The Value of a Slumdog

A child running wild on the streets, no money, no home, has nobody, a homeless street kid. A child with dirty clothes, no shower, no toilet, not even a toothbrush to brush his teeth. A child begging for money, hungry, thirsty and in need of someone to turn and notice a child filled with more than hunger pains. A street kid. A slum dog. Is there any value left in such a person? For the woman in Luke 15:8-10 who lost one of her ten coins; is there any value left in a lost, dirty coin? Apparently yes.

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? (v.8)

Why would a woman go into so much work just to find one lost coin? I mean, she still has 9 more. And besides, the coin is lost in a dark room, on a dirty floor; she may never find it. The coin is lost and dirty. Is there any value left in such a coin? It doesn't matter how lost or dirty it is, the coin has not lost its value.

And neither had Dr. Rev. S. Joseph. Pastor Joseph was one of those invaluable street kids in the city of Mumbai. A street kid when looked at probably had no value. But Christ saw differently. He saw not just a poor and dirty street kid, He saw value in a slum dog. Now Pastor Joseph is the founding pastor of the largest church in India. There are around 400 New Life Fellowship Churches with approximately 700 services every Sunday. They have 10,000 house churches going on all over Mumbai. Their youth ministry is over 8000 and on top of that they are starting Sidewalk Sunday School in the lowest slums in the world. And the vision that Pastor Joseph has is 1 million souls by 2020. How is this possible? How can God use a slum dog to do so many outstanding things for the Kingdom of God? Like the saying goes, "one man's junk is another mans treasure." What is junk in the eyes of the world, is treasure in the eyes of God.