Over the years we have lived in South Asia, God has changed our hearts in many ways, but none more than in the conscious awareness of his presence and our absolute, without-a-doubt need for him.
It was because of the call of God that my husband, Ted,* and I went to India, an endeavor for which we had been in preparation all our lives. Yet, in the beginning, we held in our grasp only a handful of flimsy ideas and many prayers. If not for the certainty of this call and of the always-pervasive presence of his Holy Spirit, our strength and commitment would surely have melted on the streets of this city. Who were we after all? Ordinary people, we were untried, inadequate and nearly invisible amid so many lost souls.
A letter to friends six years after our arrival in India describes what happened to our passion.
“When we left for the ‘field,’ certain of God’s call on our lives, we said tearful goodbyes to our family and friends, knowing that we would not return the same. We would likely never fit again into the society that groomed us for this moment.
“Now we have been here for nearly six years, and it seems we’ve only blinked twice. The certainty of God’s call on our lives is the same, even stronger; but the truth of this metropolis has now been unveiled.
Ted and Colette Cranston* serve as strategy coordinators for this megacity in India. In the last two years, more than 300 Muslims in the city have come to Jesus. “Now is his chosen, sovereign moment in time and place,” Colette Cranston says.“This feels not so much like discouragement as reality. We look at the city and wonder what it will take to change its heartbeat – a heartbeat that doesn’t pulse for Jesus. We wonder when we will stop learning and begin – just begin – to know what we’re doing. We are aware that God’s desire is that all people bow at his feet in worship, but we see people daily bowing instead before almost anything else. We see evangelists come in and out of the city and multitudes express faith in Christ – then melt away as quickly as they have gathered. We see a minority church in survival mode, in fear of sharing with the lost. We see people professing to know Jesus and even pretending to do ministry to gain sustenance for their family, or perhaps for simple greed. And so it goes. It is the same reality we came to six years ago, which, in God’s mercy, we didn’t see. If we had, certainly, we’d have gone home.
“But now this city is our passion, and we cannot leave. It is our commitment to the call that God has placed on our lives that urges us further to dig in, better equipped in all ways, yet totally inadequate – .”
It has been four years since that letter, and we remain here – in awe of God’s unmistakable working in the souls of men. In the last two years, more than 300 Muslims in our city have come to Jesus. Now is his chosen, sovereign moment in time and place. We know that whatever happens in our surging, still desperate metropolis is his – for his glory alone. And that has become entirely enough.
*Names changed for security reasons.
Editor’s Note: Ted and Colette Cranston have served 12 years with the International Mission Board. Currently, they are strategy coordinators for a megacity in India. After Ted completed seminary at age 50 at Columbia International University, they left South Carolina for Asia. Their two grown children and three granddaughters continue to live in the States.