I was struck recently by the end of Luke 12 and the beginning of Luke 13. The message is the same - be right with God, for life may bring the unexpected.
"All the children were either physically or mentally challenged, or both," shared a member of our August short-term mercy team. "The common problems were cleft lip and cerebral palsy. There were a couple with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, Down's syndrome, autism and cataracts. We lavished our love on these children. Language was not a barrier when love was involved. These children loved being cuddled and tickled and played with.
"What is the right thing to do?" she constantly wonders. A young Christian believer in her mid-twenties, ‘P' came to know the Lord at university and continues to grow in Him, having now faithfully followed Him for a number of years. Yet that question continues to trouble her daily.
Immigrants from other parts of China have been flooding into the city of Xining, Qinghai province, and the population has grown from just under 700,000 in 1990 to well over a million today.
As the summer holiday in China came to an end, some 14,000 children in three districts across Beijing had no school to return to. Twenty-four schools that had served some of the thousands of migrant workers' children living in the capital had received orders to shut down immediately.
While some people are considering the bigger issues mentioned above, others are more focussed on everyday life. So what is the average young person in China thinking about? What are their lives like?
"China's single-minded focus on economic growth in recent decades is now being tempered by a period of self-reflection and discussion about what the country - and its people - should define as important," according to Yu Dan, a professor at Beijing University.