Deeper Blog

Over the week as we've looked each day at the first chapter of Ruth I've learnt so many different things. Sunday we looked at Ruth's situation however surreal it seemed to us was real life for millions across the world. On Monday we looked at how we can so often miss those glimmers of hope or seeing God's presence in our pain. Tuesday we looked at God's grace in our pain and then we we looked at how Ruth kept her promise to Naomi. Thursday we looked at Ruth as the most tenacious and loving friend moving to Friday when we heard how Ruth was a Moabitess a despised immigrant woman from a cursed race.

But God still used her

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of “the brightest and best” among you, not many influential, not many from high society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? 1 Cor 1v 26-29 (Msg)

Ruth believed so strongly, even when it seemed Naomi didn't, that God was worth clinging on to. That he was a God that would love her despite the worlds view of her.

See at Hands at Work we have a phrase called “diamonds in the dust”. You can read more about how our community based projects are started by going to http://www.handsatwork.org/who-what-where-how/ but we go into the poorest communities and as we gather together christians, pastors and leaders from the communities we share God's passion for the orphans, widows and dying and how it's his plan for the church to start providing some answers. But most importantly we watch and listen and dig around a bit and then God shows us a diamond right there in amongst the dust of human suffering. Ninety percent of the time it's older woman who have a fire in their heart to serve the poor and the dying and are already doing so. It's these woman who are giving their lives to serve others in Africa.

My prayer for us at the forge is that we would be a community where we see this happen. We can see modern day Moabites (those abused, looked down upon and hated) being allowed to shine like Ruth was.

So lets go back to where it all started a week ago, let me introduce you to some more people.

This is fifty-two-year-old Agnes Kunda who began volunteering in the Shalom community organisation of Kabwe, Zambia in 2003. The divorced woman’s children were grown and moved out of her home when she became a volunteer and she showered all of her motherly love and care onto the patients and vulnerable children she dedicated herself to visiting. In 2007, Agnes became ill and tests revealed that she was HIV positive. This former volunteer of the home-based care suddenly became a patient, who with the help of her fellow volunteers began taking medication that would keep her alive. Today, Agnes continues to battle her illness, but her active devotion as a volunteer has not ceased. Though unable to visit children and patients like she used to, Agnes has taken two orphaned children into her own home to provide them a place to live safely and be cared for lovingly. (taken from www.handsatwork.org).

Agnes and thousands of others here in Africa are the unlikely heroines, the diamonds in the dust. I pray you have fun hunting diamonds.