In late 2015 Sheba and
I were led to step away from 12 years of community in the city of Thane,
Maharashtra where we had been serving with people living with HIV/AIDS. We were delighted to see so many lives
changed, and humbled to witness eternity enriched and local churches welcoming
people with HIV into their families.
Ever since we moved to
the Mumbai area in 2001, we would take time to pray and reconsider at roughly
3-4 year cycles. Over the previous dozen
years in Thane, each such exercise gave us the same basic message: be
faithful, stay put, carry on. But this
time around a specific verse spoke to us: “blessed are those who trust in
the Lord, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage” [Psalm 84.5]. We knew it was time to move on.
Moving on meant uprooting
and being replanted in Lalitpur in Uttar Pradesh – right in the centre of India
and part of the drought-prone Bundelkhand region – 13 districts straddling northern
Madhya Pradesh and south western Uttar Pradesh.
We were deeply privileged to serve with the HBM Hospital family. These past 3.5 years were deeply challenging,
and also a great blessing as we have seen God’s grace operating in so many
ways, and are again aware of how much we need to be shaped more and more like
Him.
At the end of March
this year Sheba and I were privileged to spend some time together in
prayer. Our parent organisation had
spelled out what their strategy for the HBM Hospital was going to be and we
needed time to reflect and hear God’s words to us. We read and prayed through “The Calvary
Road” by Roy Hession and came away with a clear leading to move on. We thus gave our notice to our leaders that
we would be leaving come June 1st of this year. And we did.
We are currently wonderfully open to wherever God will have us
next. Deep breath. Blank canvas. Big God.
It’s our year of
Jubilee and we want to experience the Sabbath rest, the Shalom-presence of the
Lover of our souls. And so we are on a
journey. A continuation, a series of further
stages in our pilgrimage. We have 116 boxes
of our things packed away in a friend’s home in Lalitpur, awaiting shipment to
our next resting place. Where they will
go we still don’t know, but we have already had the deep joy of two and a half
amazing weeks of travel and meeting so many precious people.
Will you join us in
our journey? In this blog (untouched for
many a moon) we will be highlighting some of the amazing places where wonderful
people have asked us to consider joining them in the remarkable work they are
doing. We know we can’t serve everywhere
– and so are listening and learning – wanting to hear which is the yoke that
our gentle-hearted, humble and kind Jesus has shaped for us (Mat.
11.28-29). In the mean-time we are just
blessed to be with folks who are the salt of the earth. People doing destiny-shaping work, far from
the razzle-dazzle spotlights which we (secretly at least) yearn for. Just being with them is such a blessing.
The next 3 months will
be truly pilgrim worthy. We travel down
to Chennai tomorrow to spend time with Appa and Sheba’s brother Peter and
family. Then I take Enoch back to
boarding school in Mussoorie. We hope to
visit another potential site for serving, and need to meet the good folks at
the US Embassy in early July. Why you
may ask? Because our dear Asha is slated
to start college at our beloved Taylor University in Fall. Amazing grace that God has provided an
unheard of combination of scholarships and a wonderful supporter family to
cover her costs!
Sheba and I are hoping
to join Asha on a US trip from the last week of July to early September. Our current plan is to come in and out of
Chicago. Stops planned include a visit
to Sheba’s sister and family in Arizona, friends in Colorado, more family and
friends in Indiana before dropping off Asha for her orientation on August 20th. That leaves us with a final 3 weeks of
jubilee and flying back to Bharat on Sept. 10th during which time we
also hope to meet up with my sister Premila
Let’s see how the cookie crumbles.
So please join us on
our travels. We need your prayers and advice.
Any thoughts for our next steps are of course most welcomed. And while we know we cannot meet all of the
galaxy of amazing people who have loved us, we do hope to at least bump into a
few of you on these journeys.
It’s a wonderful life!
If your trip brings you via London, please remember that you are welc
ReplyDeleteOops, accidentally pressed 'Send' - was trying to say you are welc
ReplyDeleteI give up!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to use my flat :-)
May Almighty God be with you in your pilgrim journeys.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing you all in August and watching how God will lead you.
ReplyDeleteWe will definitely be with you in prayer...and oh so excited for you in this amazing journey you're on! Such a gif ...
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