By Jared Wright, Feb 1, 2008
e just had the worst week of our whole lives. I’m not joking. And I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say it was so awful that I wanted to run away and never come back to India. Seriously. And yet, God mercifully arranged a series of events with uncanny timing to give us encouragement in a way only He could.
As I write this, Tonya and I are on an Indian Air flight returning to Darjeeling. Yes, you read that correctly. We’re returning to Darjeeling.
Shockwave to the senses
We first arrived in the hills of Darjeeling on December 4 after nearly 18 hours of flying, more than 12 hours of layover and a three-hour truck-taxi ride over steep, winding roads into the mountains of North Bengal. By the time we arrived at our hotel with our nine full-size pieces of luggage and our backpacks, we had been traveling for nearly 40 hours. We were exhausted. Tonya was so tired that she fell asleep in the taxi as we bumped through potholes the size of Martian craters.
We had been told that traveling to India for the first time can be quite a shock to the system. We definitely felt the shockwave. The sights, the sounds and especially the smells were overwhelming. It was more like journeying to a foreign planet than a foreign country.
Thus began Satan’s assault on our resolve to serve God. Little did we know that at that very hour God was redirecting the plans of John Baxter, AFM’s personnel director, who was already in India researching a potential new project. More on this later.
As we drove higher and higher into the thickening clouds, I kept telling myself that we just needed to make it up the mountain to our hotel. To get away from the crowds of people pleading for us to let them carry our bags or clean our shoes. To find the soft bed and warm blankets the tourist guide promised.
Instead of warm comfort, I found an igloo—no heat. The water puddles on the bathroom floor were beginning to crystallize. I didn’t even want to bring Tonya inside.
“God, this is getting to be too much for me!” I breathed.
God, I’m drowning here!
I thanked the hotel clerk and beat a hasty retreat. I was getting more and more anxious by the minute. Here we were in a strange city in a strange country, and we desperately needed some rest.
Our teammates, Jonathan and Karen Lovitt, had given us phone numbers of helpful people in Darjeeling, but I wasn’t thinking straight. Fatigue and growing anxiety were clouding my judgment. I couldn’t seem to force my mind to figure out how to find a phone, and no one spoke English anyway. I looked around. The streets were plastered with garbage, and mangy dogs were devouring the scraps.
“God, I’m drowning here!”
We got back in the taxi and asked the driver to go back the way we had come. Eventually, we found a very nice inn. Unfortunately, it came with a very nice price tag, but I didn’t have the energy to fight back.
“God, I can’t handle this. It’s just too much. I’m trapped. I have to get out!”
That night, I contacted Laurence Burn, AFM’s COO, explaining our plight.
Mercy follows our footsteps
I had never had such intense feelings of helplessness and anxiety. Tonya tried to comfort me. We prayed so much, but I was still going to pieces. I barely slept that night. In the morning, I was still a mess. So, I ran away. We had a return ticket to the States, and I wanted to go all the way home. Thankfully, God intervened.
We retraced our steps across India until we found ourselves in a hotel room in Delhi waiting to catch the next flight to Chicago. In addition to the overwhelming anxiety, now the guilt set in.
“God, so many people have sacrificed to help us get here. Why am I such a mess?” I didn’t want to let anyone down, but I continued to spiral out of control. This was a spiritual battle I did not know how to fight.
“God, help me!”
And He did. In ways that made our jaws drop when we heard the rest of the story.
The day after I contacted Laurence, he called us and asked us to stay in India just one more day. We agreed.
After the call, Laurence burst out of his office exclaiming, “I must get in touch with John Baxter!”
Office secretary Claudia Roedell met Laurence in the hallway with a phone in her hand. “John just called—he’s on the line now. Do you want to speak with him?”
Taken aback by God’s miraculous timing, Laurence told John about our situation and asked him to visit us. John had been planning to be in an entirely different region of India that day, but he had fallen ill the previous day and felt too weak to continue his journey. At a bus stop at 10 p.m., he decided to call the home office just to check in. It was the exact moment we were talking with Laurence. Our God is amazing! Before we asked for His help, He was already arranging our rescue.
John reshuffled his plans and headed to Dehli to meet us.
Angels to strengthen us
Someone once told me that when Jesus was in the garden the night before He was crucified, He came to the place where He didn’t know how He could make it through. But the Father sent Him an angel to refresh Him.
At our lowest point, God did that for Tonya and me, too. He sent Laurence Burn, John Baxter, Belinda Kent, the daily earnest prayers of the home office staff and some timely emails of encouragement from friends and family in the States.
Over the next few days after John met us in Delhi, we prayed together, claimed Scripture promises together and came to better understand the realities of the warfare we are engaged in as frontier missionaries. We also came to understand more clearly how dependent we are upon our Lord to fight for us.
In the midst of this challenging time, He even sent me a song to encourage me. It was sung as special music on the Sabbath we were in the New Delhi Adventist Church.
I can be strong, I can be brave,
I can be free, or be a slave.
The choice is mine.
I can go through storm or gale,
I can be true, or I can fail;
I can desert or set my sail.
The choice is mine.
I can have faith, I can have fear,
I can believe that God is near,
Or I can doubt the things I hear.
The choice is mine.
I can draw close, or I can stray,
I can submit or run away,
Within my heart I hear Him say
The choice is mine.
Because He gave His life for me,
Because of love at Calvary,
I take Him for eternity, the choice is mine.
I’ll walk by faith where I am led,
It matters not what lies ahead,
And if the path be crimson red,
The choice is mine.
We are going back to Darjeeling. We know that Someone incredible wants to reveal Himself to us there and shine out through us to the Gorkha people. We also know that someone else wants to keep us away. We are learning that this is part of shouldering the cross, and we know we’re not alone. The choice is mine. I choose faith.
