Building Up A House of Love
by Stuart Malkin 25 May 2021
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Reading: John 9 verses 1 to 5
As Jesus was walking along he saw a man who had been born blind. His disciples asked him” Teacher whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents sin”? Jesus answered, “His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parent’s sins. He is blind so that God’s power might be seen at work within him. As long as it is day we must keep on doing the work of Him who sent me, night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world I am the light of the world “.
Do you ever have books on your bookshelves that for some reason you were going to read but never got round to, well recently I got round to one called “Send us anyway” by Averil Hopwell. No I hadn’t heard of her, but loosely I had.
HONDURAS!
Averil and her English friend believed God had lead them to a land that many of us would probably never have heard of. Nevertheless prayer had led them to be missionaries and ultimately open an orphanage. Before that could happen there was many things stood in their was, even having to return home because of family death.
I started these thoughts this morning with the beautiful piece of music “Let love be real”. It was these words that drove these two youngsters to a land that was to be eventually their home for many years. They didn’t know the anguish and pain of a country that is deemed even today as one of the poorest in the world, driven by what one can only describe as evil from top to toe of society. A society that the lowest always seems to be dragged even lower unless helped by outsiders. Going back to these two young ladies, with a prayer driven vision, ultimately they arrived and found things worse than they had been told. However, with their medical skills doors began to be opened. This was the beginning of their work as they witnessed the number of babies and young children with nowhere to go except an overcrowded hospital ward that was severely short of staff and equipment.
Was this what God wanted from them? The more you read the more you see that God wanted Love, not just for then but for time to come.
So much has been done over the years from the prayerful direction to these two people. Some of you will know by action in this area and other lands, they started building houses of love when it would have been easy to say this is too big a task for me. Over the years children have been taken care of in so many ways, but sometimes society needs changing, and this includes parents and the way they live. Much of this is beyond our understanding because it is not the way we do things in our relatively rich nation. Today, women in Honduras can have more help for the children and themselves with the security of a house, until recently this was not the case.
There is much darkness in the world but as we read in the last line of our reading from John 9, we are also blessed by the Light of the World, which is Jesus, that shines through those that are lead into the darkness to give a new a lightening.
We can see a building up of a house of love, and it isn't always the big and mighty who start and lay the right foundation.
Prayer
Father God help us to see and show the Light in dark corners of the world and in doing so show your love. Amen