Author: Jim Cantelon

There’s a lot to be said in terms of this era of the internet in which we live. Information, communication, and interaction globally is literally at our fingertips, our computers and smartphones connecting us instantly to the world. Indeed no generation in history has been so connected. The downside, of course, is that we’re also connected with a world in chaos with war, famine, and sorrow on sorrow. Little wonder we sometimes lie awake at night praying for peace. I often turn to the Psalms where King David, who authored many of them, reached out to the Lord for comfort. Psalm 91 is one of my...

I’m writing this brief blog on November 11th, the day when the free world remembers the fallen in two world wars and scores of regional conflicts. For many of us who are a bit younger than those who participated in battle it seems surreal as we hear accounts of the personal horrors that they went through.  And yet many of us have fathers or grandfathers, mothers or grandmothers who fought and survived. Their stories (if they’re willing to tell them—some aren’t) seem like scenes from a movie, too brutal to be real. But real they are. And you can see those memories come to life in their eyes as...

I think most of us have read of remarkable people who have accomplished a lot in the face of adversity. Usually that adversity is from without. But there are those who have battled challenges from both without and within. I blogged last time about the adversity our WOW champions are facing in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and India. Drought in Africa, floods in India, food insecurity, disease, and huge gaps in the electrical grid in Zambia and Malawi, and on and on. All adversities from without. But one of our champions is facing chronic adversity from within. He has come close to death twice...

Kathy and I had no idea when we founded WOW 25 years ago that one day we’d be engaged with two of the five most needy counties in Sub Saharan Africa. Zambia and Malawi are in crisis with severe electricity and food shortages. WOW has a significant footprint in both countries where we’re involved in the care of thousands of widows, orphans, and others at risk of starvation and/ or death from disease and opportunistic infections. With 2-3 hours of electricity a day, and sometimes none for a couple of days at a time Zambia especially is suffering. Malawi at least has hydro. Added to that is the...

My wife Kathy and I recently participated in a Zoom call with our ministry partners in South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and India. They gave us and each other updates on their work with orphans, widows, and other vulnerable people in distress. They are true champions, soldiering on faithfully in the midst of limitless adversity. Facing drought, disease, violence and endemic food insecurity our WOW partners continue to reach out to “the least of these” (to use Jesus’ term) with home based (and in India, street based) care. They are like ministering angels. They could yield to discouragement and...

There’s no need to recount the plethora of environmental, political, and war zone crises facing us in 2024. You’re as up-to-date as I am and no doubt just as concerned. Indeed there’s more than a case for despair. And like me, you may be in need of a word from the Lord. “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,...

I don’t know about you but I’m more than a little tired with the glut of conspiracy theories out there. Whether about vaccines, politics, environment, or culture wars, a kind of social media swampland is incubating an ecosystem of fear. Indeed, it’s fear that fuels conspiracies. When someone with almost evangelical fervour tries to convince me of a current conspiracy I ask, “So what are you afraid of?” When I was a teenager my dad once said to me, “Fear God and nothing else”, and then reminded me that “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom”. I was rereading the book of Isaiah recently and...

St.Paul, who wrote several letters to churches he planted and to young leaders he appointed to pastor them, had two key messages that have stood the test of time. The foremost of the two was his gospel (in four points): Christ died Christ was buried Christ rose from the dead He appeared to many witnesses. His 15th chapter of the first letter of Corinthians stresses the resurrection, “if Christ be not risen our faith is in vain”. Indeed, Christian faith is rooted in history. The tomb is empty. The second was his quotation from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk 2:4, “the just shall live by...

In a 1968 BBC interview with JRR Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings”, Tolkien stated that “human stories are ultimately about one thing-death”. He read a quote from Simone de Beauvoir where she writes about her mother’s hanging on to life in the last few days before she died. “There’s no such thing as a natural death,” she writes. “Nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.” “Well, you may agree...

“God or luck”, as former president Donald Trump put it, saved him from an assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania on July 13th. God or luck. Not being an American nor a registered voter for either right or left-leaning parties, I’m not interested in political bias. What I am interested in is the “God or luck” polarity that is so reflective of our culture. At the risk of sounding like a theologian, I must say there’s a huge gap between God and luck. God is a person, luck is not. God is holy, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign and provident. He is creator of all that is. He is just and, most vital of...