MISSIONARY WORK IN GOA, INDIA
Jim Fisher from St Stephens will be going to do missionary work in India for three months. Please keep him in your prayers. The following are his emails from India so please excuse the spelling as editing has been kept to a minimum!
What an experience so far! I arrived in Mumbai at 4.15am on Tues 22nd April, it was a good feeling to be back in India, the mixture of smells together with a 30 degree temperature and high humidy made the air clammy but I was full of inner excitement
and blessed with the Holy Spirit. Got a low cost taxi to the Main Train Station in the centre of Mumbai known as Victoria, it is very close to the splendid Archway building called 'The Gate way to Indian'.
It was 6am, my intention was to purchase a ticken to Goa and be on my way. No trains, it was a 5 day waiting time for a train so plan 'B' was called for. I phoned my friend (Ann Pinto an Indian wife of my friend David Newton who lives in Goa) It was an a 35 minute local train journey to where she lived. I found the left luggage office and for the price of 10 rupees (15p) decided to leave my luggage and head off to Anns. The train station was packed and many people/families were sleeping on the
floor including the children, some were travellers but for whole families it was there home. At 6.30 a man appeared with a water hose and proceeded to spray the floor which was also a way of an alarm call to those sleeping. There was a lazy buzz about the station, as though it was coming out of a sleep which indeed it was.
The train I was going to Anns on was leaving, so I ran and jumped on as the train was moving, you see it had no doors! there werepeople hanging out of the doors, windows and some even sitting on the roof it was an amzing sight. The cariage I jumped on became very active and people pointing fingers at me, in an agitated way it was as though I had dssturbed an hornets nest, it then became obvious to me that they were all womem and I had jumped into the carriage reserved for women only, what an Indian dumbo I felt, at the next train station I jump off quickly into the next carriage, suprise suprise I then became on of those haning onto the door. I did eventually arrive at Anns and we shared food, prayer and fellowship together. I then took a nap in the afternoon for an hour which is a normal custom.
Plan 'B' was decided upon, which was to get a sleeper coach which was leaving at 9.30pm from Mumbai, arriving in Goa the following day at 10am. I left Ann, traced my steps back to the Train station, collected my luggage and went to the coach station
which was a road side stop at a place called Bandra. Then the fun began.
In follow on. Am now waiting for the Sleeper Coach to arrived at Bandra to take me to Goa. The Coach finally arrived at 10.45pm my luggage was put in the hold and I got on the coach. I was expecting to find a reclining type seat, what I got was a bund bed (top and bottom) it was a ply board base with a linen type cover and a blanket and a tatty old curtain for privacy!. I smiled, thanked the Lord for his grace and got into the bunk. Within a few minutes an Indian man came and stood by the bunk and
asked me to move over as he started to get in the bunk also, can you imagine! I jumped out and as politely as I could asked him what he was doing! It transpired that I had actually booked a shared bunk ha ah. Who said that God does not have a sense of humour. I agreed with him that he should go on the inside which he agreed and so I was a little more relieved that at least I shouild have a quick getaway if needs be.
We set off, and apart from the coach swaying in all directions and the driver constantly peeping his horn we all settled down for the night, and possibly because I was so tired I slept fairly well on and off. Twelve hours later we arrived in Margaon, Goa.
Jumping back a little, from the time I was in Mumbai with my friends wife Ann. She is a Roman Catholic and a nice humble lady. We were talking of the fairh and in paticular The Alpha course, she has great love of Mother Mary and Jesus but only in the very basics. To my suprise and with I feel the blessing of The Holy Spirit
she asked, if on my return to Mumbai I would spend some time in teaching her and her friends
