‘Does it matter when we arrive?’ I ask. ‘Oh, be free, be free!’ ‘Is it OK?’ ‘Of course. Be free. We will enjoy.’ My friend and I are speaking in English. ‘Be free?’ It makes perfect sense to him, and it’s not hard for me to work out what he […]
‘Missionaries from the West like to hit the ground running to solve as many of other people’s problems as possible in the increasingly short term they have available for service…’ Uh oh. In this series we’ll explore the book Theory to Practice in Vulnerable Mission by Jim Harries. Vulnerable mission is a way […]
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 […]
Cross Cultural Partnerships by Mary Lederleitner is quickly moving up my ‘to read’ list. It will be a valuable resource as we think about sustainability in student ministry but we are already faced with considerable ethical issues around money. Apart from beggars, sellers hassling us in town, and bargaining at […]
Tolerate ambiguity. Reserve judgement. It’s not wrong, it’s just different. These are the phrases we repeat over and over to ourselves as we navigate culture adjustment. We’re working hard to ask questions rather than pronounce on things. Our default is to assume that things aren’t the way they seem to […]
It was a great privilege this week to go to a prayer meeting with some of our Sudanese brothers and sisters, continuing a partnership Arthur developed while we were at Ridley. These men and women are amazing. In the past, they’ve faced staggering hardship and have clung to Jesus. In […]
When I began this series in 2010, we were part way through the CMS Australia application process. Now we’re nearing the end of the final stage, the five-month intercultural training course. For the past few years, however, we’ve been working on partnerships. One dimension of this is the online tools […]
Meet Jesus at uni 