A Closing Blog from the Racial Ethnic Ministers Immersion Pilgrimage to India

No one can bless like our God! I write this closing blog to you all from the United States. We have been home now for four days. But I wanted to share this with our families and friends.

Sunday, March 24th was our last day on the Pilgrimage. Our team, Huberto Pimentel, Geunhee Yu, Bob Shebeck and James Vijayakumar and I, felt that it seemed so long since our arrival in India on March 9th. We had covered a lot of territory, literally, in both North India and South India. We were blessed in that not one of got sick. My brother, Titus, who traveled to India as an airline steward for Pan Am, told me about the “Delhi belly”, that we were fortunate not to have experienced.

We worshiped at the Hume Memorial Congregation (CNI), located next to the Victory Gardens there in Mumbai. It was my responsibility to bring the morning message in the worship service.

I was blessed in my inspiration for it had come to me regularly during our two week stay. To see God at work in and through the churches of North and South India was a blessing. The church is active in the slums of the cities, the villages with the farmers, the schools with the beautiful and gifted children, and the hospitals where whole families stay until the patient is released.

I selected John 3:17 and Hebrews 9: 14 as my reference scripture texts. The latter being the theme text for our upcoming 21st Biennial Session of the National Convocation. The sermon, “We are Saved to Serve”, seemed to have been received pretty well. Instead of translating as I preached, the pastor gave a summary in the native language afterwards. He informed me that most of the congregation was schooled and familiar with the English language. There was a brief reception after church where we received floral bouquets. They were beautiful, but not permitted for international travel.

After service we had lunch and met with pastors and leaders from the Marathi Missions back at the YMCA. Many of the leaders had come a long way to meet us and to meet with Vijay. After the meeting we took a little time to debrief and reflect on the whole trip. We were all in agreement that the trip had accomplished its goal. We were well informed and enlightened in the area of global missions. Shortly after the debriefing, we headed to the airport for the return trip home. After checking our luggage and clearing security as we walked toward our gate of departure a wave of excitement came over us. It was dinner time and we saw the sign, “Kentucky Fried Chicken”! We knew that we were on our way.

Thank you for sharing.

Timothy M. James reporting.