Author: Jim Cantelon

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...