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MEMORIES OF INDIA

When I left school I joined the Merchant Navy to train as an Officer by joining the BP fleet of oil tankers. One night I was on a ship that discharged a cargo of crude oil at Mumbai (then Bombay) and we left with tanks that were empty of oil but full of gas. A few hours later, out at sea, we suffered a huge explosion which left a massive hole in the side of the vessel and forced a return to Mumbai where with the crew I spent 7 weeks in a hotel while the ship was made seaworthy for a return to the UK, though in fact we only got as far as Naples in Italy. This rather set the tone for the many visits I made to India and particularly Mumbai rather later in life.

For many years I went to to teach frequently at a NewFrontiers training base we had in Goa. This often involved a visit to Mumbai as well, which never proved to be entirely uneventful.The first of these visits occurred at the start of one of the heaviest monsoon downpours that Mumbai had seen for many years. The day after my arrival I was due to preach at a church some miles away across the city. I never made it; although I tried to do so by wading nearly waist deep through the floods, past dead cats, sodden mats and floating rats. A young man who was with with me as my guide to the church told me to be careful not to step into an open manhole as the covers had probably been washed away! It was one of those, 'why am I doing this,' moments. Later that same day I attempted to get to another church meeting, and this time I arrived, but the congregation didn't, so no-one was present to hear my sermon. By now electricity pylons were collapsing onto the streets and electricity was arcing and sparking across the flood waters.

On a subsequent trip riots were taking place in the city and someone was shot dead outside the hall while I was preaching. There was a very tense atmosphere and I remember being driven to the airport through eerily deserted streets while all the time praying we wouldn't suddenly run into a group of rioters. On another occasion the Indian government fell as I arrived in Mumbai, and on yet another visit, this time with my wife, we were not met at the airport on arrival as we were at the wrong exit and spent most of the night on distinctly uncomfortable metal chairs in the airport lounge. It was finally decided after another visit when a train was blown up on the line I was meant to be travelling on that whenever I arrived in Mumbai I would be driven around by taxi as the risk of taking me in someone's private car was obviously too high!

But the story I tell most about my many visits to that amazing country was what happened to me one evening in Bangalore. It was the last day and the last meeting of a very busy and demanding couple of weeks. I was hot, tired and desperate to get home. I was speaking to a mainly Tamil group of Believers in a stuffy upstairs room with all the colour, smells, noise and vibrancy of India seen, experienced and heard through an open window. There were a number of tiny Tamil ladies in the meeting who worked 12 hours a day carrying bricks on the local building sites. Their language was unreadable on the overhead, the songs were unknown to me, the instruments and music were entirely different to any I'd seen or heard before. I thought; I've got absolutely nothing in common with these people. Their education is different, their background is different, their language is different, their experience of life is completely different to mine - I'm tired, please just let me go home. Suddenly, I had a genuine moment of encounter with God. I had an overwhelming conviction that these people so different to me in so many ways were actually 'my people' for we shared the same salvation and had the same Saviour in Jesus Christ. I can honestly say that in those moments I didn't want to be anywhere else on earth. Of all the scores of meetings I've been to in India that is the one I most remember.

'After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.' Revelation 7:9

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