CMS Conference

We had an inspiring and refreshing time last week-end at the Mid-Africa CMS Conference. The main part of the content was an explanation of the recent and planned changes in the organisation and ethos of CMS. Not so relevant for us – we have been quite isolated down in Cyangugu and so do not really understand too much of the history and obviously as our time in Africa is now quite limited the future will not affect us much, either. However, Dennis Tongoi, the new General secretary of the new CMS Africa was very perceptive and inspiring and Tim Dakin, who leads CMS UK did a good job of explaining the rationale behind what is happening and communicating vision for the future.
Most interesting for us was the mission work CMS is doing in the UK, with “fresh expressions” of church to meet a rapidly changing faith environment. The recent experience of our home church back in Scotland has shown how many parts of the church hierarchy are quite unable to understand or accept anything that is out of the ordinary. We were excited by our conversations with Chris Neal and look forward to finding out more about CMS in the UK when we get back there.
All this was in the setting of a retreat centre in a beautiful location at the side of Lake Muhazi. It’s a strangely-shaped lake in the middle/east of Rwanda – mostly less than 1km wide, but at least 40km long. Excellent food, friendly staff and a chance to meet regional CMS staff and others working in this part of Africa : the 15-km drive along a muddy road was worth it! Worship and prayers in English were a great blessing, too.