Barry J Gobe was the first ambulance officer on the scene at the Granville Train Disaster on January 18, 1977. After 30 years he still has vivid memories of the day.

I was part of a group of young people planning a month-long trip to southern India, but when I added up the combined cost of the trip - $20,000 "“ a heavy, guilty weight had settled on my heart. Were we kidding ourselves? Was this short-term mission thing just a junket? A baptised adventure holiday?

The Gabbotts have a strategic ministry reaching people from all over the world, from nearly every ethnic group, and from ambassadors to asylum seekers.

One young man is packing for his third Katoomba Youth Leadership Convention where he will receive Bible teaching and leadership training that assists his ministry to toddlers.

"At the moment the future seems quite bright: theres been four people ordained this year on Groote Eylandt," he says. In five out of the six parishes people who have been ordained or who are on track to ordination.

Of 100 congregations [in Chiles Anglican Church], there are only three people with training equivalent to any Sydney clergy. Thats the same numbers as in the parish where Ive been working in Sydney.

CMS missionaries Martin and Julie Field will leave Sydney in February to help grow future Latin American church leadership.

Kiran Desai successfully weaves together the microcosm with the macrocosm in the 2006 Booker Prize-winning novel The Inheritance of Loss.