The president for this conference this year was Dr. Rob Gallagher, a friend who teaches at Wheaton College.  The theme of the conference was Mission Spirituality.  I was blessed by the presentations and came away wanting to deepen my own spiritual life.  We had Rob speak at our Mission Trainer’s Forum at the National Missionary Convention last year.  Leading worship for the conference were Rob and Shannon Maupin.  Rob is a missions professor from Lincoln Christian University.

Of special interest to me is a three year undertaking of the ASM to talk about the future of the academic discipline of missiology.  It was noted that many chairs of missiology in European universities have been closed down, and that it is almost impossible to get a degree in missiology in American universities.  If one desires a degree in missiology these days, one goes to a seminary.  Getting a teaching position in the field is difficult because there are more qualified people than there are positions!  So, the discussion on the future is needed. One thing is for sure:  The Lord continues to want His Creation to honor him, so the task is ongoing.

I enjoyed the chance to see folks I only see every few years, and to meet some people whose books and articles I have read over the years.  Kip Lines, former CMF missionary in Kenya and completing his Ph.D. was there, my colleague Darrell Whitemann (going back to Fuller’s School of World Mission, 1975) was there, and it was great to spend some time with each of them. My roommate for the conference was a long term missionary to India now working with the US Center for World Missions in Pasadena.  He told me he was well aware of the Tippett series I am working on, and he also informed me that Vol. 1 of the Donald McGavran biography is soon to come out (written by Vernon Middleton).

This is the third ASM meeting I have attended in the sixteen years I have been living in Indianapolis. Maybe I need to go more often.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

                                                                                 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.