Was God telling him to stay in London rather than go to China? Thomas Barnardo had come to London for missionary training, only to have a ten-year-old child show him a rooftop where eleven homeless boys were sleeping. Barnardo was ‘moved with compassion’, and set out to find temporary lodging for them. Other midnight tours revealed more homeless youths – as many as seventy-three in one night. China would have to wait; God had given him London. Barnardo sold some three hundred thousand copies of the Scriptures in public houses and marketplaces to raise money for his work among the children. He was often persecuted for defending them, even sustaining physical injury. When a cholera epidemic hit London in 1866, he worked tirelessly, only to see thousands die. Some would have given up in discouragement, but not Barnardo. He eventually opened a Home for Destitute Boys and, later, a Village for Girls. Through the next several decades, he built numerous homes and villages that cared for some sixty thousand abandoned children, and became known as ‘the father of nobody’s children’. And happily, he lived long enough to see seventeen of the young people he rescued enter the ministry and take the gospel to foreign lands. You say, ‘How can I be sure God is calling me to a particular need?’ Because you will be moved with compassion. ‘When He [Jesus] saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said…“The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest”’ (vv. 36-38 NKJV).
