passive voices. Conversationally, we can talk not just about […]
Meet Jesus at uni 