⇐ A Satellite Navigation System
The pastor of the church my wife and I were attending at the time received an invitation from an associate church to join them on a trip to India and I was invited also. They had links with the provincial bishop of Pondicherry through which the original invitation was extended. The team were to spend the second week at an orphanage and the first doing evangelistic preaching in the city, beach ministry and teaching at a pastors’ conference.
The team were booked into a small hotel which meant that some of us had to share a room. I was allocated a bedroom with my pastor which contained a double bed and small, rather rudimentary, ‘en suite’. The only window in the room had iron bars across it and was so high that it was impossible to see outside. The door was enormously thick with an equally large surface mounted lock. I had no problem with this, but it seemed like a prison cell to my pastor and tended to freak him out. He had preached a solid gospel message on the first evening but after a couple of days he insisted on returning home: he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and no amount of prayer or persuasion could change his mind. The night before our departure was so traumatic that sleep was impossible and to make matters worse, I was slated to address the conference first thing in the morning. I had done no formal preparation for my talk, but the Lord seemed to bombard me with thoughts and scripture during the long night while at the same time attempting to support my pastor. I attended the early morning team meeting and the leadership graciously offered to ‘let me off the hook’, but I felt that I should go ahead and trust the Lord for the message and also assume responsibility for escorting my pastor safely home later that day.
While waiting to speak I just could not keep a limb still, neither could I concentrate, so I simply asked the Lord to calm my limbs which, as soon as I stood up to speak, He did just that until I sat down again, almost in tears, and a body shaking gently but uncontrollably. I heard someone on the platform remark: “… and he did it without any notes”. During my delivery I felt The Lord telling me to turn towards the women who were sitting, with their children, separate from the men, and address them directly. I hesitated somewhat thinking that this was not quite the correct cultural thing to do. Trusting that the prompting was indeed from the Lord, I decided to obey. Quite what I said I am not to sure about now but the gist of it was to encourage them to support their husband in his ministry and also ensure that they nurtured their children in the Lord. I talked about England being increasingly Godless and suggested that some of their children may be future missionaries to England as England had sent out missionaries to India years previously. Then, addressing the men directly I reiterated the same, encouraging them to support their wives. Then I carried on with ‘my’ message.
Shortly afterward I was called off the platform and escorted to a waiting truck which was to take us some 200 Km or so to the nearest airport. Just as we were about to move off the bishop caught up with us and somewhat out of breath, thanked me. This I found rather embarrassing for the message, if there was one, was certainly not mine. If anything, I was just a clay vessel, and a fragile, imperfect one at that. If the Lord had indeed used me for His purposes, then the glory must go to Him and Him alone, I wanted none of it!
All attempts at obtaining tickets for an internal flight to Mumbi, then onward to London, had failed and we were facing the prospect of booking into a hotel and waiting for possible cancellations or ‘no-shows’. Apparently, all flights were fully booked for the next few days.
We had travelled a short distance only when the driver noticed an internet café, pulled over and proceeded to check for possible cancellations but without success. After a couple of such attempts, I felt that I had a ‘word’ from the Lord to the effect that when we arrived at the airport, we were immediately to go to the airport managers office. I kept this to myself for a while but eventually took courage and gave the ‘word’ which was met with deafening silence and, much to my annoyance, stops continued to be made at every wayside internet café. On arrival at the airport, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation since we were simply driving around the car park, passed ‘flight departures’ a couple of times, and generally I felt there was an atmosphere of confusion as to know what to do next. In the event I felt that the Lord really had ‘spoken’ so I jumped out of the vehicle and ran to the ‘Flight Departures’ entrance.
As I approached the entrance, I noticed a long queue and a security guard barring the entrance. Undeterred, I told the guard I needed entrance immediately as I had to see the airport manager, to which he replied that I would have to obtain a ‘ticket’ and directed me to a small office entitled ‘tickets’. Needless to say, it was closed, but as I walked away, I noticed a sign indicating ‘Airport Manager’s Office’, so signalling the others to follow we entered the office whereupon our Indian friends proceeded to speak in Tamil to one of the clerks. Quite what was being said I was not at all sure but sensing they were not addressing the real issue I intervened and told the clerk that we needed to speak to the airport manager to which he replied that he was just entering the office and an introduction was duly made. What happened next was, to say the least, remarkable! He immediately took my pastor and myself directly into an inner office hidden away somewhere in the airport, took our passports, instructed someone to issue tickets for the next flight to Mumbi, which was due to depart in about two hours’ time, then booked flights onward from Mumbi to London. He then instructed someone else to escort us to the staff canteen for a meal at no cost. In the meanwhile, he organised the collection of our luggage from our vehicle and checked it through security! While all this was happening, we could not understand why there was otherwise total inactivity within the building and queues of passengers outside. It transpired that there was a VIP inaugural flight due to take off and the whole place was in total ‘lock-down’!
When we eventually walked out of the departure lounge, who should be there wishing us a good flight was none other than the ‘Airport Manager’ or was he an angel all along!
As we walked to the plane preparing to board my pastor started to panic again and didn’t want to board but after lots of persuasion we did so and took to our allocated seats. Our seats were two of three down the side of the cabin but for some reason he wished to change them because he was fearful, quite irrationally so, of someone taking the third seat. He asked a passing stewardess to change our seats only to be informed that every seat on the plane was taken and there was nothing she could do. By this time the bulk of the seats were taken but passengers were still slowly trickling in through a curtain into the cabin. My pastor had his eyes fixed firmly upon the curtain so much so that every time it moved panic arose, but I kept on insisting the seat would remain empty and so it did! It is situations like the ones we were experiencing I find are great faith builders. The Lord seemed to instil in me a quiet confidence which ran counter to the unrest and fear being experienced by my pastor. It was indeed a spiritual battle we were in, not that I appreciated it at the time, but one thing I am learning, the Lord will always prevail.
I have experienced many ‘impossible’ situations during my lifetime, some I have recorded and others I will continue to record in this biography. Without hesitation I would affirm that the Lord is totally faithful and trustworthy, nevertheless, I am still learning, still making mistakes and self-dependency still raises its ugly head.