Weekly Update – 8th March

I was watching one of those ‘made for tv, based on true events’ movies the other day (much to Faye’s
dismay, but they are my favourite!), and the bedtime story read to the child was Loren Eiseley’s
Starfish Story, do you know it?
A young boy walks along a beach covered with stranded starfish, tossing them back into the sea one by
one. A passer-by, seeing the vast shoreline, questions why he bothers—“There are too many. You can’t
possibly make a difference.” The boy simply picks up another starfish, throws it into the waves, and
replies, “It made a difference to that one.”
It reminded me of the work of Jadav Payeng, you may know him as the Forest Man of India. In 1979,
after witnessing the death of a large number of snakes due to excessive heat after floods had washed
them onto a tree-less sandbar, he planted 20 bamboo seedlings. And then he went back the next day
and did the same, and the next. Over the course of 30+ years he planted a whole forest, which is now
big enough for a herd of 100 elephants to call home.
Life is overwhelming; my own ‘to do’ list can leave me paralysed and unsure of what I should be doing
next; when you add in the world’s needs – poverty, loneliness, injustice, war, brokenness, climate
change – it’s easy to think our efforts are too small to matter. But the Starfish Story and the Bible tell
the same truth: significance isn’t measured by scale, but by faithfulness. God multiplies what we offer,
however modest it seems.
Jesus teaches that even giving “a cup of cold water” in His name matters (Matthew 10:42). Paul
encourages believers not to “grow weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9), because every act of kindness
sown in love carries eternal weight.
So whatever you’re doing this week; serving tea, volunteering for an hour, praying for someone in
need, or offering a listening ear, remember: you may not change the whole beach, but you can change
someone’s world.
And that is exactly the kind of difference God calls us to make.
Jenny