I had a great day yesterday. I achieved lots, met with the curate of my church, had lunch with Sarah as Beth was home ill and then in the evening went off to play volleyball.

I asked Sarah to record the program on BBC2 about Auschwitz. When I returned home I watched it and was struck at the sheer brutality and belief of the guards, even today, that Jews were the enemy, were to be hated, and deserved to die.

It was a depressing program and at the end I feared that something similar could happen again as the convictions, fears and beliefs that caused this atrocity are out there. Of course, it has happened again in Bosnia and Rwanda just to name a few.

I turned the tape off and caught the end of a program which followed a chief in his village in Kenya who was visiting families with sick children. The children were ill with Malaria. A young boy of 6 was interviewed and then we were told 6 hours later he died. The funeral and the anguish and pain of the parents was raw and difficult to watch.

Are these 2 programs connected? I think in a way they are. They both moved me to tears. They both left the question “why?” They both engineered a sense of anger and injustice within me. They both caused a ‘we must not let this happen again’ mentality within me.

In a sense we cannot do anything about the past, apart from learn, but surely we can change the future. We can be history makers. WE can take the opportunities this year that there will be to campaign, to write, to fundraise so that we can start to eliminate poverty.

What is happening with this world? What is happening with our church? Children are dying because their parents can’t afford drugs which cost the price of a pint why we get our pants in a twist over Jerry Springer.

Evil happens when good people stand by and do nothing.

God does not need us to stand up and defend Him, but the poor, the sick, the needy, those without a voice … they do!