One morning the telephone rang. The caller had heard that I had parted company with my previous employer and was offering me a twelve-month contract to develop complete course material for an advanced level electrical, electronic and computing diploma and also teach some of the material myself. Needless to say, I accepted the offer which meant that I could work from home for four days a week with one day on site. It was during lunch time on one of my ‘on-site’ days that I met an Indian fellow who just ‘happened’ to be sitting at an adjacent table. He was attending a meeting at the same organisation that I was consulting for. Our respective hosts duly introduced us, tables joined together, and conversations of a general nature commenced. Within ten minutes I discovered he was a Christian lecturing in engineering at a college in the state of Orissa, now called Odisha, on the eastern coast of India. When not teaching he was working as a Christian amongst indigenous Indians. It was not too long before an invitation was extended to join him in his extra-curricular work, by taking up a British Council sponsored lectureship at the same college at which he was teaching.
Now allow me to digress for a moment. My wife had offered me a book to read entitled ‘City of Joy’ by Dominique Lapierre. ‘City of Joy’ is a novel. Now it must be understood that I am not into novels, more especially so if recommended by my wife! This must not be seen however as a reflection on my wife’s reading habits, let’s attribute it to a possible flaw in my personality and just leave it at that. In short, the book is all about the experiences of its characters in the slums of Calcutta. You may have heard about the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. Nothing to do with the Calcutta slums actually but was a Calcutta lock-up for petty offenders in the seventeen hundreds. It was about 18 feet long and 14 feet wide with two small windows. History records that on one occasion 146 people were locked up overnight and only 23 survived by morning. These numbers have been disputed however as being more realistically 64 and 21 respectively. Whatever the true figures, the ‘Black Hole’ must have proved to be somewhat of a living hell for those incarcerated in much the same way as the current Calcutta slums would be if experienced by considerably more affluence individuals as westerners generally are. As I took the book off my wife, who beat a hasty retreat, I experienced a peculiar feeling, sensing it was from the Lord I feebly indicated something to the effect that I would read it. I have to admit that I could not put the book down and it has left a lasting impression upon me. Was the Lord leading me to work amongst indigenous Indians?
Shortly after reading ‘City of Joy’ we made one of our jaunts to the evening service at Chorley Wood. It was during the service that I felt the Lord prompting me to go up for ministry. There were a lot of people being ministered to at that particular meeting so I asked the Lord if there was a particular person that I should approach, and a certain woman seemed to be indicated whom I knew quite well and respected as being quite ‘sound theologically’ and having a prophetic ministry. This suggestion presented me with quite a problem simply because she was, dare I say, female. I had been taught that it was not appropriate for members of the opposite sex to minister to each other, especially one-to-one. One thing I have learned however is that the Lord not only has a sense of humour but often does things in ways that don’t always appear particularly correct according to our human or theologically tuned way of thinking. Whatever my prejudices and training, I decided that the Lord is always right, so I waited my chance.
Slowly but surely people were drifting away and suddenly I noticed my target had stepped off the platform and was walking away. Was this a sign that I had got it all wrong I wondered! My normal reaction would be to think just that and leave but instead I ran after her and told her that the Lord had suggested that I should speak to her. Well, I think that might well have put her into a bit of a quandary, after all don’t people who normally go for ministry do so presenting some fairly specific problem which they need prayer for? However, rather than being fazed by the situation she told me that she had been at a dinner party the previous evening and the Lord had distinctly told her that she would be approached by a man during ministry time and as that had not happened, maybe this was the meeting the Lord had in mind.
After some time ‘waiting on the Lord’ the only word she felt the Lord was saying was something to the effect of “Black Hole”. This didn’t seem to make much sense to her but nothing else was forthcoming, but I did spontaneously break out into tongues and continued for such a long time that everyone had departed apart from my wife, a couple of friends and the lady who ministered to me. I have no idea even to this day what was going on. On another occasion I spent the whole of the evening service quietly weeping, so much so that the floor below me was a pool of water but no one interfered. What was that all about? Again, I simply do not know.
You may be thinking that I am quite a Spiritual Person, but I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, in fact, sometimes I despair of myself, and my seemingly stubborn sinfulness.
My ponderings during this particular period of time seemed to suggest to me that maybe the Lord was indeed calling me to serve Him in some way in India and in circumstances, not to mention an environment, which would not normally be considered particularly desirable.
My wife was quietly aware of all that was happening at this time, although I must admit I tended to keep things to myself, so did not express much surprise when she said she knew I had said “OK Lord, I will go”
That was the end of that ‘Indian’ adventure, although years later I did get an invitation to an Indian pastor’s conference and had the privilege of addressing them. I hope I was an encouragement to them, but circumstances peripheral to the conference itself proved to be quite remarkable but this too will have to wait.
It is through experiences like the above that I have learned and firmly believe the Lord simply tests our obedience without necessarily going through with that which He has seemingly called one too. Remember Abraham being tested to the very point of actually killing Isaac his son and through whom all the promises of God were destined to be fulfilled. When challenged by Isaac as to where was the sacrificial lamb Abraham simply replied, “the Lord will supply”. I find that incredibly challenging, testing and humbling – such faith!