Everybody wants to be unique, to have something about them that nobody else in the world can claim. I think I was the only one in the entire world to have had this experience. It was about ten or fifteen years ago. But let me back up. When we were missionaries in Kenya I read a book called The Lunatic Express, a book about the construction of the railroad from the port city of Mombasa, Kenya that eventually went into Uganda. A great chapter in the book talks about a pair of lions that attacked and killed those who were working on the railroad, and were eventually killed themselves by a hunter.
So years later when I heard that there was a movie made about this, I definitely wanted to see it. The movie is called The Ghost and the Darkness (referring to the names of the two lions), and it starred Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. It is a great movie, but don’t let your young children see it.
The same week I saw the movie I was in Chicago and went to the Museum of Natural History. (I had gone there back in the mid-sixties when we lived in Aurora, IL and wanted to go back and visit again). In that museum are the two stuffed lions from the movie (I believe they are the actual two lions). And just after being in Chicago, I had a trip to Kenya in which we drove from Nairobi to Mombasa, right along the railroad where some of the killings took place.
So, I am certain that I am the only person in the world who, in the same week, 1) saw the movie; 2) saw the stuffed lions; and 3) drove by the spot where some of the actual killings took place.
Anji Barker, serving with Urban Neighbors of Hope in Bangkok, Thailand, is active in community development in the slum of Klong Toey. She has helped dozens of women on the road toward self-sufficiency. One of her great projects involves helping women to utilize their resources. One of the women Anji works with is named Poo (short version of her first name). Anji assisted Poo to use her talents in cooking to initiate a business. Poo has done marvelously and has built quite a reputation. People come from many places to sit in on Poo’s cooking classes. Her cooking classes are a great addition to a trip to Bangkok, and not only do you get some great cooking tips, you are also taken to a local market to pick out the food to be prepared. Best of all, you know that the minimal fee is helping the poor to help themselves.
Another aspect of the business was the publishing of a cookbook, entitled Cooking with Poo. The book has been published and was recently launched in Bangkok with an autographing session. Many books were sold, 300 I believe. In addition, T-shirts had been made, saying, “I cooked with Poo and liked it.” Some 60 T-shirts and aprons were sold.
A local press correspondent from Australia invited the international press corps in Bangkok to a gathering where the book was highlighted. Anji and her husband Ash were there and Ash got to share with the press corps about the plight of the poor around the world. After his short talk, he and Anji were asked many questions by the press. What a great opportunity to highlight ministry to the poor.
Good job Poo, Anji and Ash! Check out their website www.unoh.org and google Urban Neighbors of Hope for other stories.
Wednesday was a super day! This past year we renovated the CMF Mission Services Center. We moved a few walls, replaced some of the art work and totally repainted the office. Rather than one or two colors, we now have half a dozen colors in the various offices and cubicles.
One idea our design team had was to make a “wall of history.” We picked out 50 things of interest, wrote up a little text, and then our artiste’ Joyelle went to work. What a fabulous job she did in pulling it all together. It takes up two walls in the hallway. The walls go around the corner so are at a 90 degree angle, meaning you can walk around the wall of history when you walk down on hallway and then turn left. Interestingly, the walls come together right by my office door so every time I walk out of my office I can see the wall.
I won’t say more because I want you to come and take a look. It really brings CMF history to life. Come and see! Robyn is due here in half an hour to take a look. It will take about 15 minutes to see everything and read everything.
This week we are offering training on CHE and are pleased that twenty-two people have come for the training, one from as far away as Colorado. CHE is a kind of Christian version of ABCD, “Asset Based Community Development.” (Actually, maybe I should have said that the other way around.) As an organization, CMF partners with FAME, a medical mission group. FAME is a strong proponent of the CHE strategy toward community development. CHE stands for Community Health Evangelism, but CHE is not limited to health issues.
Those doing the training this week are Linda Brock and Judy Fish. Both have extensive service in Africa and nowadays spend a good deal of their time in teaching CHE around the world. Some of those taking the training are missionaries, some of members of church missions committees, and some are recruits to work in other countries.
Our CMF home office is fortunate to have a room, the Charles Cook Center, where we can have training sessions for this many people (but not many more!). Charles Cook was an early leader of CMF who stayed with us in a variety of roles for over fifty years. He and his wife Barbara’s photo are on the wall of the room.
I want to introduce you to a new on-line journal: Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis. The link is http://missiodeijournal.com You can download the journal to read or save in pdf format. The issues are themed. The theme of the first issue was “Rediscovering Missio Dei” and the second issue’s theme was “Good News to the Poor.”
The articles are stimulating; as are the responses. Each issue includes book reviews. I discovered the journal when I was asked to submit a book review. When you look at the book review, you can actually hit a button and purchase the book (from amazon I suppose). The journal is in color on your screen.
The editors deserve our thanks for the effort they put into this journal. I hope you will take a look. You do not need to subscribe, the issues are free to read on-line.
This past week-end Robyn and I drove to Kentucky Christian University for the graduation of Allison Thwing. She is the daughter of my cousin Patty, so I think this makes Allison my first cousin once removed or something like that. It was a great family gathering with my aunt Louise and uncle Jerry, cousin LuAnn and her husband Al and son Jacob, the Allison’s family (Don, Patty, Jaime and Peter).
Allison graduated with a degree in nursing. She received the Service award in her nursing school. Besides being Magna Cum Laude, she presented the class response at the graduation, which was quite an honor. We are all proud of her.
Allison was a REACH intern with CMF last summer in Kenya. She wants to get some experience in nursing and then to pursue a Master’s degree in Public Health with an emphasis on world health issues. We hope that turns out to be with CMF!
While at the school I saw my friend David Empson, Director of the National Missionary Convention. David’s daughter was graduating. Good times all around.
Back in Indianapolis, Allison, Patti, LuAnn and Louise stopped in for dinner. They are embarking on a two week driving trip headed back to Oregon. Before dinner we went for a walk in the Ft. Harrison State Park. I saw a prothonotary warbler, first time for me in Indiana. I know right where it is nesting and I am going back later today to try and get a photo. I’d seen this bird several times in Texas and Oklahoma.
Good times all around.
For many reading this blog, the information I am about to share is not new. Remember, I finished my doctoral studies back in 1989, so I have not been doing a ton of work in the library. A lot of my writing is done with the aid of current books since I write mainly about current topics.
When I got my Kindle at Christmas, I went to the Amazon website and found that there are free books that can be downloaded. Many of the ones highlighted were literary works. I downloaded several: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Edwin Drood, and one by Upton Sinclair. All of these books were written years ago, so their copyright has expired. Hence, they are free to download. I also purchased a few current books for the Kindle and have been reading those as well. Several were on microfinance since that is something I need to know about related to CMF ministries and some writing I will be doing.
I’ve returned several times to Amazon’s webpage about free e-books, and noted that there are several sites that also offer free books. The Gutenberg Project has a site, there is another one called Many Books, and another one, archive.org. I looked at Gutenberg and Many Books, but was not too interested in some of the books.
But then I started exploring archive.org and hit a gold mine. The site has a search engine of the thousands of books that have been scanned and are available for free downloads. I typed in the word “anthropology” and there were 1000 entries. Again, these are not current, they are old. But the discipline of anthropology relies a lot on the theories and field work of the earlier anthropologists. I think I downloaded about 12 books.
Then I typed in the word “missions.” Up popped thousands of entries, but a lot of the entries had to do with government missions. It looked like a lot of work to sift through looking for the gems. So I typed in the word “missionary,” and there were 4600 entries. “That’s more like it,” I said to myself. I began scrolling through the pages, each with 50 entries per page. I began to realize that there were lots of materials to be had right at one’s fingertips. Over the next few days I would look at a few pages at a time. By the time I finished, I had downloaded some 50 books. I could have downloaded hundreds!
Most of what I downloaded were missionary biographies, many of these I had run across in my work on getting Alan Tippett’s material published. Tippett was an expert on missions in the South Pacific; he was a scholar, researcher and historian. I found book after book of the people he referred to in his own writing.
What are the other sorts of things to be found? Many mission agencies have journals that have been scanned. There are annual reports of the mission agencies. Lots of biographies from all areas of the world. As I said, a gold mine at one’s fingertips. The implications for research are mind-boggling. One need not necessarily travel to distant libraries. One need not buy books. One need not photocopy materials. From the ease of one’s office, a ton of valid research can be done. Many of these sources are primary sources, not secondary sources.
A nice feature on archive.org is that once you are reading the book, you can search the book. So, if you are wanting to research cannibalism, you just type in “cannibal” and you will see the places in the book where the word is mentioned. If your book is a missionary biography, think what a time savings it would be to not have to read the entire book just to find the few places where cannibalism is mentioned. A lot of these books had no index, so research on the subject would take a lot of time.
The difference between what can be done today as opposed to what could be done when I was in school is hard to comprehend. It reminds me of the old, “when I was a boy, I had to walk six miles through the snow to get to school” sort of comment.
Good reading!
This year CMF is hosting six webinars related to short term mission trips. Two have already taken place – one on tips for planning a trip, and the second on spiritual preparation for the trip. Thursday will be the third webinar, and it is one that I am doing. The subject is “cultural intelligence,” or, what are some of the cross-cultural dynamics in short term mission trips. Later in the year will be one on dealing with interpersonal issues while on trips, another one will be on helping rather than hurting by our giving while on trips, and the final one will be on what to do after the trip. Information can be found on the CMF webpage.
I’ve sat in on a few webinars; isn’t it amazing at the mushrooming ways of delivering content? You’ve likely seen those “Go To Meeting” commercials on television. That is exactly the program that we are using for these webinars.
I guess I need to prepare what I am going to say, so I’m outtahere!
Robyn and I just returned from a week of vacation in Texas. We rented a car and drove to San Antonio and the surrounding “hill country.” While there we learned that it was fiesta time, and that if we returned we could participate in NIOSA. We had no idea what that meant, but learned it stood for Nights in Old San Antonio. What a blast!
The festival has been going on for 95 years, and celebrates the diversity of San Antonio. Robyn says it was like a combination of the state fair and Mardi Gras (though we have never been to Mardi Gras). The area of the celebration is on the famous river walk. The main thing you do at NIOSA is listen to live bands/singing groups; eat (there were some 240 food vendors); and watch the capacity crowd.
Besides the expected Mexican and frontier areas, there were Irish areas, French areas, Chinese areas, and bayou areas. We did not sample food in each area, but we did eat more than we should.
Robyn had gone on Priceline to get a hotel for us. It was called Hotel Indigo, and it was only a half mile walk to the festival. What a special hotel, wonderfully decorated and exceptional service. If you are ever there, try the Hotel Indigo.
 Of course we also went on the nationally known river walk and took in the Alamo, which was a first for Robyn. I would not be quite truthful if I didn’t say that we also took in some time for bird watching and hiking … well, actually a lot of time. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that the “close to extinction” lesser prairie chicken has now been added to the lifer list along with six others.
We attended the Cy-Fair Christian Church in Houston along with Dr. Suzie Snyder, then returned to Indy on Monday. A good part of our vacation was that thanks to an airline a year ago overbooking, we took the option to go on a later flight in exchange for two free tickets to use at our convenience; hence the airfare was free.
As promised, here is a list of the lifers I recorded on my recent trip to Kenya. One bird was seen at an elevation of 7200 feet. Several were seen at about 4500 feet. Most were at lower elevations, in the Turkana desert and in the Magadi basin. Special thanks to my birding buddies, Jesse and Keith.
Abyssinian scimitarbill
African swallow-tailed kite
Black-headed lapwing
Black-necked weaver
Black-winged stilt
Chesnut sparrow
Chesnut-banded plover
Chin-spot batis
Eurasian hoopoe
Hunter’s sunbird
Isabelline wheatear
Montagu’s harrier
Northern wheatear
Pied wheatear
Red-backed shrike
Red-capped robin-chat
Schalow’s wheatear
Somali golden-backed bunting
Southern grosbeak-canary
Speckle-fronted weaver
Taita fiscal
Three-banded plover
Tiny cisticola
Von der Decken’s hornbill
Wattled starling
White-bellied tit
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