Our last full day in Kolkata

Thanks so much for all your prayers, emotional support, and of course the means ($)!  Without your servant & "sender's" heart we would not be here...so remember that you too are bringing great glory to God in all our encounters.  Wow.  Isn't that awesome how the body works? 


This is our last day here in Kolkata!!  We plan to hopefully find a quiet place to meditate and pray, and meet our new friend, Salah for coffee at Barista's.  I'm so looking forward to seeing you all soon and sharing...

...until then, please pray for us as we have been reaching out for three days now to a young man (24) named Salah Uddin who came to Kolkata 12 years ago as a young boy to make money for his family who live 20 minutes from Bodhgaya just south of Patna, Bihar, in a small river community between two mountains.  He is different than most Indians we have met...a calm, quiet, serene man. (A lot of the Indians we have met are about talking loudly, debating, and arguing over the smallest of issues.)  We met him in New Market off of Sudder Street.  He asked if he could be our coolie and lead us around to shops and sites.  We said, "no thanks"...but in a quiet, non-hassling way (which is unheard of here)...he offered to help us at no charge.  We still refused his assistance...but he stuck with us.  Soon he was leading us....but not in a "you will pay me?" kind of way. 

Salah is humble, capable, unassuming, intelligent, and has learned English from helping Americans like us.  We have treated him with dignity, respect, and christian love...with which he is unfamiliar, and looks bewildered by our efforts to have him eat with us and also pay for his food.  Even within the christian culture here...those who prepare the food never sit down and eat with the guests.  They wait until everyone is done...and then they get what little is leftover and eat on the floor...after everyone has left.  This lack of equality amongst the christians we served with was difficult to understand and respect. I found myself challenging it by sticking around and sitting on the floor with them... trying to communicate and be interested in their lives, and looking for ways to befriend and serve the servants.  This brought stares and head wags of disapproval and unbelief....but the rebel in me really didn't care.  

So back to Salah....the first day we met he took us out of our hood.... across the large Howrah Bridge... past a toll booth...and into an area that was very scary (sorry Mark)...to a gated Botanical Garden.  As we walked through the quiet park, we had opportunities to ask him questions and share why we came to India.  It was sweet.  And yesterday he led us around the Indian Museum and back to the street that we asked him to...but at lunch we gave him Felicia's ESV study Bible,the huge headbanger.  Salah didn't know what to think...it was like no one had ever given him a gift before.  We have been praying for him a lot. He is not sleeping well at night and we have been praying that God would speak to him in dreams/visions. 

 Please join us in prayer for him.  Salah means "mission, send, righteousness"    I am praying that Salah will  be a "bridge"  to telling the good news in the Patna, Bihar area someday.  Thank you!

Love from India,

Sharon