At Risk

On Sunday morning as we were sitting and waiting for the service to start at Bethesda Christian Centre, I was enjoying watching all the young children coming in and finding their places. It seems that about a third of the congregation is less than 12 years old, so there is always a lot of movement and noise as they come in and get settled. I was struck by how significant it is to have input into the lives of children, and yet at the same time what an important stewardship it is. My thoughts went to the fact that these days so many kids are at risk, not just in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar & Thailand, but even in countries like Singapore. This was cemented into my mind later in the service when one of our friends tearfully shared how she had witnessed an accident the day before where a young boy was hit by a car. Being at risk may vary from place to place, but it does seem that kids are at a very vulnerable place in life and we as Christians have a lot of opportunities to be there for them and impact their lives for good into the future.

We may not always be able to keep children from running out into the road in front of a car, and we may also not always be able to stop people from selling their daughters and sons into the sex trade just to put food on the table. But we have personally encountered situations where our friends in ministry across Asia have made life-and-death differences in the existence of the children they interact with. There are kids sitting in BCC who will spend eternity with Christ because ministry workers there were faithful in sharing God’s Word. There are children growing up in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and all over Asia who are the next generation of God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. This is happening because of His people who have been faithful to their calling over many years.

Yet as we work alongside ministry leaders we realize how fragile the stewardship can be. Our Lord Jesus Christ has stated categorically that without Him we can do nothing. What we have seen is that without Christ’s daily interaction in and through our lives, His children can easily do worse than nothing. We can actually abuse the very stewardship that has been entrusted to us of people’s lives and future. When a ministry leader fails in whatever way, he or she impacts everyone around them. Their families suffer; their team members are devastated; the ministry languishes with no direction and a loss of trustworthiness. Our desire is to see exactly the opposite happen – strong ministry leaders, walking closely with the Lord, impacting their family and their teams in a God honoring way. Godly men and women who have a passion to make a difference into the future will make more of an impact in their own cultures & countries than people like us from overseas ever will. But we can be there for them, to encourage them, to coach them and to facilitate their journey along paths which we have already traveled or that we can explore together.

Children around us are at risk. Stewards around us are also at risk. Our passion is to increase the opportunities that the kids have to become enthusiastic Christ followers, making their journey a little easier tomorrow because of what we are doing with others today to strengthen the stewards of His church and to encourage each other in our walk with the Lord. We may be limited in the number of kids we can personally interact with, but we can be sure that if those young ministry leaders we are walking alongside stay true to Him, they will impact their teams, and their teams will impact many, many others, and as a result we believe that children across Asia can be less at risk for now, and at no risk for eternity!