On our recent World Impact Short Term Trip to South Asia, we participated in homeless outreach and drug rehabilitation ministry for the homeless people who were willing to go through the program. In that particular part of the world, we were told the local people have a strong honour-shame culture such that they wouldn’t allow family members to become homeless as it would otherwise be a great shame upon the family. Thus, the homeless people were either outsiders (i.e. people who migrated from other states or countries into that state) or drug-addicted “insiders” (i.e. local people who were part of the culture) such that they were pretty much disowned from their families. This was reflected in the languages the homeless people and people at the drug rehabilitation centre spoke (the local language as well as the national language rather than just the local language alone). This really reinforced to me the importance of both the homeless outreach and the drug rehabilitation ministries, and I’m so grateful that I was able to participate in it. The Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament emphasise the importance of how we treat those on the outside (e.g. Matthew 25:43), and I am challenged as to how I think about the homeless people I walk past as I get to work every day in the CBD as well as how I feel about those who are different to me.

Posted in October 2024


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We recognise the sovereignty and Lordship of the one true God, revealed through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where we work and live, the Kulin Nation, and pay our respects to Elders past and present.