In the beginning was the email....and the email was from India!
A God Thing is what I would like to call the string of events that eventually
lead to my trip to India.
Let me start from the beginning. One day in the month of August, 2000,
I received an email from a pastor in India. He introduced himself
and his ministry, and recounted many interesting facts about India. India has an ever-increasing population,
the second most populous nation in the world, but there are less than three percent
Christians. An estimated sixteen thousand people perish every day never
having heard the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. Pastor Jaya Kumar presented
himself as a very enlivening and compassionate person, and toward the end of
his letter he asked me to pray for his ailing wife, Sujatha,
who was suffering from pneumonia and tuberculosis. He mentioned that the
medical bills were beyond his means and he did not have the money for her treatment
and medicines. I was very moved by his piteous situation and immediately
replied asking him how much the medicine would cost in US dollars, the sum of
which turned out to be $72.00. The exchange rate is USD1 = INR45 i.e.
the dollar is forty five times more expensive, which I happened to discover later
when I was back home. I was wholeheartedly prepared to help him pay
his medical bills so that his wife would receive proper treatment, no less than
I would expect for my own children.
