My Chinese friend in Calcutta in 1988

A well built but small frame with a height just about the same as mine was Mr John. We met in the church. He was with his wife and one small son and we got into small talks and soon became good friends. He invited me to his father-in-law Chinese shoe shop in one corner of Calcutta New Market. His father-in-law was not a Christian even though John and his wife were. I became a frequent visitor to the shop and every time I went there John and I would chatted endlessly on matters related to our respective lives and our families so on and so forth.  He was a volunteer in a missions field in Africa and while loading and unloading truck loads of literature and food items, he ‘broke’ his back and had to return home. Since then he was helping in the traditional family profession of his in laws in the city of Calcutta. Shoe making was an art in which the Indian Chinese excelled and they have been making shoes that are of excellent quality available for sale at  a relatively cheap rates affordable to college students and young professionals. He would talked of days his team spent in Africa (I do not remember any longer which particular country it was) and how good the Lord was to them in providing what was needed every day. I would tell him about how faithful was the Lord in the remote areas where I was posted, how I took the posting as a preparation to work as a missionary one day and how in all circumstances we saw God’s hands.  I would recount the desire of our family to be in missions but that so far we had not yet found an opening. I would ask my friends in Gideon International why God would not give an opening and I would be told that till we hear a definite calling we were to hold on faithfully to whatever God had allowed us to do as his own work and only move on when we become completely sure of God’s leading o leave our work and place.