- After many heartfelt goodbyes, I left Rameswaram, India and traveled north for my remaining time in the country.
- My first destination was a town called Tanuku in Andhra Pradesh, the state to the north of Tamil Nadu. I was hosted by BCM’s Andhra coordinator, Jag Jeevan and his family. Jag Jeevan and fam recently moved out of their house on account of the 30+ kids they have taken into it. The house has now transitioned into a permanent children’s home and base for their ministry. Jag oversees five churches, most of which are in the jungles and made up of Indian tribals. He took me on a two-day tour to visit them. We traveled over 600km to visit them and Jag arranged special gatherings where he asked me to preach and pray over all the members of the churches. We also visited a town in a neighboring province riddled with military strife. Maoist rebels are held up in the surrounding jungles and there are eight different military units stationed their. We visited a medical mission there that Jag oversees. The mission ministers to the locals that find themselves caught in the middle of the conflict.
- Jag Jeevan and I had many hours to share conversation with each other attached front-to-back on the same motorcycle. He was very intrigued by the decisions that I and Zoe have made and continue to wrestle with. He told me that with westernization and a growing economy has come beginnings of many of the same struggles we’ve encountered in the West. Money is quickly replacing family, community, and ministry as many Indian’s primary pursuit. He asked me to share more of the teachings we’ve been exploring and after hearing, he asked if I’d be willing to talk to some other leaders form our network of churches to come back and share these teachings with pastors in India. He is a nationally respected leader not only with BCM, but with YWAM and Operation Mobilization. He wants to set up meetings with Christians leaders all over the country and take care of our food and housing if we return.
- After returning to Tanuku and speaking at a few more gatherings Jag asked of me, I boarded a train to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). I didn’t know that this was the same day marking the beginning of the North Indian festival, Diwali. Diwali, also known as “the festival of lights,” is five days of fireworks, Christmas-style lights and candles, gifts, temporary temples on every corner, and two nights of naked blood sacrifice. It’s Christmas meets 4th of July complete with paganistic idols and rites. The festival summoned all the North Indians living in the South home for the holiday. This equated to riding in a nine-person compartment stuffed with 23 people for 19 hours. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience! (hopefully)
- In Kolkata I was graciously hosted by a woman named Abigail, her three daughters and their ministry partner, John. Abigail and fam have been serving in ministry in Kolkata for 23 years. Six years ago her husband left the family without a word while they were away on a trip. They haven’t seen or heard from him since. After a year of finding provision wherever they could (including gathering leftover scraps from the market off the street daily), Abigail resolved to put her daughters in a children’s home and leave Kolkata in search of means of survival. It was at that point that she read Missionary Challenge the same book detailing the life journey of BCM’s founder, Moses Paulose, that inspired me to travel to Rameswaram. Her faith was renewed and after contacting Paulose, they became the Kolkata pastors for BCM. They still have many financial needs, but, in spite of that, they have helped plant little churches, meeting in back rooms and one-bedroom homes, all over Kolkata. I’ve rarely seen people so convinced of God’s love and goodness than this family.
- Like Jag Jeevan, the family had me preach and pray at gatherings around Kolkata—sometimes huddled with a handful of people in a small home or other times in a slum flat on the outskirts of the city. Each time they would have me preach over each and every person after I was done sharing. Each person would share their physical pain or need for provision and I’d pray. Like the other times with Jag, it was a difficult situation praying for people who have almost literally nothing and knowing if there was ever a time a prayer of faith was needed, it was in that moment. As they were coming to me one-by-one, I would pray, “Jesus, I’m not sure I have the faith to see these people healed, but I know you can. Can you at least give them the faith? At least have one of them healed so they are encouraged about you.” About a week later I received an email from John saying that most of the people from the gatherings reported healings. Wow! Thank Jesus that in spite of my lack of faith HE was faithful.
- One of the highlights of Kolkata was just hearing people’s stories. A woman who had lived with paralysis on one whole side of her body only months before sat before me totally restored because of the prayers of other believers. A boy around the age of seven with severe, crippling polio couldn’t walk his entire life. He was prayed over by another ministry and now he can stand! His whole family, like the family of the formerly-paralyzed woman, is leaving behind their old life to follow and know Jesus. If his mother doesn’t want to go to a prayer meeting or gathering, he makes her! (Incidentally, “makes” is a much stronger word than reality, most likely, because he is one of the most joyful, happy kids I’ve ever encountered) One of the leaders overseeing one of the neighborhoods of Abigail and the fam’s ministry is named Phoebe. She is a faithful 29-year-old convert who trained for her current work in a three-month intensive course at the same campus in Rameswaram that I stayed at. She has been the impetus for her older brother and two nieces converting as well. They all live in an apartment that would actually be considered the “projects” of Kolkata, both in the formal and informal sense. They barely have anything but they willfully daily depend on the grace of God’s provision. Seema, Phoebe’s 14-year-old niece, is a beautiful young woman filled with an incredible spiritual passion. Her story reminds me a lot of mine at her age. She is living with Phoebe for now, but her Hindu parents have told her they want her to come home after this school year. Seema would rather stay in the Kolkata projects, living in and around the spiritual passion of her Christian family, than go to be with her immediate family. Please pray with her that all provision and understanding with her family would be worked out.
- Besides all the aforementioned fruit and stories I witnessed, there is one other interesting reason it seems God sent me to Kolkata those few days. On the overcrowded train, I nearly got off halfway through the journey. My initial reason for going to Kolkata, meeting a pastor from the NE to help him with an issue, no longer remained (he had to cancel) and the train was fairly miserable with people yelling and frustrated from all the tight conditions. I knew we were passing through Orissa, the place I planned to go after Kolkata. Avoiding dangerous violence, and covertly sneaking around trying to help encourage the persecuted church was beginning to sound a lot more interesting, and more importantly, a lot more fruitful than the train ride. Just as I was getting off, someone kept insisting that I stand in a clear space in the next car until the stop arrived. Then, once there, those people offered me a place to sit. They then informed me the stop I was looking for was still a few hours off. As I sat there contemplating what to do, I prayed, “God, if you don’t want me to get off this train, have these people insist that I stay on and offer me a bed to sleep on through the night.” After many hours of the conversation only addressing my inevitable departure, as it pertained to my plans, we approached the stop. Just then one asked me something in their native tongue. Another translated, “He wants to know why you are getting off here; you are halfway now! He says he paid for a ticket to Kolkata but has to get off in a few hours and you can have his bunk when it’s time to sleep.” So I guess I’m going to Kolkata. Once I arrived, I found that Ruth, Abigail’s nineteen year-old daughter, was very talented at learning musical instruments. She was currently working on guitar. I immediately started jamming with her and helping her learn what she wanted to. At one of the gatherings, she said that it was an answer to prayer because she had been learning but something happened one month before and she stopped playing in her discouragement. She asked God that he would send someone that knew guitar to teach her and help her get to the next level. Over those few days, her appetite for learning was insatiable and the beauty and passion in her while she engaged in musical worship was inspiringly out of the ordinary. I’m still moved thinking about the expression on her face and her passionate words as she boldly sang out hymns of confident love.
- Whether it for Ruth, the people who God healed, this family’s and my own mutual encouragement, or, more likely, all three, Kolkata was as unexpectedly blessed as it was hard to leave. Nevertheless, there was one last thing I needed to do before I left India. Orissa. Most of you know how much this place has been on my, as well as many others’, hearts. Something like 50,000 Christians who have lost everything. People burned alive. Countless people poisoned to death. A nun gang raped and beaten. It may be an understatement to call it heartbreaking—it leaves a sense of shock and hopelessness with the pain when the immense injustice is taken into its scope. A ten-hour train ride and I found myself at a Podunk train station, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Orissa. Emerging from the train a Western Christian in the middle of a region filled with immense hostility towards “my kind” felt a little like what an African American might’ve felt walking into the middle of a backwater town in Alabama in the 1960’s. I could swear everyone’s eyes were on me. They probably were, but that’s not new being a white person anywhere in India. Nonetheless, it made me uneasy. After a laborious search around the station I found three pastors sent to pick me up. They guided me to a taxi that drove us the two hours to one of the pastor’s home. From there the other two pastors and I continued for another hour on motorcycle, arriving at the place we’d spend the night around 3am. The next morning, after Jag Jeevan arrived, we rode for two hours deep into the Orissan country along the Andhra Pradesh border. Weaving down country roads and dirt paths, we eventually found ourselves at a little church building augmented with all kinds of tarps jutting off its side. This was the makeshift camp of about 100 Orissan refugees who had lost everything—homes, possessions, and some, loved ones. I walked around shyly at first, not sure how to act around people whose poverty before their current situation was difficult to comprehend. Eventually I started taking pictures with my camera while they chowed on the rice and sombar BCM had recently provided them. Initially I thought I was imagining it, but after a few moments the shock wore off and I confirmed my suspicions; these people were smiling and laughing. They were not only overjoyed to see me, but they were joyful in general. After inspecting their current camp setup and asking around, I ascertained they all sleep on the ground in a huge mass of families. As people started gathering into the chapel and finding a place n the concrete floor, I sat down with the pastor who has been serving their spiritual and pragmatic needs. The people were gathering to pray and worship. The pastor told me it was their twice-daily practice. Apparently, in the beginning the group could be seen collectively weeping and walking around sullen. But they continued gathering twice a day to pray and be inspired by scripture. After only two months and though their future appears dismally uncertain, they smile, clap and laugh. The pastor told me they have forgiven their persecutors and now are only concerned that the persecutors would be saved from being slaves to such hatred and violence. After helping give out some gifts that were donated to them (coloring books, etc), I watched as they sat down once more and began leading themselves, almost as one organism, in singing worship. Little kids started to dance and people could be seen singing with intent or smiles, but hope, either way. I shared a passage from Exodus 22 regarding God’s attention to the marginalized, especially the widow and orphan. The passage says that if the oppressed themselves cry out, God will bring justice. I encouraged them to keep praying and words of agreement, resounding with enthusiasm, could be heard all over the chapel. From many of your generous financial contributions to this trip I was able to distribute some funds on to them. They were all genuinely thankful and joyful to see a foreigner, one whom they were told represented the desires of all of you, come into their midst and encourage them. They are not forgotten.
Many other experiences were had, including finally visiting Thomas’ site of martyrdom (oh, and two weeks in Europe!), but time is short. My flight is here! I’m coming home! I will continue to write and post pictures to my regular blog: www.jmayblog.com. Please join me there for more stories, including that of the family whose father/husband was burned alive and were physically hurt themselves. I will be checking up on this blog as well, so please feel free to continue to comment here on the posts already up!
