When Kathy and I travel dusty rutted roads to remote rural villages in Africa, we’re often reminded that what to us is third world is not necessarily so for the inhabitants, especially those being cared for by our WOW partners. The pic above is a good example.
Here’s a single mom, obviously proud of and enjoying her young son. Both are healthy. Both are happy.
And, both are benefiting from WOW’s comprehensive Home Based Care (HBC) ministry, in this case “Somebody Cares Malawi”. We have been in partnership with SCM for 24 years and have seen thousands of dying orphans and widows lovingly ministered to with weekly HBC visits.
The opportunistic diseases that plague HIV infected patients are numerous. Everything from oral thrush to dysentery, bed sores, dehydration, diabetes, various kinds of tuberculosis, and occasional leprosy(!) challenge our godly volunteers relentlessly. Yet they faithfully soldier on, their hearts motivated by love of God and neighbour.
Again and again over the years we have witnessed the recovery and renewed vitality of many patients who were at death’s door but are now happy and healthy like the young woman in the picture. Their joy is both physical and spiritual. They sing and dance in gratitude to the Lord. They have no sense of deprivation. They are content.
This is why we always return to North America humbled and inspired, our African friends constantly reminding us that regardless of outward abundance or lack, the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Recently in Malawi Africa, Kathy and I spent a few days with our team of volunteers visiting and praying for dying villagers. The dusty ox cart trails between the villages and the oppressive heat exacerbated our awareness of the adversities these precious people face every day. Over the past 25 years we’ve prayed for countless patients under the care of local church based volunteers, true angels of mercy.
In the picture you see us praying for a noble looking 65yr old man who is HIV positive and has leprosy. As I prayed, I recalled how Jesus healed many lepers and, against cultural convention, touched them as he ministered. I felt I could do no less. So I placed my hand on his head and held him up before the Lord.
In the picture, you also see our dedicated volunteers reaching out in fervent, compassionate prayer. Over the past 25 yrs of WOW’s ministry, several hundreds of these ministering angels have faithfully provided Home Based Care for “the least of these” as Jesus put it in his name. They are true heroes sometimes spending an entire day walking to and from the care of their patients. Their dedication is humbling and inspiring.
Many times over the years Kathy and I have visited remote African villages where our local church volunteers are compassionately providing home-based care (HBC) for afflicted and/or dying orphans and widows. In the dust, heat, and adversities of disease and soul stressing poverty, these indomitable volunteers provide the loving extension of Jesus’ hands to “the least of these”, as he put it. They are truly agents of healing and hope.
Many of them are widows themselves living on the edge. Some are living with HIV, their viral load managed by medication, and all are poor. But WOW, through our local champion pastors, makes sure they have food and medical care to enable them in their selfless work. WOW also provides bicycles enabling them to travel the long rutted roads to their patients in a third of the time it would take to walk.
I see them as ministering angels.
What has impressed and humbled us over and over these past 25 years is their total gratitude for our help. What’s more they see our support as a gift from God and they give him the glory with guileless child like enthusiasm. Even the elderly widows sing and dance for joy.
I’m always aware that our work is supported by the Lord and his people. It truly is a team effort. And we praise the Lord with our African brothers and sisters for his steadfast love and faithfulness.
Kathy and I have heard a lot of praise to the Lord from the lips of the suffering. It is truly astonishing and humbling to hear the voices of hundreds of villagers singing songs of thanksgiving even in the midst of constant disease and death. Over 25 years of WOW’s ministry to afflicted orphans and widows we’ve heard thousands of voices raised in praise in village after village.
Perhaps the most poignant of all was the faint and faltering spontaneous hymn of praise sung by a young dying widow as she lay on a blanket outside her mud hut one hot day in Malawi. Her voice quavered as she sang in her native tongue, “I praise you Father for your faithful love. I praise you Father for receiving me to yourself. I come to you now.” Then she breathed an almost inaudible prayer, “Please care for my children…” Two hours later she had passed into the Father’s presence. I wept.
Thanksgiving. What a concept! We will be thanking God this Fall for our abundance, celebrating his faithfulness around tables groaning with food. But what about thanksgiving when you’re living on less than 2 dollars a day and you’re dying from HIV&AIDS, cholera, COVID, or some opportunistic diseases like pneumonia or tuberculosis? How does one find the energy, let alone the faith, to lift one’s voice in a song of thanksgiving under such pressing adversity? There is no way that this can happen apart from supernatural strength. I believe such songs are evidence of the Spirit of Christ within.
King David was a master poet whose psalms are bathed in the spirit of thanksgiving. There are so many examples. Here’s one:
“The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.” Ps. 28:7
As founder and president of WOW, my heart is bursting with thanksgiving! First of all, I’m thankful for God’s unfailing love. Secondly, I’m thankful for the champion ministries with whom we partner. Let me give you an overview.
Kyle and Nicky Tolman CROSS CONNECT – South Africa
Kyle and Nicky Tolman are founders and leaders of this vital ministry to orphans and widows in the so called “irregular settlements” on the outer fringes of Johannesburg. With WOW’s support they have created “House Nehemiah”, a home of rescue for abandoned children and abused young women. They have won the respect of local government, police, and social services officials to the point that they are often asked to be first responders to reports of children in crisis. Everyone knows they represent the Lord in all they do. They and their staff of 35 are truly “salt and light”.
Pastor Helmut and Esther Reutter CHRESO – Lusaka, Zambia
Pastor Helmut and Esther Reutter are founders and leaders of this amazing ministry. Starting from scratch 30 years ago with a focus on the HIV&AIDS crisis, their hearts broken by the fatal consequences of this disease, they established a humble clinic in Lusaka where Esther’s nursing training was put to work. Helmut, an entrepreneurial pastor of the highest degree, got to work building adjunct ministries. A church, a radio station, a school, a television station, a university (!) fully accredited by the Zambian Ministry of Education, an orphanage, several rural clinics, and most recently a hospital (at Victoria Falls) and an extension of the university in the Copperbelt region. They are seen by Zambians as a national treasure and by us too. WOW provides funding for the purchase of medications, solar power for their rural clinics, and bicycles for their volunteer Home Based Care (HBC) workers. They are saints of God and we’re humbled and blessed to have worked with them since 2001.
Pastor Eric and Joyce Mwambelo IMPACT COMMUNITY OUTREACH – Kabwe, Zambia
Pastor Eric Mwambelo founded and leads ICO with unfailing love for the orphans and widows of central Zambia. With a faithful and talented ministry team, he is literally changing the culture of the town of Kabwe and its surrounding communities of the sick and dying. A key component in ICO’s outreach is a remarkable farm called “Rob’s Farm”, named after our son-in-law who suffered an accidental death while building a Bible college in Kitwe. The farm is a wonder to everyone in the region. It’s like an oasis of abundance growing and providing organic vegetables for ICO’s orphans and widows. It is doing so well that the excess produce is sold in the market, the profits providing the cost of farm maintenance. Eric’s church is bursting with thankful people and is the mother church to a number of new church plants. We’ve partnered with ICO since 2002 and we’re thankful.
Chief Theresa Malila SOMEBODY CARES – Malawi
I met Theresa Malila, founder and leader of SCM, in 2002 when I was preaching at a church service in Lilongwe, Malawi. In response to my call to the Church to practise both righteousness and justice, she asked me to pray with her about a call from the Lord to quit her well-paid government work and start a ministry to AIDS afflicted orphans and widows. True to that call she began a ministry that now has national attention and respect. Today SCM has a huge national footprint incorporating HBC, feeding programs, schools, gender based violence mitigation, safe houses for abused girls and young women, Bible training for young adults, and various social and paralegal interventions in concert with law enforcement authorities. On top of all this, she is also a regional chief and a dedicated pastor. When we’re with her and her well-educated and committed staff, we feel we’re walking with angels. We’re thankful that we can both inspire and help fund this world class ministry.
Ed Dickson LOADS OF LOVE – Ukraine
We also partner with LOADS OF LOVE in Ukraine, providing food and clothing for women widowed by the war and their fatherless children. Ed Dickson has a humble spirit and a servant’s heart. His compassion for the displaced widows and orphans in Ukraine is truly inspiring. We’re honoured to support his ministry.
And we have another partnership with a humble church providing vital food, medicines, and general poverty interventions for street orphans and widows in a country that shall remain unnamed because of national government pressure.
Needless to say I find myself singing songs of thanksgiving in my early morning prayer times each day. It is such a privilege, and a humbling one at that, to partner with saints of God faithfully preaching and living the Gospel.
Finally, let me say it LOUD & CLEAR, I’m so thankful for YOU and your faithful support of WOW. You are PILLARS for us.
I’m thankful that you’re singing songs of thanksgiving too!
One of WOW’s ministry countries is Malawi in Southern Africa. It is the 4th poorest nation in that massive continent. Like most other African nations, over 50% of the population is under 30 yrs of age. Under educated and under employed, this huge number of young adults are an explosion waiting to happen, especially now in that a general election is about to take place. During the last election, hundreds of young adults demonstrated against what they saw as a rigged process with stone throwing, burning tires on the roadways, and threatening unwary drivers with violence. We were caught in one of those uprisings with our ministry team but escaped unharmed. Scary nonetheless.
Election tensions in combination with food shortages, electrical “brown outs”, ongoing HIV and AIDS crises, opportunistic diseases, a massive fuel shortage, and the stresses of ongoing poverty are some of the heavy burdens Malawians have to bear. Malawi is broken.
But there is hope. WOW’s champion partner “Somebody Cares” is lighting a candle in the darkness. Caring for thousands of orphans and widows in the name of Jesus they are without doubt “salt and light”. We’ve been working together for 23 years seamlessly and redemptively. Many of the young orphans we cared for two decades ago are now proactive young adults making a saving impact on the nation.
The scriptures say that the Lord knows them that are His. There’s no doubt that His known ones are present and hard at work bringing hope to “the least of these”. Malawi may be down but by God’s grace they’re not out.
Without doubt Jesus captured the essence of the prophetic message of the Old Testament when he responded to a young lawyer’s inquiry: what does God expect of us? Jesus said, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28-31).
First of all, Jesus declares there is one God. This was/is light to the idolatrous nations surrounding Israel whose gods were numerous. Then he says that the love of God and of neighbor fulfills God’s expectation that we be both righteous and just. There is no call to religious fervour or legalistic dogma but a command that we love God and neighbor with our intellect (soul/mind), emotion (heart), and will (strength). These summarize all that God requires of us.
Sounds fairly succinct but it encompasses all of life. Indeed it engages us every day.
This is why in our ministry we stress both gospel teaching (Jim Cantelon Today TV) and gospel living (Working for Orphans & Widows). Righteousness and justice. It’s our mandate. By God’s grace we march to the beat of that heavenly drum.
I visited recently with a friend who’s recovering from open heart surgery. He received 5(!) bypasses. This procedure was called “beating heart surgery” which means the surgeons operated while the heart continued to beat. Truly amazing.
As we talked, our conversation turned to mutual friends who are going through health crises: battles with Parkinson’s, dementia, kidney failure, diabetes, arthritis, hearing loss etc, etc. We agreed that we’re all vulnerable regardless of age and that we are, indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). But we also remarked on human resilience and the ability of the body to heal itself. After all, the surgeons wield the scalpel but the Lord provides the healing.
We also remembered the scripture saying, “the times of our lives are in His hands” (Psalm 31:15). And, ”as your days so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25). What a comfort to know that the hands of healing and the sustainer of life is our Heavenly Father.
I was talking with an old friend who is/was also a pastor. Both of us have been in the ministry for over 50 years. We were discussing the common themes we have dealt with in the lives of our congregants. We referred to issues like domestic conflicts, loss of employment, illness, encroaching death from disease, concern about sons and daughters, spiritual needs, etc, etc.
But underlying all these we agreed that for everyone, including ourselves, life brings burdens. Indeed, as the saying goes,” life happens”.
Sometimes life breaks us. I could give so many examples of the brokenness I’ve encountered in precious children of God, but suffice it to say we’re all, on occasion if not permanently, broken.
I always refer to Psalm 34 for comfort: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Ps.34:18).
This is not an ideological nor even a religious truth. Rather, it is simply truth. The scriptures say that we “are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward”(Job 5:7) and that “God knoweth our frame that it is dust” (Psalm 103:14). We are fragile, small, and easily broken. Yet we have deep down an intuitive homing instinct for Heaven. We know God exists and is as near as a feeble upward call. Because He lives we have hope.
To quote Psalm 34 again,” The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.”(v.15). There is genius in taking our burdens to the Lord and leaving them there, remembering the wisdom of the words, “In thee o Lord do I put my trust.”(Ps. 31:1).
In the gospel of Mark there is an interesting anecdote about children. Let me quote my comments on this passage from my book, Cantelon’s Casual Commentary:
Jesus had a high view of [children], as he did of women…Mark tells us about Jesus and the little children. He mentions that Jesus and the disciples were “in the house”. He doesn’t tell us whose it was or where it was. Regardless, a crowd gathered and began to press in with their children hoping Jesus “would place his hands on them” in order to bless them. The guard-dog disciples tried to push them back, but Jesus, “indignant” at his disciples and compassionate towards the children, opened his arms and said,” Let the little children come to me.” These youngsters were the ones to whom “the kingdom of God belongs.” He took each one in his arms and blessed them. I’d love to read the story of what those blessed children became.
[Then] Jesus gave another blunt teaching when he said,” anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Adult doubts, skepticism, and second thoughts can sabotage faith. Only those with the childlike capacity to throw oneself into Jesus’ arms, as it were, will ever enter into the Lord’s eternal presence. The guileless child has the imagination and trust to act on simple belief. “Jesus loves me? Great! I’m his.”
I remember this always as we at WOW minister to children at risk in Africa and India. The kingdom of heaven is theirs.
