An arrow is an attacking weapon. It leaves our hands. It travels along a directed course. It keeps going even when we are not there.
As I look at our parents I see how much we have been blessed to fulfill their desires. My mother reading about the high Himalayas in German books with titles like Tigers in the Snow.
How amazing that her dreams were fulfilled through me when she (very bravely) gave me permission to go on a mountaineering expedition which ended up with me summitting on 8th July 1985 on Dharamsura (21,148 ft - pictured above) at the tender age of 16.
Likewise with studies. Though she was not able to really study after 8th standard because she did not join the Communist Youth Party, all three of us kids have been able to fulfill her dreams through studying at different levels. To think where we have all gone. Premila in Idaho, Stefan criss crossing the world (all 6 inhabited continents in one year) and now in Delhi, myself and Sheba here in Thane after working in Manipur and Jharkhand.
For Sheba: her father grew up without a Dad - since his father left for Malaysia when Appa was just a boy - never to come back again. Appa left home early and set out to get a job in the new steel plant the Germans helped build in the jungles of northern Orissa - a place called Rourkela. Today, after over 40 years of slog, Appa and Amma have 4 children scattered around the world - all having done higher studies and all involved in meaningful work - as well as being involved in their local churches.
What of the next generation? Will Asha and Enoch move beyond the tragectories of our lives? What we want most of all is that they love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength - and their neighbour as themselves.
And may they fulfill our dreams too. As arrows speeding on into the light.
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