Challenges to Faith

Challenges to faith.

Faith is taking God at his word.

The Bible is so full of promises that express God's outer power and inner nature. We have so many promises for us.

And we have plenty of challenges that allow us to put this into practice;

1. Tomorrow brother Ravindranath - from GMI Church - will be having a skin graft operation on his leg. He had his foot run over by a truck some months ago and has been in great pain as they surgeons have had to amputate part of his foot after infection set in - and now are trying to save the rest. This man has been used in such amazing ways to reach out to people in prison.

2. Tomorrow Mrs. Candy will be shifted from Sion Hospital to JSK for a night - and then will be taken the next day by MSF staff to the HIV care centre in Panchgani. We would have loved to look after her here - but do not have the nursing staff. She has undergone severe physchiatric side-effects from a 2nd line TB medication she has been taking through MSF.

3. Tomorrow a desititute widow will be taken to be reunited with her child and then taken to Mukti Mission in Kedgaon for long-term rehabilitation and care. Mrs. "Tina" is not HIV positive, but has been driven away from her home by her in-laws and her brother and so has been living on the street for the past 2 years. She was highly pregnant when our staff met her - and was able to give birth to a child in the Thane Civil Hospital thanks to JSK staff. Though she does not fit into our core calling, we became invovled and were just about to take her and the baby to Mukti when a well-meaning had her whisked off to the government Child Care committee - who then took the child from the mother and sent Mrs. Tina home - so that she has become mentally imbalanced, mourning the loss of her child. Despite the inputs of our staff, we will be sending a very broken mother and child to Mukti.

Each situation seems hopeless and desperate. Each one is an opportunity for God's love and care to be seen in a broken and cruel world. Each a chance for us to hold on to what we know - and grow in confidence and awe of He who is past change.

Faith is taking God at his word - and acting out what we know He wants (and we know a lot more than we may want to admit).