A few weeks back I saw a notice for the St John’s University Women’s Group while I was walking on campus. I had no idea what it was but thought it would be good to investigate. When I turned up, I discovered that I already knew a few of the […]
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, […]
In the last few months, our role at St John’s University has amplified again. Student fellowships frequently run events that are relevant and engaging to students, and this semester we have attempted to do the same on behalf of the chaplaincy. Like day conferences, they’re called seminas. We ran the first […]
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. […]
As we continue learning about life in Tanzania, one huge area that we haven’t explored much is ‘the village’. Something like 75% of Tanzanians live in villages. While we are working in an urban context, many students come to university from a village. Additionally, ‘village Tanzania’ seems to contribute significantly […]
Meet Jesus at uni 