Pilgrims Progress: Our next place to serve... and be changed

Every road leads to someplace.

Over the past 2 months we have been wandering.   At the end of March this year, Sheba and I spent time in Mussoorie in prayer, and heard clearly that we needed to step away from where we were serving for the past 3.5 years, and into a new place of joy.   Which place?  Well, that was to be discovered.

And so we left our beloved HBM Hospital in Lalitpur on the last day of May and set out on a 6 week trek across India - visiting folks and learning about the amazing things God is doing in and through them. 

It is humbling to see the dedication and vision that so many have.  What a privilege for us to step on 'holy ground' as we have heard our friends (old and new) share their hearts with us.  As we have seen with our eyes the hard fruits of dedication (some very small, clouds just the size of a fist).  As we have felt the pulse of what our sweet Lord is doing through His children across our beloved land.

Returning to the quiet of Mussoorie we did some processing and shared our thoughts with the Elders of our house-fellowships...

We had whittled down our initial invite list from 11 places to 3 opportunities.  Each place had visionary people, and amazing destiny-changing work being done.  The people we met were all the kind that you would give your right arm to work with - and here they were asking us to be part of their vision!  To join them as partners in seeing beauty emerge...

And so we had the hard choice of listening and making a call between 3 places - each of which we could see (with God's help of course) us being used to be the fragrance of our Lord.

But choose we must.  We cannot be everywhere.  Even in 3 places!  One has to be chosen and not serving in the other two will "hurt" in some way, because they were also places of such potential blessing.

As we put down the different things we learned on a common sheet to pray across the categories, Sheba asked me "which place gave you the greatest joy when you wrote down the points?"

That question was a helpful Occam's razor.  It cut to the core of the matter in making this hard choice.  We were spurred to move on from our beloved Lalitpur in order to seek joy.  And so we took a deep breath and accepted that the place of most joy would be the place where we serve next.

And so, it is with eager hearts that we want to thank you for praying and standing by us.

We would like to humbly share that as a family, the Eichers have chosen to accept the offer from the Asha Kiran Society to spend the next years of our lives serving with them.

We are thus stepping into the door opened up for us at Asha Kiran Hospital - much as you would if you were walking through their main gate on any given day:

It is all very, very fresh news.  Even for us!

We are currently in the US for 6 weeks, seeing Asha start college at Taylor University (another amazing provision which has opened up) and meeting near and dear ones.

God willing, we should be starting up at Asha Kiran Hospital in the last week of September.

As the old hymn says:

We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
  And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing;
  We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.

Our first months will be ones of learning.

We will be doing basic language learning of course. Sheba will brush up her Odiya (she grew up in Northern Odisha), but I will have to plunge in as it is a completely new language to me. Both of us will need to learn the rudaments of Desiya language - a trade dialect used by the different tribal groups in the area.

Work-wise, we will also be learning. For one, to understand more deeply the destiny-shaping work that the Asha Kiran Society have been living out as a community over the past 27 years. Where and how we fit in will be a voyage of discovery.

We expect Sheba to be involved in the community health work in the villages - building on the nascent palliative care and mental health work that has been recently started, as well as serving with the hospital-based clinical team.


I would expect to aid in documentation and networking, as well as investing into the young leaders being prepared to spread their wings.

It was so exciting to see a cohort of men and women emerge from villages where 2 decades ago had only a handful of literates. I was thrilled to meet a young man from one of these villages who is currently enrolled in the Tata Institute of Social Science in Mumbai - for a Masters of Public Health!

Part of my training is in the wonderful intersection of seeing how we can see people take care of the good earth we have been given to care for - and at the same time strengthen the relationships that our people have for each other as well as with the land.

It is a blessing to have training in forestry and also to have worked with watershed management in the Bundelkhand region in the past 3 years.  I am excited to learn about this hill region and glean from my colleagues the lessons they have learned.


We also need to learn spiritually.  Much.  Over and over again.

Over the past few weeks I have been deeply moved by Roy and Revel Hession's book We Would See Jesus.  It is humbling to see just how much more of the road we need to travel.  And also heartening to know how very close Jesus is to us.

I am slowly recognizing how much of my life has been barren because of the subtle replacing of God with 'service.'  How much my own heart needs to be ploughed anew, to step back into simply walking with my Lord.

The good news, the excellent good news is that our loving Lord stands at the door of our hearts, knocking. He loves us so very, very much. And Jesus tells us "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." 

Jesus goes on to say "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

How kind our Lord is to take us along on this journey.  How good it is to trust Him and do so wholly.

So much to learn. So much to continue to be changed from the inside-out. We are excited about this next stage in our lives, in our year of Jubilee.

Yes, we hope to be a part of seeing long-lasting change take place in largely tribal communities who seem to live at the very end of the world.  But just as necessary, we want to see changes take place at the beginning and the end of ourselves.

"Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me...     Song of Solomon 2.10

We so much appreciate so many of you who have been part of this journey.  Thanks for your prayers as we have made this decision.

As our pilgrim journey has brought us to the Asha Kiran stage, we look forward to seeing transformed lives... starting with our own!