Lives to be changed

A little girl aged about five looks up at me. She’s one of the latest to arrive at the Esther Home, a place for girls rescued from the sex trade. There she will receive food, a bed, an education.

Just one life saved in a nation of over a billion. But I learned a long time ago I can’t change a nation. Lives I can change. One at a time.



My thanks to the team who went with me. We did Bible Weeks, Medical Missions and the Esther Home. Well done Jane, Slim, Jen, Becky, Gill and Chris. Of course it’s not just their lives that get changed. As a result of the India work, every one of us on the team will have a better handle on the crazy world we live in.

In parts of India, there is no credit to ‘crunch’. But there are always lives to be changed.

Another day, a different world.

It’s snowing again. Hopefully not enough to stop the flight tomorrow.

From snow to heat. Temperatures around 100F. Another day, but a very different world.

Tomorrow I take a team of 7 to Andhra Pradesh, India for 8 days of mission and charity work. I’ll be doing some teaching in the church, and as a team we will also be working in the villages, taking out medical supplies, and working with a local doctor. Many villagers are too poor to be able to get to a doctor, and sadly some who do go in for operations, come out of hospital without body parts, sold off through the black market.

One of the trip highlights will be working in the Esther homes. These are homes for rescued girls of sex workers. Their mothers have asked us to care for them, to give them a hope and a future different to the one the mothers have endured as temple prostitutes.

Through the local church we help the mothers too. Some want to get away from their current lifestyles. We offer them training as seamstresses. Once qualified, they get a sewing machine and an offer of help from a church somewhere else, away from the temptation to return to their old way of life.

Girls born to poor families in India sometimes face a bleak future. They may even be discarded at birth, due to the dowry system and the fact the parents would not be able to pay for a future marriage. We help in a small way, supporting local churches to care for unwanted children, rescuing them, giving them an education.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

Another day. A different world.

Mr Darwin, Mr Attenborough and God

I love the BBC natural world documentaries, especially those fronted by David Attenborough. His series over the years such as Planet Earth, Life on Earth and the Life of Birds have been amazing. I see the incredible world we live in and just can’t stop thanking God for the wonder of it all.

David Attenborough takes a different stance though. That was clear from the first week of his new series ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’. I’m sure Darwin is right as regards animals adapting and evolving, but then to argue- as David Attenborough did in just a few links at the end of the programme- that man is evolved from apes, is quite a leap of faith!

Just because man and apes share some DNA doesn’t mean we come from them. There is a missing link between apes and the supposed evolving of man. That link will never be found, because it doesn’t exist.

Look around at the world. Re-live the world by watching the many excellent BBC documentaries. And allow it to form in you a wonder for this world we live in. From the beauty of a snowflake to the vastness of the oceans. From the speed of a cheetah to the sloth of a …. sloth! God has made an amazing world.

I don’t know whether David Attenborough would call himself an atheist or an agnostic. What I do know is it takes much more faith to believe there is not a God, that this world came into existence by chance molecules, than to believe in a Creator.