Across the Continents
Communicating across the continents using a landline was a costly preposition, so Justin’s sister bought him a few calling cards, which enabled him to make frequent phone calls to India. However, finding alone time to call Sushmita without his sister’s knowledge was a difficult task. Whenever he wanted to make a call to India, his sister would presume, that he was calling Pearl and the boys, and always wanted to say hello to them. In order to talk to Sushmita, without any disturbance, Justin would have to wait until late night, when everyone would go to sleep.
Whenever Justin could talk to Sushmita over the phone, it was like young lovers torn apart by the distance. For many days, they just whispered sweet nothings in each other’s ears that made them happy, but then Justin realised that Sushmita was becoming more assertive and started questioning him about progress at his end and how long would she would have to wait before they could get married. Being a young woman in her late twenties, Sushmita wanted to talk freely about Justin with her friends in Bangalore but that was not possible as they were still not clear about the shape of things to come. Moreover, Sushmita was in her hometown and the pressure from her family to get married was immense. Her family was constantly bombarding her with new marriage alliances that constantly put her in an awkward position as she was forced to reject them all, in turn raising many eyebrows.
An Opening
Nearly four months had gone by since Justin came to America and nothing much was in sight in terms of job opportunities, but Justin prayerfully kept waiting for things to happen.
All this while, Justin’s exposure in the church at Oklahoma increased and on a few occasions during the church service, the Pastor asked him to share ‘The Word’ from the Bible. These times were very precious for Justin, as his passion to preach the Word of God was finding an outlet. Very soon, the Pastor felt the anointing that rested on Justin to preach from the Bible. One Sunday morning after the church service, the Pastor called him in his office to discuss an important issue.
When Justin entered the church office, he found that all the elders of the church had also assembled there. Since the time Justin developed an affinity towards Sushmita, anything out of the ordinary sent shivers down his spine. Closed in this room with the Pastor and elders of the church, Justin felt as if it was a scene from the movie ‘Hatari’. The Pastor, with his large frame, looked like John Wayne seated on the bonnet chair of a weather-beaten truck of the sixties wildly swinging a noose in his hands in hot pursuit of the rhinoceros that was cornered by other players in the game.
The Bible says, ‘…the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.’ (Leviticus 26: 36)
Justin felt trapped and his mind started imagining every possible scenario as he slowly seated himself on the edge of a chair facing the Pastor.
‘Justin, we have been talking about you for quite some time and have been pondering as to how we should deal with this matter’, said the Pastor gesturing towards the elders.
It was unusually cold for the month of October, and the night before, it had snowed. In the morning, Justin could see icicles hanging outside at every conceivable place: the trees, the power lines, the mailbox. In fact, at home when he opened the outside door, transparent crystal like icicles broke off from the top of the door and fell on the floor in front of him. On this chilly winter afternoon, sitting in the church office, surrounded by a host of church elders, Justin felt sweat trickling down his back. He feared that the pallor of his face had probably given him away and he could barely muster the strength to say, ‘What about it?’
‘Justin, we would like to utilise your anointing in church ministry’, said the Pastor, looking deep into Justin’s eyes with an element of expectancy.
Justin who was holding his breath in the intervening period let out a sigh of relief. He was hoping that no one had noticed his uneasiness, then shifting uneasily from side to side, he settled deeper in the chair. Fear dissipated, Justin lifted his face and with a bemused expression, kept looking at the Pastor for him to elaborate upon his statement.
‘Justin, the church always wanted to start a ministry in one of the cities with concentration of immigrants from Asian countries but the language barrier held us back. After you came, and at the manifestation of the anointing that is bestowed upon you to preach the Word from the Bible, we were contemplating if you would be interested in joining the church as a full-time minister and advance this ministry in the city of your choice’.
Without waiting for a response from Justin, the Pastor continued to say, ‘Justin, we are serious about this work and if you decide to take up this ministry, we can sponsor you for an R1 visa, which would be good for a two-to-four-year period’.
Another elder of the church picked up the conversation saying, ‘After you decide and we apply for the R1 visa, you may even become eligible for a green card in approximately four years’.
This was a pleasant surprise for Justin, but he knew that he needed to think it through. Preaching was his first passion and he was already feeling the void within himself for lack of opportunities to preach the Word of God.
After some pause, Justin said, ‘Pastor, this is very encouraging, but I hope you would understand that I need some time to think it over’.
‘Sure thing, Justin’, the elders said in unison with the Pastor.