Naked I Came

  The Goodwins

  Hospitality was their forte and extending it with generosity was their style. They had adopted a culture of pleasing anyone and everyone; sometimes out of pure spirit of friendliness and sometimes, they were making these moves as if on a chessboard.

  The man of the house, a burly man in his early fifties with a permanent smirk on his face, had always been a power player in church politics of one of the Main Line churches that they attended until then as a family. Lately, however, he could sense the dwindling court of followers. People were becoming weary of the numerous long-drawn-out court cases that the governing body of the church association had entered into. As a veteran in the game, he knew the thrill from the power game had gone. There were very few players left on the board, and very few occasions came by to put sparkle in his eyes at the ‘checkmate’ he was so accustomed to calling. Checkmates that were now effectively replaced by the stalemate of inactivity.

  In the meantime, the Delhi Christian Fellowship group, the name that Brother Eric had given to the worship services was growing in popularity. This provided the power couple with a new playing field, which did not throw up any active players until then, except for a lone charismatic leader with new insight on the Bible. The exciting worship meetings were in stark contrast to the drab proceedings of committee meetings, which the power-couple were accustomed to attend.

  His wife, an executive by occupation, carried herself in a very stately fashion. With a personality that had acquired a few extra pounds over the years, it seemed as if she always walked with each step taken very precisely, firmly gripping the ground to balance her slightly over-rounded frame, which was a few inches shorter from the optimum weight–height ratio for women. Over the years, Mrs. Goodwin was quite fed up with the legal talk that always permeated the atmosphere at her dining table. This was compounded by her dislike for the female participants, without whom the quorum of the meetings could not be met, and one of whom had started private discussions of philosophical nature, unspeakable of in the open, with Mr. Goodwin.

  Both, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin started frequenting the worship meetings regularly. Seated in one of the front rows, Mr. Goodwin would sit in an upright position with the trademark smirk on his face and Mrs. Goodwin sat next to him with a perky countenance that was in total contrast to her matter-of-fact expression, which she carried otherwise. In fact, over the course of time, Justin saw her balancing the two facets, effortlessly.

  Very soon, the two became prominent members of the group with the carting, boarding and lodging of Brother Eric, completely taken over by them. This gave Justin a breather and he employed this reprieve to devote more time to pay family visits to the members.

  Hospitality

  Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin were perfect hosts and every Saturday morning, after Brother Eric’s arrival from the train station, they would lay a kingly breakfast. At the breakfast table, Brother Eric with his eloquent speech in chaste Urdu language with fair sprinkle of ‘migratory’ Persian words and a topping of English spoken with an Australian accent would leave everyone around struck with amazement and amusement.

  The light-hearted moments at the breakfast table were followed by visits to a few important people that Brother Eric was trying to draw into the group. Visiting the other lesser mortals was the responsibility of Justin.

  For the purpose of visitation, Brother Eric preferred being driven in the car by Mrs. Goodwin, as she scored higher on safe driving compared to her husband, whose driving style gave the impression as if he was dodging a guided missile following his car close behind. Every time Mr. Goodwin got behind the wheels of his car, he would grin ear to ear. His eyes would have a gleam of expectancy to hear thankful praises from whoever was travelling with him in the car, for his ‘James Bond’ style driving created a scenario as if the occupants had just escaped certain destruction at the hands of the some sneaky invisible missile that followed the car. The lack of appreciation for his skills was not treated kindly, and the accompanying passenger, who undoubtedly would be completely shaken up by the ride, risked being off-loaded midway with an excuse of some very urgent business that seemed to come up all of a sudden. Still, he was the best person around, and whenever there arose an occasion where something needed to be done at the shortest notice, Mr. Goodwin was the obvious choice. No one could beat him at that, and he took pride in it and rightly so.

  Their individual talents, unflinching loyalty and unquestioned availability at all times were a great asset for the church work. However, at the same time, their slightly uncompromising approach and less-than-accommodating attitude for others in general were an impediment to the freedom of spirit in the Lord’s work. Brother Eric, however, ignored the negatives and instead harnessed the potential of the abilities of this husband and wife duo towards furtherance of the church work.

  The Call

  The church work started to grow in number and commitment by the people, and there were talks of starting a Sunday morning church service. Justin, who earlier did not favour this idea, now was the main proponent of starting the Sunday morning church services by the group. This was because after the Saturday night spiritual feast, attending the Sunday service in a Main Line church became less fruitful, and Justin started feeling that it was not benefiting him or his family in any way. Many others, who started attending these worship services regularly, were still not prepared to leave their age-old association with the Main Line church; however, for of most them, the Sunday service in their respective churches was becoming more of an increasingly hollow experience, especially after the vibrating spirit-filled services of the Delhi Christian Fellowship group. For this reason, slowly, many members were getting around the idea of starting the Sunday morning church services.

  Justin was continuously growing in the understanding of the Word. At his work place in the bank, he always kept his Bible open in the upper right drawer of his desk, enabling him to make a quick reference to it whenever a particular thought enlightened him.

  In the evening, he would ride his motorcycle and visit a few fellowship members, praying and fellowshipping with them. Many-a-times, Pearl would accompany him on such visits. With each passing day, more and more people requested him to come and visit them during the week. During such visits, the whole family would gather round him and lend their ears to whatever he shared with them from the Bible, giving Justin the feeling of an extended family.

  Justin’s involvement in church activity was increasing on a daily basis, to the extent that he exhausted all his leave at the bank while attending the church work and at other times, just staying back at home to dwell on the Word. He started to get many opportunities to preach the Word in the worship meetings and it always proved to be a very exciting experience. The Bible started opening up to him in a very new way; practically every other verse he read caught his attention, and these were no imaginations but revelations that he started feeling in his spirit.

  Soon it became apparent that Justin was not able to do justice to his work at the bank and the church simultaneously. He had never been casual with any of his responsibilities. As a result, a time had come when he needed to decide to engage himself fully with one task and quit the other. He and Pearl got down on their knees to pray for guidance on the subject and after much prayer, they arrived at the conclusion that Justin needed to quit the bank job and get into full-time ministry with the church. The conviction was complete and total and as such, there were no second thoughts or hesitation of any kind.

  They shared their thoughts with Brother Eric, who strengthened their resolve with his support. Slowly, they started spreading the word amongst friends and relatives. Most of them, however, disapproved of leaving such a nice job and moving into full-time ministry.

  ‘What will happen of your children?’

  ‘You both are young and have got a long way to go’.

  ‘How would you meet the expenses? The church will not be able to substitute the salary and all other perks that the bank provides??
?—these were just a few among the many thoughts shared by his friends and relatives.

  His colleagues from the bank, most of whom were from different faith could never comprehend his decision.

  Justin’s resolve and Pearl’s support did not waiver with all this discouraging talk. Rather, with resolute firmness, they started their journey of faith; and finally Justin resigned from the bank.

  The people in the church circles, though still trying to comprehend the move, were nevertheless awe struck by the boldness of it all.

  Brother Eric was not only a very close observer of all spiritual moves that were happening within his group, but was also a very good planner to handle and prepare in advance for such matters. Justin was leaving his job to be in full-time ministry and the church members were excited and ready to be a part of it all.

  Brother Eric encouraged all for the establishment of a church base in Delhi. Contributions were raised to rent and equip a place as an assembly hall on the ground floor, along with an office and a small room on the first floor to facilitate short stays by visiting ministers. The rented premises underwent renovation, and soon, the Delhi Christian Fellowship group had an assembly hall with all the furniture and equipment that goes into the making of a serene worship place.

  Justin and Pearl were excited by the prospects of their group having a designated place of their own for worship services. God was rewarding their walk of Faith.

  Toddar Mall

  After working for more than a decade and half, Justin left his bank job. Before finally vacating the bank apartment, he started making rounds of property brokers to look for a rental house. When in the bank, Justin found these property brokers to be very friendly and overtly eager to assist in locating a suitable property for rent. For the purpose, while negotiating with the property owner, they would go out of their way to vouch for Justin, though they hardly knew him personally. It always amused him to see these people talking with extra politeness that certainly betrayed their otherwise boisterous mannerisms.

  Justin entered the office of one of the property brokers in the neighbourhood to probe the prospects of finding some property for rental stay. Seated behind a large burgundy-coloured executive table was this hefty man wearing an equally, and appropriately, thick gold chain around his neck. Another gold chain, of the same size, dangled loosely from his wrist, the fingers of which had more stone-studded rings than the count of them. Occasionally, he would tap the table with the ring of his thumb to the tune of some song from a Bollywood movie. An underage boy, illegally employed by the property dealer to carry out odd jobs, was seated on the stool near the entrance, always alert and ready to jump to the commands of his master. Two huge, garland-laden photo frames with photographs of some gurus hung from the wall behind the desk. The heavy smell of rose and cinnamon filled the room from the burning of the agarbatti (incense sticks) that were stuck in the two lower corners of the frames.

  On seeing Justin standing at the door, the tapping fingers stopped in mid-track and a smile spread corner-to-corner on the face of Toddar Mall. He could not ignore the very noticeable gleam in Toddar Mall’s eyes that sent a clear signal to Justin as if he were a sheep standing in front of his shearer. Very enthusiastically, he welcomed Justin and sent the little boy scurrying around to fetch two cups of tea.

  After the exchange of pleasantries, Justin stated the purpose of his visit that was received well by Toddar Mall who said, ‘Saheb, how many years lease your bank would like to sign?’

  ‘Toddar Mall ji, I am working no more for the bank. I have resigned from there and now I am a Pastor’.

  ‘You have resigned from the bank!’ was the cry in disbelief. ‘So what are you now, you said … err?’ he continued with confusion writ large on his face.

  Justin forced a smile and clarified again that now he was a Pastor, which means he was a minister in a church.

  ‘Minister!’ jettisoned Toddar Mall, ‘Oh, when did you become a minister?’

  Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, with a smirk on his face and at his wit’s end, Justin found himself at loss of words to explain his present vocation to this thick-skinned blockhead.

  At the very moment, as if to give Justin some reprieve, Toddar Mall himself interjected one more time, ‘You mean, Father ji?’

  ‘Yessss!’ Justin gave out a sigh of relief and slumped back in his chair. It took a few moments for the air of confusion to clear.

  ‘I do not deal in renting of apartments anymore’, replied Toddar Mall; this time Justin nearly fell off the chair.

  Justin took some time to change his jaw-dropping expression into a more acceptable one and said, ‘But just now you were asking me about the period for house lease!’

  ‘I did say, but the property owners do not prefer to enter in lease except with banks or companies, sorry, muaf-karna ji.’ Toddar Mall shouted to the little boy ‘Oye chotu! Can you clear the table?’ Justin quickly realised the ‘discussion over’ signal and took his leave.

  Boy! He was glad to come out of Toddar’s office! ‘Err…’ does not have any meaning in the Hindi language, but addressing Justin with a heavy emphasis on the last syllable of the word ‘Pastor’ was like making an ‘error’ out of him. Justin was furious and wanted to beat the crap out of him, but hey! he stopped himself from entertaining any further insults for this man. Being a pastor now, he should not even entertain such thoughts or play with such expressions in his mind. On top of it, he was no Hercules; he would not even attempt to manhandle that hefty Toddar Mall.

  He remembered an old incidence that happened in his early years. Justin had never entered a physical street bout with anyone except that one time while he was studying in grade three when a fat bully challenged him to fight for whatever reason. He accepted the challenge in the most macho way of an eight-year old. Justin with his challenger walked to the school playing field followed by a group of cheerleaders from both camps.

  The fight started amidst loud cheering from the two sides and both the warriors lunged at each other. Even the supporters from each camp started a virtual fight of their own. Flailing their hands in the air, and literally pushing and hitting the opponent in their fast-paced wild actions, the chaotic groups surrounded the two gladiators. Then, all of a sudden, Justin tumbled and fell with the fatso falling over him. That was it! You see, there are advantages of being fat too. Justin tried pushing away that dead weight from top of him, but to no avail. Pinned under his weight, Justin threatened the fatso with dire consequences, and at each such threat, the fatso chose to jump upon him. Luckily, for Justin, the school bell rang signalling the end of the lunch recess. Immediately, supporters from both the camps vanished as if in thin air, leaving the two warring opponents walking side-by-side to their classes. From that day, Justin developed a phobia of fatsos, and certainly not today, he wasn’t prepared to err and get into a brawl with this … well!!

  Walking back home, one fact dawned upon Justin that owners of apartments would not be too keen to enter into a lease with him—now that was troublesome.

  Pearl, without any apprehension, was waiting to hear some positive news when Justin dampened her spirit by explaining the scenario. They decided that it would be best to tell the one who is going to employ Justin. Therefore, they both got down on their knees and prayed to God about their predicament. It was not like that immediately there was a knock on the door with a property dealer standing and offering them a house on lease, but they surely got encouraged once again.

  Time was flying by at super speed and the day to vacate the bank apartment was drawing close. Sometimes things do not dawn upon someone until they face a real life situation. Justin just realised that, except for their personal belongings, all other things in the house—from curtains to carpet, sofa-sets to dining-tables, refrigerators to air-coolers—were provided by the bank and once they vacate the house, they would not be left with any furniture and other necessities. They now needed to buy all these things by themselves and once they do that, Justin’s
retirement funds would deplete to an unsafe level.

  Eventually, they found a nice, reasonably priced house on lease, and God arranged for the lease papers so miraculously, that Pearl’s company, which never entered into house-lease on behalf of employees, started with her as the first case. Both saw the hand of God in it and were greatly encouraged.

  The bank gave a warm send off to Justin in appreciation of his services that spanned over sixteen years working at different branches, all the while rising in cadre and holding important portfolios.