Author: Jim Cantelon

One would think that after 25 years of working with orphans and widows in Sub-Saharan Africa my wife Kathy and I would be somewhat acclimatized to the suffering of “the least of these”, but we’re not. Recently we visited our champion partners in South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi. We were very impressed with the growth in their ministries to orphans and widows in distress- impressed and moved with compassion. Thanks to the availability of antiretroviral medicines the impact of HIV and AIDS has been mitigated but the impact of opportunistic diseases remains. On this visit we met and prayed...

Were you “eclipsed” by the recent solar eclipse in North America? Millions were. The massive crowds with their eclipse glasses lined the route of the eclipse as it moved diagonally from southwest to northeast. It was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. The enthusiasm was huge. Loud cheering, like that at big sports events, ricocheted from sea to sea.  People were kids again. It struck me that we’re all kids at heart. Little things can thrill us and big things can overwhelm us, especially when the stimulus is the natural world. Vast mountain ranges, roaring rivers, endless forests, deep blue lakes,...

WOW (Working for Orphans and Widows) is 25 years old, founded by my wife and I in January 1999. We did so in response to the devastating HIV and AIDS pandemic that swept through Sub-Saharan Africa in the last two decades of the twentieth century, creating the biggest orphan and widow crisis in history. Our response was directly informed by the scripture stating that “God is a father to the fatherless and defender of widows” (Psalm 68:5). Our call to the African churches was “Every church a Mother Theresa”. If that little Albanian nun could challenge the world by her ministry to the dying in...

I just received a report on the drought and consequent pending famine that Zambia is now facing. This on the heels of a cholera pandemic. Sorrow on sorrow. Our partner ministries there, CHRESO in Lusaka and Impact Community Outreach (ICO) in Kabwe, are in the midst of all this and by extension so is WOW (Working for Orphans and Widows). We’ve been helping fund their desperate struggle against cholera, now this. We’re assessing the need and will respond with the compassionate support of WOW’s faithful supporters. The world is in trouble on several fronts but it’s a great privilege and responsibility...

Recently as I was driving to the television studio to record “Jim Cantelon Today”( JCT TV) the black clouds and driving rain made visibility almost impossible. Along with all the other drivers I had to reduce speed to a crawl. I say “all” but there were, as you would expect, a few cars and a truck or two that rushed past at a reckless rate, spewing swathes of standing water onto our already overwhelmed windshields. At any moment I expected the worst. For sure there would be a pileup of crashed vehicles. As it turned out I made it through unscathed but it took an hour or so when I reached the...

We recently received a report from our WOW partner in Zambia,ICO (Impact Community Outreach). They  have been engaged in a cholera mitigation project in the Kabwe region in response to the spread of this extremely virulent disease. Thousands of Zambians have been infected with hundreds of deaths. Poverty, dirty water, and poor sanitation all contribute to Cholera’s spread. These factors are rife in the villages where ICO works. So they made an urgent appeal to WOW for emergency funding in order to purchase soap, chlorine, and disinfectants. We responded and ICO set out to train their volunteers...

I read something on the internet recently that astonished me. It was a story about Elmo, the cuddly character on Sesame Street TV, and his question to his social media followers about how they were doing:” Elmo is just checking in. How is everybody doing?” he asked on X. The response was huge. Thousands of people including celebrities (even President Biden!) responded. The general message : “We’re sad. Our world is on fire. We’re having trouble sleeping at night. Where is this world heading?” Isn’t it sad in itself that the outreach to our suffering world is from a puppet? And even sadder is...

Every New Year the number one resolution by us westerners is to lose weight. We seem to be chronically over-fed and under- exercised. In light of the World Food Program’s reports we might consider being ashamed of ourselves. The WFP reports that 783 million people in our world live with chronic hunger and 300-350 are food insecure (meaning they don’t know if there will be food tomorrow). The main cause is war. Indeed 70% of hunger is conflict based while the remaining 30% is caused by climate crises and operational underfunding. Apparently international donations to the WFP are down by 50%....