Continued from last issue...

  It was 1988. My wife and three children and I had been living in Macomb, Illinois for three or four months. I decided to write a letter to Brother Mathew. Mathew was a Pentecostal Christian leader from India. I had first met Brother Mathew around 1973, when he came to meetings at the brothers’ house on Center Street in East Peoria. (See Installment #10: "The Saga of Center Street.") About a year later, Mathew moved to Chicago (and then later to Texas), but we had kept in touch over the years and visited one another occasionally.
  I wrote to let Mathew know that we had moved. In my letter I mentioned that I did not yet have a regular job, and was just doing temporary odd jobs to earn money. Brother Mathew immediately wrote back to me (he couldn’t call me because we had no phone) and asked if I would like to go to India with him. He was planning to go there in March for a three-week preaching tour. A pastor from Chicago, Ron Balk, was going along to do some preaching, and if I wanted to go with them, Brother Mathew would pay all my expenses.
  I prayed about it before saying yes, but I did not have to pray very long. I remembered the vision I had seen about a year earlier. If the door to return to Israel was closed, I should look for open doors to labor among the nations. (See last issue.) I saw this opportunity to go to India as an open door from the Lord, and my wife agreed that I should go. Bob, an old friend of mine, decided that he would like to go along, too. Mathew had no objections, so Bob bought a ticket for the same flight.
  A few days before our flight, I got some unexpected news. My mom was going into the hospital for surgery two days before our flight was scheduled to leave. My mom was 59 years old and had been healthy all her life, but had recently developed some serious symptoms. The doctor suspected it might be cancer and wanted to do surgery right away. I went to Peoria and waited with family and friends at the hospital. It was a long surgery, and the doctor’s suspicions were confirmed.
  The next morning I went back to the hospital to see my mom. She was still in intensive care and hurting from the surgery, but she was conscious. "You go ahead and go to India," she said. "Go there and tell them about Jesus."
  As a son of my mother, I didn’t want to go, but as a son of God, I believed it was God’s will that I go. My Heavenly Father had opened a door, and my earthly mother had told me to go ahead and go through that door, in spite of her situation. After visiting her a while, I left the hospital alone and in tears.
  When I boarded the plane the next day, I carried more onto that plane than my luggage. I carried a heavy cross onto that plane, the heaviest cross I had ever carried. I knew my mom had survived the surgery, but I also knew she had cancer, and I did not yet know how bad it was or how long she might live. Bible verses about letting the dead bury the dead, forsaking mother and father for the kingdom, etc. flooded my mind. I decided that I would not attempt to phone anyone to get news about my mom while I was in India. If the news was bad, I’d prefer to find out after arriving home. I went with a heavy heart, but trusting God.
  We flew to Bombay, then took a plane to Trivandrum, a city on the southern tip of India. From there we rode a long distance in cars to our funal destination, a town called Adoor. When Bob and I learned the name of the town, we recalled something we had prayed a few years prior to this, when we had spent a lot of time praying together. Bob and I had prayed that if the Lord ever wanted us to do something together, that He would open "a door." Now here we were in India in a town called Adoor, staying at the Adoor Hotel. A door to Adoor had been opened.
  The Adoor Hotel was pretty primitive by American standards. Instead of screens on the windows, there were iron bars, making our room resemble a drab jail cell. The bars kept out burglars, but they didn’t keep out the large black raven that paid our room a visit one day. We were also visited by smaller forms of wildlife. Large, brown bugs occasionally meandered across the floor. Little lizards found their way into our room. Someone told us this was good, because the lizards helped keep the spiders away. Things like soap, toilet paper, and towels were not provided by the hotel. Bob and I each had a single bed with a single sheet on it. The weather was warm enough that we did not need to cover up with anything when we slept, so lack of blankets was no problem.
  Brother Mathew and his family stayed with relatives in a nearby town while Bob and I stayed at the Adoor Hotel. Pastor Balk from Chicago also had a room at the hotel. We spent our mornings at the hotel in prayer, fellowship, and Bible reading, then a car took us to the house for lunch. Afternoons were sometimes spent traveling and/or preparing for nightly meetings in various locations.
  Some parts of India we visited were rather remote. "We see a white man here about every 20 to 40 years," an old man in one place told us. We met one Indian who had walked two or three days "to see the white men." At one location a crowd of men and boys surrounded our car and peered in the windows, staring at us as if we were some kind of exotic animals in a zoo. They were friendly and posed no threat, so we did not mind.
  The local Christians had publicized the meetings prior to our arrival by saturating the area with posters. In some of the small villages the crowds numbered less than a hundred. In other places the crowds were in the thousands. We were impressed that so many people were willing to come and sit outside on the ground, even when rain threatened to dampen the meetings. When light showers began to fall one evening, we saw a sea of black umbrellas go up over the crowd. Fortunately, no rains were heavy enough to ruin any meetings. One night there were extremely heavy rains all around the perimeter of the meeting area, but the Lord kept the meeting area dry in answer to our prayers.
  Unlike many Christians in America, the Indians were not in a hurry to get the meetings over with. Therefore the evangelistic services were often quite lengthy. This gave many of us the opportunity to testify and preach and teach. When we Americans spoke, Brother Mathew translated our words into the local Malayalam dialect. At the end of these evangelistic services, multitudes of people would swarm to the front seeking prayer.
 I was especially impressed with the regular worship services held for believers in the churches. The buildings where believers met were quite simple, and all but a few people sat on the floor. Indians have a custom of removing their shoes, so all the worshippers were barefoot. Men and women sat on opposite sides, with a narrow aisle between the two groups. Furnishings in the church buildings were sparse or non-existent. I do not recall seeing anything more than a few chairs or benches and a plain wooden table that served as a pulpit. Musical instruments and a sound system were used in the large outdoor rallies, but the churches we visited had no microphones, and the only musical instruments I saw were small drums, tambourines, and other percussion instruments.
  The crowds in the churches were smaller than those in the evangelistic meetings, since these services were for Christian worship more than for evangelizing. In spite of the smaller crowds, the level of zeal and enthusiasm was equal to or greater than the levels we witnessed in the large gatherings. The worship was free and spontaneous. There were no hymn books. Someone in the congregation would just start singing a song and everyone would join in. Between songs someone might stand and read a short passage of Scripture or give a brief testimony or word of exhortation.
  I was surprised to see how much freedom and enthusiasm and zeal the women had when they stood to share something. Although we Americans could not understand the words being spoken, we could see the sisters’ tears and trembling, and we could sense the godly fear and reverence with which they spoke. It was evident that the men seated up front were the human overseers of the meetings, but the Holy Spirit was the One in charge, and the Holy Spirit gave great liberty to the sisters. And the sisters did not abuse this liberty. Their submission to male leadership was apparent. I believe that the rich anointing on the Christian women in India is a result of their submissive attitude and their servant hearts. On one of the last nights that I spoke, I thanked the Christian women of India for being such wonderful examples of what women of God should be like. "I wish that all Christian women in America could come here and spend some time with you and learn from your example," I told them.
  I was also impressed with the way the young men manifested the heart of a servant. They were constantly attending to our needs, offering us food or drink, looking for ways to make us comfortable. One particular incident shows the extent to which they went to serve us. One warm afternoon we were resting in a house. Pastor Balk was very tired and had fallen asleep on a bed in the living room. In that town, the electricity was shut off for three hours every afternoon to conserve energy. When the electricity went off, the ceiling fan above Pastor Balk stopped turning. Immediately two or three of the young men got up and began fanning Pastor Balk with pieces of cardboard. After a few minutes Pastor Balk awoke. When he saw what they were doing, he told them they didn’t need to fan him.
  "It’s okay," they said. "You sleep. No problem."
  In spite of Pastor Balk’s efforts to get them to stop, they insisted on fanning him. They fanned him for the entire three hours that the electricity was off. When one brother got tired of fanning, another would take over for a while. Every now and then Pastor Balk would wake up. The young brothers just smiled at him and told him to go back to sleep.
  We were also shown great hospitality by Brother Jacob Luke, a wealthy Indian we stayed with for two or three nights. His house, though not elegant by American standards, was a palace compared to the Adoor Hotel. (It even had air conditioning!) Brother Jacob and his wife served us as humbly as the poorer Indians did. He refused to accept any money to pay for some overseas phone calls Bob made from his phone. When Bob tried to pay him, he was incredulous.
  When we complimented him for his generosity and wonderful hospitality, he seemed surprised that we would think such generosity unusual. "You are my guests. It is my duty," he informed us matter-of-factly. "If I come to America someday, I will stay at your house and eat your food and use your phone to make calls to India."
  (We later found out that this is how some Indian Christians do operate. One of the brothers who had shown us hospitality in India showed up at Bob’s house a year or so later, and informed Bob that he wanted to stay at his house a couple days. He also ordered Bob to drive him to my house - which was two hours away - and buy us all some Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch.)
  Shortly before leaving India, we traveled to Cochin, a city on the southwest coast of India. We rented a boat and took a team of Indian evangelists to preach on several islands in the Arabian Sea just off the coast. We also visited a very old synagogue in Cochin. Tradition claims that Jews settled in India as early as the time of King Solomon. According to the history of the Cochin Jews, 10,000 Jews came to India in A.D. 72, after the destruction of the Temple. Another great influx of Jews came to Cochin from Babylon and Persia between 490-518. The Cochin Synagogue we visited was built in 1568, and contains a slab with Hebrew inscription from the Kochangadi Synagogue which was built in 1344. In 1948 there were 2,500 Jews in Cochin. By 1968 the Jewish population in Cochin had dropped to 100, primarily due to emigration to Israel. When we were there in 1988, there were just a few Jews left, most of them elderly.
  The apocryphal Acts of Thomas makes reference to Jews in India in the 1st Century. Although the legends in this document cannot be taken at face value, it is quite certain that the Apostle Thomas did go to India. According to Gregory of Nazianus, 4th Century Bishop of Constantinople, Thomas preached and was martyred in India. Tradition says he was speared by a Brahman in Tamil Nadu and buried in Mailapur.
  On our trip home we experienced a little difficulty. Our Pan Am plane landed in Karachi, Pakistan, and all the passengers were herded into the airport. The pilot of the flight informed us that there was a mechanical problem on the plane, and the part they needed to fix the plane would not be available til the next day. We would all have to spend the night at a hotel in Karachi.
  "The plane might make it okay without this repair," the pilot said, "but since we have to fly over the ocean, I can’t take the risk."
  Some of the American passengers were visibly upset, and not just because of the delay. This was just a few years after the Iran hostage crisis, and the American passengers did not relish the idea of being shipped off to a hotel somewhere in a Moslem country where they did not know anyone. When the authorities at the airport separated the Americans from all the other passengers, confiscated our passports, and put us all on a separate bus, this made some of us wonder of this was being done for our protection or for some other reason.
  As our bus rolled along the four-lane highway toward our destination, several flatbed trucks loaded with male passengers on the truck beds passed our bus. The men were all shouting, obviously excited about something. They smiled and waved at us, so we thought they were probably friendly -- until one of them pulled out a gun and showed it to us and started firing it up into the air.
  Some of the other men began shooting guns into the air and hollering as their trucks sped by our bus. Since they were just shooting into the air, we weren’t too worried. Nonetheless, we were relieved when the last of the trucks passed us.
  A few minutes later our bus slowed down and we saw where all the truckloads of armed men had been headed. There was some sort of mass demonstration, and hundreds of people were blocking the highway. On the other side of the large crowd was the army. Suddenly we heard gunfire, and everyone in the crowd turned around and started screaming and running madly towards us. Our bus driver made a quick U-turn and started driving the opposite direction as fast as he could. A tear gas grenade rolled in front of our bus and the driver sped through the tear gas. We saw a city bus that had been behind us make a quick U-turn, and a woman trying to get onto the bus fell onto the pavement.
  We never did find out what the demonstration was all about. We were just relieved to get into our hotel room (which had a Gideon’s Bible, believe it or not) and even more relieved to get our passports back the next day and get out of Pakistan.
  The rest of the flight was uneventful except for some severe sickness I experienced on the plane. I had managed to stay healthy during our entire time in India, but I was so sick by the time we arrived in Chicago that I had to be taken off the plane in a wheelchair. Bob and I spent the night in a motel near Chicago, and by the next morning I was beginning to feel better. By the time we arrived home, I no longer felt sick, but I felt physically weak and exhausted for several weeks after that. My physical strength and energy were sapped, but I felt that my experience in India had greatly increased my spiritual strength and energy.

To be continued...