travel
Rubbish. So often it is the first impression of India. It seems to be everywhere. There seems to be no system for getting rid of it, other than lighting a fire occasionally and burning it away. However, if you scratch below that surface (!) there is so much beauty in this place and in this…
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This is my final day of some consultancy work in Hyderabad with leaders at Ashirwad (Seva Bharat) – which means, literally, ‘Blessing (Serve India)’. What a place! As I enter the main gates, I am drawn into Genesis One: I walk a little further down to the left and find myself arrested by Genesis Three:…
READ MOREA verandah with a view. A lake in the foreground. A mountain in the background. It was perfect. For six consecutive mornings, I rose early at Lake Toba, opened my Bible and my books – and waited for the dawn to come. The transition from darkness to light is often used as a picture of…
READ MOREThe critics tend to hate it, but then I’m not one to let Rotten Tomatoes tell me what to think. Those who lived through the events tend to be annoyed by it – but then don’t they see that the ‘based on actual events’ is modified even further by ‘this story imagines’ those events? All I can…
READ MOREWith Johnson at Lake Loktak. It is remote. It is different. It is beautiful. Northeast India is a collection of eight states on the other side of Bangladesh, with a number of them sharing a border with Myanmar. The purpose of the journey was to visit people, especially the ‘home-place’ of Johnson Raih, my colleague…
READ MOREEvery city in India seems to have an ‘MG Road’ – a Mahatma Gandhi Road. When I first sighted Bengaluru’s edition of an MG Road, I was drawn irresistibly to a monstrosity perched in the air above it: the Metro Station – or, more accurately the Namma (“our”) Metro Station. My pulse raced a little…
READ MOREA ‘new history of the world’ is what the subtitle asserts. The title? The Silk Roads. Peter Frankopan’s point is intentionally plural. There were roads, not a single road. Along these roads, eastwards and westwards, flowed ideas and products. Those that controlled these roads, controlled history. It has always been this way. The Table of Contents is…
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When we planned a week’s holiday on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, my mind was focused on one thing. Not the beaches. Not the surf. Not the tea. Not the parks. Not the yoga. Not the Buddha statues. Not the snorkeling. Not the coral. Just one thing. The tsunami. Upwards of 40,000 Sri Lankans lost their…
READ MOREWhile it needs a bit of a haircut, it still retains its charm. This is often the case with botanical gardens established during the colonial era. Aburi, north of Accra (Ghana), is no exception. Among the many exotic highlights, two trees caught my eye. The first is ‘the strangler tree’. A tiny parasite settles into…
READ MOREAbout Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.