New Location

I have moved my blogging to a new site at www.timothycaho.com. You can find me there.

Snow and Team Retreat

Our team is on a joint retreat at Bassenfell Christian Centre in the Lake District of northwestern England. And what greeted us as we woke up on this 31st day of March? Snow! An early April fool's joke maybe, but nevertheless our family marks 16 years in England on the the 1st of April.

Sun and Sand

The Indian Ocean off of Turtle Bay (Watamu, Kenya) is wonderful. I don't do hot and humidity very well, since I don't tan (I turn less white instead). We're going snorkeling tomorrow to see if we can see dolphins and little fishies on the coral. Maybe more pictures after that. I'm uploading photos from our time in Nairobi up to the following site. Have a look at my online storage site and look at these photos. Keep coming back as I'm adding photos during the week slowly because of the lack of speedy internet connection. http://www.box.net/shared/0gh5ggkhb8

Breaking Bread

I broke bread this morning. It wasn't breakfast. It was a meal of celebration. A meal of friendship. Teammates and colleagues from Thailand, Kenya, China, Ukraine, America, Mexico, and England around a simple meal of some crackers and juice. A meal of remembrance. The writers of the New Testament sometimes call it 'communion' or 'eucharist' (meaning 'thanksgiving') or the 'Lord's Supper'. Both a solemn moment and a joyful moment it was. Jesus was with us.

Kao La Tamaini and the Giraffe Project

Tuesday was a 10 hour affair with Japheth visiting three primary schools, one girls secondary boarding school, a few micro-enterprises, vocational training, and visiting the three largest slums of Mathare, Kibera, and Korogocho. Mathare, the largest, has over 800,000 people in an area 1 mile wide by 3 miles long.

At the moment, all I can say, is, 'What an eye-opener!' But wonderful work being done by locals who care for their community. 39 children in a classroom, elbow to elbow in a space some 15 x 20 feet. A mum/guardian caring for children and extended family, sleeping 8 to a bed and 16 in a tin covered shack with tin walls that's some 10 x 12 feet.

My internet access is slow and I'm having trouble picking up e-mails and responding. The schedule is choc-a-bloc and we've been out in Niarobi all day (and again today, Saturday). I may have to wait to provide more update until we get to the Kenyan Coast.....

Nairobi

24 hours ago we made our way to BHX in Birmingham. While we waited in the departure lounge, who should we see but Roy from thethirdplace catching a flight to Portugal! We hadn't seen him for several weeks, and it was a serendipitous visit. We also met Rob from the GlobalScope team (campus ministry at the University of Birmingham) who was on the same flight to Amsterdam.

Once in Amsterdam we met up with Jonathan who would be on the same flight to Nairobi. He's team leader for the team in the Ukraine. We flew a KLM plane run by Kenyan Airways, and while I was a bit nervous about the idea of a quality Kenyan airline (yes, I was prejudging), the service was great. Even though my armrest controls for the movies was on the blink, Tam and I managed to catch one movie by switching seats. The rest was less than that, with an overnight flight, as we backed up on a bulkhead and couldn't recline our seats. I did get to eat all of Tam's snacks though!

The four of us were met by Ezekiel, our driver to Brackenhurst, and waited for the team leader from the GlobalScope team in Salamanca, Spain. And then the driving adventure began! Ezekiel pointed out the terminal where VIPs are welcomed into the country, including Barak Obama back in 2006. He also showed us the road works going on from the airport into Nairobi, in anticipation of Obama's visit at some point in the future. We saw Obama posters on the back of cars and buses, some covered by the belching of thick diesel fumes like I've never seen! We almost disappeared down one pothole Ezekiel managed to miss after getting out of Nairobi, and then we followed that by playing 'chicken' with a immense lorry full of gravel that took evasive action to miss a pothole right into our path!

Made contact after arrival with Japeth, at a school in Nairobi. While Tam's in her meeting with other team leaders from across the world, I'm going into the slum area of Nairobi where I'm representing a church from England who supports the school. I have no idea what it's going to be like, but I hope to have some stories and photos tomorrow!

Alan Hirsch

Tam and I spent last weekend at the Together in Mission Summer School. Tam is working on an MA in Missional Leadership, while I'm a tutor (teacher) on several topics (Church Planting, Church Growth, Missions History, Mission & Empowerment) and was there to attend the Master Class with Alan Hirsch (www.theforgottenways.org).

Alan is originally from South Africa, but has spent most of his life in Australia, planting churches, leading a church planters and leadership training organization. He's written a couple of books, and has recently moved to America. He was one of the speakers at the National New Church Conference in April of this year. He's a deep thinker arising not from academia, but as a practitioner.

I first met him several years ago when he was on a speaking tour in the UK with Michael Frost. I ran into him a couple of years ago while at a class at Fuller (he was teaching, but I was in another class), and we had a couple of meals together with another Aussie who was in the class I was attending. He also did a wonderful job on the Saturday morning explaining some of the finer points of rugby as we watched the tri-nations match between the Wallabees (Australia) and the Springboks (South Africa).

In this Master Class, what was one thing he said that captured my attention? Especially as it applies to what we're doing in thethirdplace? He brought me back to something about the church growth being seen in China. The dynamic there is not "how do we grow?" but 'how do we multiply?" Added to this is the view "every believer is a church planter, and every church is a church-planting church." Why is it the western church is conditioned to think so differently than this? Why can't I think this way?

One other statement by Alan: "Christology determines mission which determines ecclessiology." That is, what one thinks of Jesus then defines what I perceive I ought to do in response to him, and that then shapes what the church looks like in any given culture. What we often do, is have a view of church that we attempt to impose upon other people and cultures; it is a western view and is a kind of ecclesiastical imperialism.

Food for thought!