Third Mission: The ends of the earth
They say that there used to be a sign at Bombay Airport refusing entry to dogs and South Africans. We were refused a visa, but I still think the story was a myth. We prayed for a year, and finally the S.A. cricket team were invited to play in India. Thanks to our prayers! When I saw Jonty Rhodes and Alan Donald riding through cheering crowds in Calcutta I knew that the doors had been forced open for the gospel.
Alan got married and was relieved by the Lord from active service for a year according to Mosaic Law! I flew alone to Bombay and received a great welcome from the taxi drivers. Three days in the train took me to Bangalore where I was really welcomed by the church and taken in like a family member.I had come to Spy out the land of promise. There were terrible giants, Kali with extended tongue and a necklace of skulls, grinding poverty and suffocating heat.
I travelled North to the Kumbh Mela Pilgrimage, and met with naked gurus and pressing multitudes of pilgrims. I nearly got squashed by an elephant with a maha guru perched on top.The guru did not notice me. I barely escaped being crushed in a stampede to get into the holy waters of the river, and suffered with all the rest from dysentery.As part of a team we distributed millions of New Testament portions.More than twenty million hindus passed through during those two months.I gave out free books faster than free money, and sometimes had to retreat running with literature hungry hindus in pursuit.I sat with stoned sadhus and shared Jesus, and clashed with angry italian hindus who had come as hippies in the sixties and never went back. As I left the Pilgrimage on a "standing only" bus for five hours I began to fall sick, and was taken in by the church family in Bhopal after many bouts of retching and diahrroea.
I returned to SA and we joined a little Anglican church in Pretoria for a year while Dot worked as an assistant in surgery and I sewed sandals and bags.One day Dorothea said to me, lets give the best years of our life to Jesus, so I gave up my job and went up the mountain to pray.No job, no money, how to get to India to preach the gospel? I had a great idea, we would cycle to India, so I went down to the hospital to tell Dorothea. She came out of surgery in those little green bootie things and we stood in the passage at the Dental hospitaal while I shared my idea with her...and she loved it!
Here is a foto of us going across the border into Zimbabwe on our cycles.
And here is Dorothea on the left a few months later en route to India. Masai came out of the bush to investigate this strange phenomenen of a cycling family.
Eliel was a star cyclist at the age of eight and showed great courage at the prospect of cycling up to 80 km a day not knowing where we would sleep come evening time.Dorothea had the smallest tent/home ever to keep so everything had its place and we could wrap it all up in five minutes to get out onto the road!
This happy freedom for Eliel was not to last too long, within six months he was back at school. See if you can spot him on the right in the school foto.
We met lots of wonderful christians in Bangalore, so after a year we decided that we ought to be meeting more hindus and went to live in Varanasi (Kashi) on the Ganges river.
The Lord said to us "Go and make your bed amongst the uncircumcised". After arriving in Benares we started a church in our house and lots of African students began to attend! And some Hindus also started coming that couldnt understand our way of worshipping God, so one of our friends who is a Hindu disciple of Jesus started worship services for Hindus who want to follow Jesus.
One very important addition was made to our family during Ramadan in the Muslim quarter of the city. At about three in the morning everybody started bashing their pots and pans just after Francesca was born, not to herald her birth but rather to wake everyone up for a pre dawn breakfast! This is Chesky a few months later, on the left, with my beautiful wife.
