Ben’s Blog
Thank you to everyone – too many to name – that has loved us so beautifully – just a few days but so much love, love, love. Thank you God – I love you God and I love your people.
Hannah Dyke
Hannah Dyke has cancer. She’s a young mum and naturally speaking the outlook is bleak. Hannah and her husband Ben belong a church in York that is supporting them with practical love and prayer. Alongside the chemotherapy this will go a long way to improving her chances of overcoming this dreadful disease. There’s a Facebook group for all those who want to put their faith on the line. It’s called “I’m believing for Hannah’s Healing”. Ben is also writing his blog to keep people up to date or perhaps just to work through his own journey in this traumatic time.
I have a friend in Belfast – my age – who’s going through treatment for an inoperable brain tumour. He’s called Ian Smith. I’m praying for him too. He’s the Director of Mission for the Church Missionary Society in Ireland. Ian lived in York for many years – his son, Luke, still lives here and is also a very good friend of mine. Like Hannah, Ian is supported by his faith and the prayers of his many Christian friends.
Both of these people deserve to live, so of course I will pray that they survive these illnesses. But I am not God and I don’t know what the outcome will be. Neither am I a doctor and my knowledge of their conditions is limited. But I know the human body naturally heals itself, fights off infection and creates new tissue to repair damage – and that the process is helped by hope, love and support. If prayer brings faith into action then it too on my list of ways to help them.
That’s why I can join the Facebook group for Hannah’s healing. It’s not some blind optimism but the belief that prayer works alongside the natural and medical processes at work in her. If you have faith please join your prayers with ours and bring Hannah and Ian before God. Each one brings a little more grace into their situation.
This might not look like the average Mothers’ Union meeting as we know them in Britain, but in terms of peacefulness, good works, child-centredness and Christian goodness, the Mothers’ Union branch in Harare is no different from its UK counterparts. Having known more hardship, its members are probably even more good than the unsung English stalwarts who keep the churches here upright in every sense. There can be no true explanation then for why, shortly after this photograph was taken, this meeting was broken up by Zimbabwe riot police.
A desperate cry from the hearts of