Its Saturday afternoon and the trip to India has to take a back seat for the moment as I catch up with all the various stands of parish life. However the picture that I’ve posted is a constant reminder of the reason why we get involved with this overseas work. We live in a world of plenty and the majority of the people in the world live off less than a dollar a day. Street children don’t just exist in Peru, they are found all over, in all the major cities in the world. Here are two young barefooted children doing a bit of window shopping in Chennai, their having a look at the trainers. If corse the whole thing is shocking when we realise that literally thousands of children all over the world are being used in `”sweatshop factories to produce these fashion items for the west. Have a look at this web page nothing changes and nothing seems to get done even by the people who have the slogan “Just do it! click here Here is a video that is designed to make us all think about the brands we buy

The phone rang earlier this morning and my sister tells me she is running a fundraiser in her home for india next Friday. She’s actually quite incredible. Over the past few years she has literally raised thousands of pounds for charity from her home. She is such an example to us all, you don’t need a big house, you need a big heart. Tonight Martha and I are off to the Gospel Mission in Falkirk to talk about the work of the Vine Trust. It will be like old times. I believe we’ve even got a Branches stall. When we first started the Trust over 20 years ago we used to go on deputation work and it was always a worthwhile effort. These days somehow time limits the number of speaking engagements that can be taken on. Thankfully though the trust has a few people now trained up in this area.