On Friday morning, news came on my radio. There had been a plane crash in Kathmandu, with 19 people killed.

Well, it wasn’t the first plane to crash in recent times and Kathmandu is a long way from home, so it could have been easy to simply think: “This doesn’t affect me”.

But then came the part of the news that brought the situation closer to home – there were a number of Britons on board and they were all dead.

Through the day, more details were released and it became evident that the group from the UK were on a trip of a lifetime to climb to basecamp on Everest. They were all fulfiling a dream. Later, the travel company’s managing director made a statement and having passed his condolences onto the families added: “but we also want to remember our local guide, who was travelling with the team, having done this trip hundreds of times before.”

The guide wasn’t having the trip of a lifetime, but was facilitating the dream for others and paid the ultimate price in doing that.

I’m sure we all have dreams. For some it may be that trip of a lifetime, but for others, it is much simpler; to have peace and security, to know where the next meal will be coming from, to have that certainty that there is more to life. Jesus paid the ultimate price, just like the guide, ‘so they may have life, and have it to the full’ (John 10: 10) All we have to do is believe.

The Rev John Ineson
St Mark’s Church, Utley