Last week we went on an outing with a group on Thai people. We spent the whole day together and travelled on trains and ferries to a beach where we had lunch. On the way home I was talking to a couple of young men from Thailand and Burma who are currently studying in Australia. One of them will return to Thailand after he completes his studies and the other one comes from Burma and wants to stay in Australia. His father was a property developer in Burma and now wants to leave. He made an interesting comment which caught my attention. He was comparing life in Burma (and Thailand, where he studied for a few years) with life in Australia.
I was thinking that the main difference that made Australia attractive to him would be the high standard of living that we enjoy as one of the richest countries in the world. But he didn't. The main thing that made Australia attractive to him was the value that we place on human life. He said that when someone dies in Burma it's no big deal, even if the person was murdered. It happens all the time and people just accept that justice will not be done. But he said that when someone dies in Australia it is news, and alot of effort is made to catch the killer, or to correct the cause of the accident. I was very interested to hear that from a bright young man who is not a Christian, but yet he appreciates the value that we put on a human life. This value is something that comes from our Christian heritage. We believe that we are valuable because God created us in his image. Even more than that he gave his own son over to death to set us free. Since God sees people as valuable, our society also should reflect that if we believe and trust in him.
