Gloom and Doom?

Too often we lose sight of the good things happening in the world. Rich Femia just returned from Romania where he saw many advances in human and spiritual life. Jackie, a missionary, is accomplishing much. She bought seven acres and told the people they can farm it and eat the food if they work. No work, no food.

This is exactly what is needed in those countries. Small steps forward in work, family life and church life.

Read how Philip Yancey views the world.

http://christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/005/23.88.html

Yancey mentions big ministries and that is good. However, I see many individual churches overseas that are making great contributions to the daily lives of hurting people. Every airplane is filled with retirees, short-term missionaries and volunteers who go to Russia, Romania, Asia etc to feed, build, fix up, paint, offer medicine, farm, etc. Ordinary people give millions of dollars annually to thousands of people.

Like Johnny Appleseed, these humble men and women are changing the world one person, one church and one village at a time.

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The things that make good headlines attract our attention because they are on the surface of the stream of life, and they distract our attention from the slower, impalpable, imponderable movements that work below the surface and penetrate to the depths.

But of course it is really these deeper, slower movements that, in the end, make history, and it is they that stand out huge in retrospect, when the sensational passing events have dwindled, in perspective, to their true proportions.

Arnold Toynbee