Undergraduate Projects/Long Essays

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    Challenges to the Life of a Christian In the Light Of Jesus' Temptations: Matthew 4:1-11
    (Tangaza University College, 2005) Icapango De Almeida, Joaquim
    The danger of people falling away from God in our days is as high as it was in the time when Israel was living surrounded by nations who worshiped other gods. The worship of idols as it was done by the Canaanites may no longer be a problem for us today but the replacement of God by our own abilities, strength and different kinds of progress is a big temptation that faces the present humanity. The plan of God for humanity and nature still encounters resistance in many ways. It remains an ideal as far as its realisation and actualization is concerned. Total trust and confidence in God remains a challenge for a society that claims to have moved far away from the primitive and mythological stages of humanity. The temptations of Jesus as narrated in the synoptics have been the topic of many discussions among scholars. Though many things have been said about them few things have been put into writing. This is shown by the small biography that exists about the topic. It is true that scholars, when writing on the synoptics, make some references on the temptations, but it is also true that few scholars have ventured to take the temptations as a topic of biblical research on its own as it is done on other biblical passages. Scholars have interpreted the temptations in different ways. There are those who think that the temptations are mythological descriptions of beliefs that were held by the Jewish communities and therefore they cannot make any sense to us. I 4 2 There are also those who, though they remove the mythological aspect from the temptations, see little value in them concerning their applicability to the Christian life of the present time. They hold that the concepts used in the description of the temptations are no longer relevant to the present times. However, there is a third group of scholars who hold that the temptations are historically true and they have a lot to tell us today. We are going to follow this last position in this work since our goal is to make the contents of the temptations relevant for the Church's daily preaching and catechesis. In order to accomplish our goal, we shall start by clarifying some terms so that we may have a common starting point of understanding of our topic. We shall study the passage selected for our study of the temptations, which in our case is Matthew 4:1-11. After, we shall look at the natural tendencies of the human person in order to find out in which situation the temptations stand concerning the core of human natural orientation. Finally, we shall try to look at the implications of the temptations in the lives of those who have answered the call to follow Jesus. That is, we shall apply the temptations to the life of Christians. The content of the material presented in this work does not intend to exhaust the whole question that can be raised about the temptations but to show in which way the temptations are valid and relevant for Christians and even for humanity in general. The material in this paper is the fruits that result from many hours of hard work, intensive research, personal reflection and prayer. We are going to present our thoughts within the framework of the position held by different scholars though without losing the focus of our own standing. Therefore we defend the originality of the material presented in this work.
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    The Mission of the Mill Hill Missionaries in Western Kenya from 1963 to 2016: Challenges and Achievements
    (Tangaza University College, 2016) Masiga, Odonya David
    Since the arrival of missionaries in East Africa a lot has taken place. This includes physical development in terms of infrastructure, introduction and improvement of formal education, health and social services. But at the core of this mission is the message of Jesus Christ, the Good News. All these other factors that have been brought and improved by the missionaries to point to the nature of the mission of Christ. The role of the missionaries was to show this love of Christ in a practical way, that the kingdom of God may be felt among the people. That being the main aim of the missionaries, the main question that we ask today is, “did they keep to the mission as it was supposed to or it was what they thought fit to do as missionary work?” The Mill Hill Missionaries have been in east Africa for more than a century. For this time they have carried out missionary work among some of the local communities here. This paper is going to investigate and to look into the missionary activities of the Mill Hill Missionaries, their impact, successes and failures in their mission here in East Africa especially in Western Kenya from the year 1963 to present. This year also marks the year Kenya gained her independence. This was also the moment that the people of Kenya were coming out of a colonial period and there were some negative sentiments towards the missionaries who were foreign since the missionaries were from Europe and the colonialist were also from Europe. It is significant to mention that this year (2016) the Mill Hill Missionaries are celebrating 150yrs of their foundation since 1866. These 150yrs mark a moment of looking back and counting the blessings that the Mill Hill have attained. It is also a moment of self-searching in terms of the methods of evangelization that were used and how relevant they have been in bringing the Good News of Christ, especially to those in the greatest need. This paper will also delve into what is the understating of mission according to different theologians and as well point out what the church teaches about mission and the evolution of its understanding from pre to post Vatican II to date. All these will be to shed light on the mission of the Mill Hill Missionaries and therefore point out the areas where they have kept to the mission of the Church within their own charism of “to love and to serve”, or they have deviated from that.