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Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2005

Katrina did her worst. For many years geologists have predicted that the Mardi Gras city of New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. Situated between a river, a lake and the ocean, New Orleans is also significantly beneath sea level. There are levees (like the Dutch dikes) which exist to prevent the city from being swallowed by the sea. The old French settlers discovered that the city went under water in the summer and so built their houses on stilts.

Despite all such man-made attempts to turn back the basic rules of nature, hurricane Katrina, a force four, ripped through the barriers and destroyed a famous city at the end of August. The news and the pictures and the stories coming out of the area are simply horrific. Not now is there simply the natural disaster (of biblical proportions as one secular commentator noted), but there is also the human chaos inflicted on a society broken down, and rumours and eyewitness accounts of brutality and looting begin to abound.

Five substantial but well-proportioned buildings in natural stone overlook the Gloucester County Cricket Ground on Ashley Down in Bristol.

These are now the City of Bristol College, Brunel Campus, but stand as a lasting memorial to God’s amazing power in transforming a profligate sinner, and in graciously providing all the resources to establish and maintain a caring ministry which continues to this day, the bicentenary of his birth. How did this all come about?

Dr. Helen Roseveare, now in her 80th year worked with the Heart of Africa Mission during the 1950s and 60s. Her autobiography Give me this Mountain is a Christian missionary classic. With the publication of her new book Digging Ditches, EN was able to get an interview with her.

EN: What part of Africa did you serve in as a missionary?

The liberty of Christians to live and speak according to their moral beliefs is an area of growing concern to The Christian Institute.

There have been a number of alarming cases recently that demonstrate the rapidly changing attitude to Christian freedom. A street preacher from Bournemouth was convicted by magistrates for displaying a sign which said homosexuality was immoral.

Being a pastor never was an easy job, and in our society’s current secular climate there are extra pressures. Earlier this year EN conducted a survey of pastors to try to get some facts about being in the ministry in these days.

The survey asked ministers to comment on their experience of seven common areas of ministerial difficulty.