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With movies, I like to think my own thoughts… Whether it be the gross takings from the box-office, or those percentages on Rotten Tomatoes – neither one is going to influence me one whit. They are not going to tell me what to think. No way 😀. I’ll like what I like for the reasons I choose, thank-you…
READ MORE“One in six people in the world is Chinese, while one in six languages in the world is Melanesian.” This statement has always intrigued me. While it may not be strictly accurate, it certainly infers something surprising about Melanesia. It is a place that gathers an astonishing number of mother-tongue, or vernacular, languages. With this…
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It wasn’t a great start. The queue zigged and zagged its way back out of the immigration room, up the ramp, and back into the air bridge attached to the plane. After negotiating the queue I made my way across to the Domestic Terminal, waiting patiently for my flight to Mt Hagen – only to…
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When images like these ones went viral on the internet a year ago, my bucket-list had some serious adjustments made to it. “Some day I just have to go to this place.” It did not take long. On our return to South Asia a few weeks ago, I engineered a right hand turn at Singapore…
READ MOREIn the week before we left New Zealand, an issue grabbed the headlines. Thousands of people occupied land in a place called Ihumātao, near the Auckland airport. It is land that is precious to our indigenous Māori people. Sadly, New Zealand has a history of stealing land and dishonouring treaties and so people gathered in…
READ MORE[Added, 23/05/23: a Parihaka update—see below] I picked it up from someone else. I don’t remember who it was, but I am so grateful. It is now one of the most frequent pieces of advice that I pass on to others willing to listen. With the view that opposes your own, always paint it in…
READ MOREIt is not often that I have a Sunday in Auckland. But when I do, there is one thing I love to do: have a date with my mother. 7pm on Sundays. Songs of Praise, out of the UK. Together we delight in the mingling of story with song, as we both sit there with…
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I feel blessed, having just spent three different weeks doing three different things in three different parts of the M-world which speak three different languages. Given the concerns around security in these places, I’ll follow that grand tradition for people like me and express some dependency on images of sunrises and sunsets… Sunrise over Lake…
READ MOREIn the books I read sometimes I need to stop and ask Barby, “Can I read this aloud to you?” Like when Sanneh speaks of an African childhood: An African child hood such as mine was not littered with the kind of stimuli we associate with age-specific gadgets, including toys of every description and sophistication.…
READ MOREAs an oversized person crammed into an undersized window seat, it wasn’t one of the better flights. I didn’t choose to be tall and I certainly didn’t choose a window seat. But what a memorable flight it proved to be – from Dubai to Bishkek. With one eye tracking the Silk Road territory far below…
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.