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
What a privilege for me to be asked to teach Maasai church leaders, nearly 25 years after leaving work with the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania! The class I was asked to teach was on the subjects of Missions Trends and Leading a Missions Agency. The Maasai church, with some 100 congregations in the Community Christian Church of Kenya, is interested in sending missionaries. They desire to know about mission strategies, mission theory, best practices, and a host of other topics.
 The four-day class began with 12 students, ending with 20. All of the students are either pastors or evangelists. Some of them receive a small amount of funding from their congregations. A couple of them are in university classes. All understand a level of English, though I was glad to be able to occasionally slip in some of my rusty old Maasai. In the discussion times, pretty much all in Maasai, I surprised myself at my level of comprehension after these many years. I am sure having been back to the area half a dozen times in the last five years, even if for only a day or two, helped with that.
The class took place at the training institute at Ewaso Ng’iro, and the new program is termed the Mission Institute of East Africa. The Director of the Institute is James Sinkua, who was born the year I arrived in Kenya. What a thrill to see him leading the church and the institute.
In my recent trips to Kenya I longed to hear some of the indigenous Christian tunes that had been popular when we worked there. I had only heard one such song in the last five years, and none except for that once since we left. So after one break I made a request to the group to sing a song. They made a valiant attempt, but nobody really knew the words. So I tried with one or two others, and they did know some more words on those. The highlight of the course was when one of the pastors, probably about 30 years old, after hearing the song, looked at me and said, “Wow, my father really loved that song.” Yes, I have aged.
What a great day for birding! We drove from Nairobi down through the Rift Valley, going south to Lake Magadi, one of the lowest points in inland Kenya. When we lived in Loita you could see Lake Magadi from the Enguruman escarpment, but I had never been there.
The lake is well known in Kenya as soda ash is collected there. The factory has been in existence for years. The lake floor is scaped and the salts are collected. I think they are used in making cement.
Along the route we saws lots of birds, many of them lifers for me. I’ll post a list in a week or two. The prize of the day was the chesnut banded plover. The bird has markings similar to many plover, with the major difference being that the band across the chest is a brilliant red rather than the usual black and brown. We probably saw a dozen of the birds in a couple of ponds, sharing space with flamingoes, little egrets, and lapwings.
Happy birthday Dad!
Picture youself in a desert. There are a few thorn trees, and a few date palm trees. Other than that, desolate. The inhabitants of this desert in northern Kenya are the Turkana people, a nomadic people who have herds of goats and a few camels. They do not stray far from their traditional culture. They live with a bit of meat and milk. They sell their goats for some goods.
 When they need water, they dig a hole in the sand and about ten to fifteen feet down, they get water, sometimes. Life is very tough. So when missionary Gene Morden began doing water projects some years ago, the people were ecstatic. Gene has several means of securing water. One is through hand drilling with his team of people (think digging post holes). Once they reach the correct depth, they install a hand pump, and clean water is the result. We got to be there when one of these wells was to be completed. Imagine the excitement and joy among the people as they eagerly waited for the first drips of water. There was singing, dancing, and praying. Lives will be changed, for the better.
Another method is using a block of solar panels, which then run the pump. Lots of sun in northern Kenya. There is enough water that is pumped so that the people can plant small garden plots. Here is a people, nomadic through history, now (of their own will and under their own work) have small gardens that produce year-around. We saw fresh tomatoes, spinach, and numerous types of legumes.
These projects are not charity projects that lead to dependency. The missionaries have lived in the area for more than ten years. They speak the local language, have earned the respect of the people, and the people do the work. In fact, when we were there, Gene was in the States. Everything, from getting us to the areas, digging, installing the pump, and digging, was done by Turkana people.
I will never turn on the faucet again without remembering the joy in those people’s faces when they got their very first pure water in their area. Sure, they will have to carry the water from the pump to their home, but the distance is much closer, and the water is pure. That is what Jesus brings, because He is the water of life. The people prayed to thank Him for providing their water.
Thanks to those of you who suggested some reading material for my three week trip to Kenya. The books I will plan to read include: 1) The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, by Jacqueline Novogratz; 2) How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, by Thomas Oden; and 3) Microfinance for Bankers, by Elizabeth Rhyne. Those three are on my Kindle, as are a couple of Bibles.
But since you cannot have your Kindle on for take-offs and landing, the hard copy book I will have at the ready is 4) Faces of Jesus in Africa, by Robert Schreiter.
And if I just want to read something light, I also have 5) Confessions, by John Grisham.
I’m off to Kenya for three weeks. Help me out. What reading material should I take? Long plane rides, waking up in the middle of the night for 2-3 days, and time after teaching. Plenty of time to read a few pages now and then. Waiting to hear you suggestions.
When we were on our first furlough, back in 1983-84, Robyn attended some college classes at Fullerton Junior College. One of the classes was in poetry. She wrote the following poem, one of my favorites. She was encouraged to enter the poem in a contest for a local newspaper, and she won! I think she received $50. Prior to the furlough, we had lived for four and a half years in Kenya, most of it amongst the Maasai people. Here is the poem.
African Mother
Kilimanjaro sits on bone-dust earth, her bare brown back supporting a skeletal wall.
Thorn-bush children chase and scrape as skinny chickens scratch ashes, snatching yesterday’s maize.
Broken beads and hapless thatch decorate the dirt, tin lids and cast-off cardboard lie waiting.
Kilimanjaro sits, strong fingers thrusting thread and color through lifeless leather,
transforming the dried hide to a wedding gown awaiting rain.
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be back in Kenya, and some of the time will be amongst the Maasai yet again. This time it involves teaching a class in addition to a Board meeting. I can hardly wait.
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