John Stott saw from scripture that God’s people everywhere should care for the last, the least and the lost. From 1983-1997 he served as President of Tearfund, the evangelical relief and development agency.
STORY ONE: In South India, John met Mercy Abraham, a young Christian woman with a passion to help abused and abandoned women. Moved by the stories she shared, John invited her to London. As she spoke at All Souls, everyone listened intently. With gifts from John Stott and London friends, she purchased land in Dharmapuri for what is now the Mahalir Aran Trust (which means ‘a fortress for women’). Later John supported a project to provide sewing machines, so women could be taught to sew, and to earn income from this. The Mahalir Aran Trust has helped hundreds of women, and saved baby girls from infanticide. It has now built its own chapel, farms its own land, and is planning a clinic to serve 400 poor families in surrounding villages.
John Stott was seventy years old when he first met Mercy. He never stopped encouraging Christians to demonstrate their faith in practical ways.
STORY TWO: In 1992, at the age of seventy-one, John visited the work of four former students of The London Institute, in Mexico. Sergio and Hortensia Sánchez had set up a ministry among eighty Indian communities, responding to deep social needs in the name of Jesus Christ. Saúl and Pilar Cruz served in Jalalpa, a gigantic slum in Mexico City where three million people lived in shacks made out of cardboard and milk cartons. They set up self-help programmes to enable people to build better houses, and formed children’s clubs. They named their organization ARMONIA, meaning harmony. By expressing Christ’s love in these ways, they were also able to teach about his salvation. Uncle John was thrilled to see what they were doing.
