Tag: Working for Orphans & Widows

Sept 17, 2025

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...

Sept 03, 2025

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...

July 23, 2025

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...

May 28, 2025

I’ve been asked over the past 25 years why we do what we do with WOW. The short answer is that it’s clear from scripture that we should care for orphans and widows in their distress. The long answer is that one hears and obeys the Lord’s calling to service over one’s entire lifetime. Sometimes that “hearing and calling” comes via an “epiphany”. In a book I’m currently writing, I reference the Apostle Paul’s conversion from Saul, the rabidly anti-christian rabbi, to Paul, the first missionary to the Gentiles and author of most of the New Testament’s theology: “Blinded by the...

April 30, 2025

As is always the case WOW’s ministry on the ground in Africa is awash in adversity. From drought, crop failure, electrical grid “load shedding” (up to 18hrs a day without electricity!) and the grind of endemic poverty, to recent USAID funding withdrawal, our champions and their impoverished, diseased volunteers and communities are hard pressed to find hope. The most pressing of these urgencies is the USAID abandonment of the anti-retro-viral (ARV) programs that have literally saved millions of Africans and Indians from death these past 20 years. Former US President George W. Bush initiated...

April 02, 2025

Recently a few personal friends have been diagnosed with serious illnesses. As is often the case these afflictions came on suddenly. From one day to the next they went from life as usual to what Shakespeare famously described as “a walking shadow who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”. It’s brutal being blindsided by our mortality. The transitory nature of life is a key component in WOW’s vision for ministry to the dying. As mentioned in my last blog, the spectre of certain death is again rearing its ugly head in Africa due to the suspension of PEPFAR...

March 19, 2025

The recent decision by the White House to shut down USAID is having a chilling effect on WOW’s African ministry partners. For 25 years WOW has been on the forefront mobilizing local African churches in the care of orphans and widows victimized by HIV and AIDS. This has seen us engaged not only with this fatal disease but also with the opportunistic infections and poverty related afflictions that accompany the pandemic. And pandemic it is, even though HIV and AIDS has been on the back burner of global awareness since anti-retroviral medication (ARVs) arrived on the scene about 20 years ago. These...