Author: Jim Cantelon

February 28, 2024

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...

February 14, 2024

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...

January 31, 2024

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...

January 17, 2024

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%....

January 3, 2024

2024 has arrived with all the hope and optimism that usually accompanies a new year. Mind you the hype is more than a bit muted in that 2023 was so fraught with sorrow. The wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen, accompanied by volcanos, earthquakes, droughts, and various ecological crises have left us all depressed if not traumatized. It’s tough trying to be positive. Nevertheless we know from history that the human race is resilient and always manages to outlive “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”(thank you Shakespeare). We are survivors. We survive ( and...

December 20, 2023

I think most of us find the angelic song, “Peace on earth good will to men”, which they sang over the hills surrounding Bethlehem a bit of an unrealizable hope in these troubled days. It seems that chaos on earth has eclipsed the heavenly choir’s rejoicing at our saviour’s birth. Wherever we look we see and hear about wars, earthquakes, volcanos, environmental crises, sexual assaults, governmental dysfunctions, economic meltdowns, and social dislocations, to name a few. Peace seems to have fled the scene. And yet… History teaches us that any era, let alone a year, decade, or a day are mere...

December 6, 2023

Among the several(!)books I’m currently reading is “Church History in Plain Language” by prof Bruce Shelley. It’s a great overview of both church and world history written in everyday terms. His description of the tumultuous Middle Ages (6th -16th centuries) can be captured in a few sentences when he quotes Pope Gregory’s sermonic lament at a time when all of Western Europe was in chaos: “What is it that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land made...

November 22, 2023

Recently my wife Kathy and I drove from Toronto Canada to Dallas Texas USA to spend a few days with our daughter Kate and her family. We drove because we love driving adventures. We spend enough time flying to Africa with WOW so we always prefer ground transportation! We commented more than once on the beautiful condition of the various interstate highways. Rather than taking them for granted we found ourselves comparing and contrasting them to the roads we travel in Africa-potholes on potholes, off camber narrow low grade “tarways”, long gravel stretches, and gauntlets of goats, cows, pedestrians,...

November 8, 2023

I was in studio yesterday recording December’s “Jim Cantelon Today” TV shows. Currently I’m in the book of Matthew and presenting Jesus’ teaching on prayer in his “Sermon On the Mount”. It’s the best template for prayer from the Son of God Himself. It is timeless and covers everything. Indeed it is totally relevant to our day. At one point he says, “and deliver us from evil”. In the original biblical language it reads, “and deliver us from the evil one” (referring to Satan). The Bible describes this evil one as a “roaring lion” seeking whom he may “kill and destroy”. It also identifies him as...

October 25, 2023

There’s no denying “the elephant in the room”- the turmoil in the Middle East. It’s troubling, polarizing, and painful. For our family it’s personal because Jerusalem is our hometown. We lived there for seven years, planted King of Kings Church in the heart of the city, raised our children and thrived in its history, culture, and friendship. Indeed our family history will be forever impacted by the “Holy City”. In my sermons I would occasionally refer to what is called “the second coming” of Christ. This topic had immediate relevance for us because the sites of the crucifixion, burial, resurrection,...