Doing some research for a short presentation I am giving later this week I discovered an interesting, and challenging, fact. I bet you didn't know either. Apparently more than 3% of the world's population lives in a country different from the one in which they were born - that's 190 million people! Given that most people, even those living in situations made difficult through poverty or insecurity, prefer to stay put, it is quite staggering that three out of every hundred human beings is a migrant
Statistics are interesting but what I find really fascinating are the personal stories behind the statistics, and here we have a veritable gold mine of 190,000,000 stories! Some are real success stories, the African lad who loved football and now plays for Arsenal, the Russian entrepreneur living in a rather nice pad in Chelsea, and the nurse from Malawi who works in Sweden and sends home half her salary to support the family. Other stories need to be rated triple X, the Bangadeshi girl wobbling in high healed shoes and too much make-up on the streets of Mombay waiting for her next male customer, the illegal farm labourer hiding in a barn in Lincolnshire, and the political activist who had to seek asylum far from home
The statistic I have still not found, however, is how many of those 190 million women, men and children are Christians. How many million 'unintentional' missionaries do we have in the world? And, whatever number there are - and there are millions - who is supporting them, training them, praying for them? Will they ever feature in the historoes of mission? Some of those personal stories are great - the Ethiopian girl who reads Bible stories to her employer's children in Saudi Arabia, the Chinese student who became a Christian in Canada and now leads a church in China, and the Ghanian nurse who prays (as long as the law allows!) with her patients in Bristol
Living in a strange place is never easy - but those who do enrich our communities, deserve our friendship and must be protected when the world turns nasty.
Statistics are interesting but what I find really fascinating are the personal stories behind the statistics, and here we have a veritable gold mine of 190,000,000 stories! Some are real success stories, the African lad who loved football and now plays for Arsenal, the Russian entrepreneur living in a rather nice pad in Chelsea, and the nurse from Malawi who works in Sweden and sends home half her salary to support the family. Other stories need to be rated triple X, the Bangadeshi girl wobbling in high healed shoes and too much make-up on the streets of Mombay waiting for her next male customer, the illegal farm labourer hiding in a barn in Lincolnshire, and the political activist who had to seek asylum far from home
The statistic I have still not found, however, is how many of those 190 million women, men and children are Christians. How many million 'unintentional' missionaries do we have in the world? And, whatever number there are - and there are millions - who is supporting them, training them, praying for them? Will they ever feature in the historoes of mission? Some of those personal stories are great - the Ethiopian girl who reads Bible stories to her employer's children in Saudi Arabia, the Chinese student who became a Christian in Canada and now leads a church in China, and the Ghanian nurse who prays (as long as the law allows!) with her patients in Bristol
Living in a strange place is never easy - but those who do enrich our communities, deserve our friendship and must be protected when the world turns nasty.
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