I was in Sri Lanka visiting a mobile clinic run by Heidi. I had to drive up a muddy track with trees on one side and a drop on the other side. As I was driving up the hill an ox cart came the other way. Heidi thought the situation was hilarious! As I got hot and bothered trying to manoeuvre so the ox could get by, Heidi laughed and laughed! It was typical of her sense of humour.
It all started about 22 years ago when Derek Brown, our church leader, asked me to speak to Heidi and see Continue reading “Heidi goes to Sri Lanka”
We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1 – a terrible and unnecessary conflict involving 30 different countries. It was a war dreamt up by the elite in Britain, Germany, France, Russia and other countries, but a war fought between ordinary people who died in their millions. We must remember those who died, but with a deep shame. We dare not ‘celebrate’ the war or glorify or glamourise it in any way.
Jesus certainly knew how to be controversial. He taught that love knows no bounds. We are not only to love God, our creator, but to love our neighbours as ourselves. But it doesn’t stop there. We are even to love our enemies, people who treat us badly and certainly do not love us. This is probably one of the hardest things to do and challenges us all. 
Our senses were overwhelmed at every level. Multiple smells filled the air – air we could almost taste. All around were noises; people shouting and noises from machinery, and animals. We were jostled along the narrow streets – no place for the agrophobic. We could feel the mud squelch under our feet. Poverty and degradation dominated. We were being shown around the largest slum in Bombay (Now known as Mumbai).
What do you do when you’re in a car and suddenly four lorries are heading towards you? We were driving from Delhi in India, towards Dehradun in the foothills of the Himalayas. In the distance a very slow, overladen lorry was being overtaken gradually by another lorry on our side of the road. Now we were on a normal highway with one lane in each direction but at the sides of the road there was packed earth. As the two lorries got nearer to us, a third lorry getting impatient with the other two started to overtake on the earth at the other side of the road. Then a fourth lorry appeared, and started to overtake on the hard earth on our side of the road. So we were in a situation where all four lorries were heading towards us, and we had nowhere to go. The driver pulled to the side and somehow, all four lorries passed us!
Compassion and Justice 