Retiring from IBM after 30 years and moving to India was certainly nothing we had even dreamed of 5 years ago, but here we are and after 20 months we can honestly say we believe this is the most rewarding thing we could do with our lives. No, we do not have a seminary degree. But we have had the opportunity of being in a Bible preaching church for 23 years with leaders who have been eager to equip the Body of Christ to not only be disciples, but to participate in making them. As a result, after going on a couple of short-term trips and meeting fellow believers here, we felt compelled to extend an encouraging hand to those who are wanting to participate in discipleship making as well.
Of course that looks different than it did in the suburbs of America. In fact, it has looked more like turning over puzzle pieces that belong to a mysterious grand puzzle that God is putting together here in this corner of the world. The pieces seemed so random at times but we are slowly seeing that they clearly are not random.
Day after day we have had new faces and names to learn. There were also businesses and churches with their leadership for us to learn about. However, in the last two months it seems like some of the puzzle pieces may actually connect!! Time will tell, but we had an Indian Christian leader tell us that he sees our job, primarily, is to be a connector. He thanked us for connecting him to people here in the city he would not have otherwise met.
We saw this again with a recent visa run to United Arab Emarites. God orchestrated a meeting with an Indian believer who had spent the last 10 years working in the UAE sending money to his family in India. He shared with us that soon after moving to the UAE he almost died from the harsh conditions in the labor camps. It was then that God miraculously healed him, and he became a follower of Jesus. He was discipled by a Canadian man he met at church, and it was not long before he was a vibrant leader in his job as well as among his own Punjabi people working there. In less than 10 years, he led many to Jesus and then raised up Christian leadership for churches in three different cities. When we met him he was preparing to resign from his management position in the UAE because God said it was time to go back to his own country and plant churches. As it turns out God was calling him to his home that was only 10 minutes by scooter from our home in India to reach this unreached area of the world. Only God can orchestrate that!
The story continues to unfold as we now meet weekly with him and his wife. He is learning how to balance family, his demanding manager position in his new job, along with his strong passion for reproducing disciples in this city as well as in his home village 6 hours away.
We are learning that our job is to pray for and with him, listen, ask questions, study the scriptures together and make suggestions along the way. At the moment he is eager to have us help him to teach others learn how to share their personal story of coming to Jesus and God’s Story found in the Gospel. And because of our generous financial supporters we have funds set aside to help us develop and provide needed training materials both written and audio in his target language of Punjabi.
God has clearly been at work in his life long before India was even on our radar, but is exciting to be invited into this divine partnership that God has orchestrated.
By: Workers in Asia