The Man with No Legs

Pastor Santha Rao introduces Russ

Thursday night we did High Church.  Pastor Santha Rao took us to a brother pastor’s parish, in Pitalavani Palem. They are Evangelical Lutheran, and both the church and worship were a bit more in the western tradition.  Pastor Abraham wore a white cassock and the conservative altar hangings contrasted sharply with colorful tinsel draped from the rafters overhead.  We entered the well-kept stucco building, complete with steeple, and I sat on floor mats among the women.  I think Kipling was mistaken—East does meet West sometimes, but he was right in that it happens only in God’s presence.  (…East is East, and West is West and ne’er the twain shall meet, til Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat…)

Pastor Santha Rao introduced Russ, Pastor Abraham’s 

The Man with No Legs Preaching

congregation greeted him, and we sang hymns in Telugu words whose melodies had roots in Wittenberg or Frankfurt.  Once again, the Lord led Russ to intertwine his personal testimony with a message about the uniqueness of each human soul created in the image of the One True God.  The concept of sin and the need for salvation were clearly and passionately explained.  I feel this was Russ’ best presentation so far. 

We realized yesterday that the Lord is creating an interesting phenomenon.  Word is spreading rapidly about “the man with no legs who is traveling across India to preach the gospel”.  The common people here, where suffering is an integral part of life, recognize the validity of Russ’ experience with God during the past two terrible years.  The upper class marvel that he would brave the discomfort and challenges to travel here.  Believers are being encouraged, and the unsaved come out of curiosity.  Even at the children’s program last night, Russ captivated them with his titanium legs.  And we have received an invitation to speak in Hyderabad and to outlying tribal villages where pastors are hearing the rumors.

East and West before God's Throne

Russ sometimes jokes about his “weight loss plan—very effective but not recommended”—referring to his amputations.  I don’t think we need to seek suffering, but God always works everything together for good, to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  He is using “the man with no legs” to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to India.  We are definitely being used for His purpose.   

--Alice Sharrock

    

Life is Hard (and then you die...)

Old Dalit Women Praying

India is an enigma, a mesmerizing mosaic, a contradiction to western logic.  We sit and talk while our appointment time passes by, hours later we rush like frenzied NASCAR drivers to a meeting in a distant Dalit colony outside Narasaya Palem.  It doesn’t matter anyway…the power has been cut, a railroad crossing is barred, and huge Mahendra tractors pulling wagonloads of rice straw emerge from the night and block the narrow road. 

Did we mention that the straw mountains are about 14 feet cubed; while the road is about ten feet wide; with sheer drop offs into the rice paddies?  Our driver tries to pass in the darkness and even Russ (normally taking Indian driving in stride)—gasps.  A deep washout is directly in front of his side of the vehicle, so our driver practices a rare moment of patience until the tractors rumble on behind us.

The unpaved road turns into a laneway, then into a Jeep trail with holes and humps barely passable by a water buffalo.  A cluster of tiny stucco houses (each about the size of an American dining room) surrounds a floodlit mound of clay covered by a tarp.  Well over a hundred people sit on mats or plastic chairs, awaiting our arrival.  The power has come back on (intermittently), and the meeting can begin.

Annamani, Russ, Santha Rao, and James our Interpreter

Pastor Santha Rao has a vision—to construct a Children’s Home for boys, encouraging them to become evangelists to their people.  If they make the choice, he will provide further training.  If not, they can stay until they are 18 and go out on their own.  The foundation and pillars are already begun; he needs the finances to complete the project.  We are here tonight to spread the Gospel and look over the possibilities.

Life is hard for most Indians; especially the Dalit (Untouchables.)  The miles of fertile rice paddies are owned by absentee landlords; the land is worked by laborers whose life consists of dawn-to-dusk tasks:  Planting, irrigating, harvesting, curing and threshing the rice.  Most is done by hand, and most live out their lives right here, as their ancestors did 2000 years ago. There is not even a well nearby—women still carry water on their shoulders from a distant hand pump.

Narasaya Palem

Listening to the Gospel

Russ felt led to use his testimony again—that suffering is part of life on this earth, but if we come to Christ, He is with us through the suffering.  People listened intently and came for prayer afterward.  When the sick came up as a group, I burst into tears:  So many could be cured by basic medical help—two young ladies about 18 or 20 with deformed faces, teeth growing out of folds alongside one’s nose—crippled young men leaning on staffs or crude walkers—a 12-year-old with severe scoliosis, one shoulder twisted high above her bent and fragile frame.  Then came the old women; one shaking with palsy, leaning on her stick and young granddaughter.  O Lord God, I thought, there but for Your Grace, go I….

 

Suffering is indeed part of life.  But Americans see little of true suffering.  On the way home, I asked about the round granaries made of roped straw, where the local villagers store their “paddy” (rice with husks still on it).  I thought mice probably shared in the harvest.  Then my heart was broken again—there are tribes/castes, below the Untouchables, that live on the rice stolen by rats and stored in their burrows.  They dig up the rice, and kill the rats and eat them as well.  Can I even imagine this kind of existence? 

We—with a life based on the Christian worldview—do not understand.  But God does.  And we are here to bring God to those who have never heard of Him. Meanwhile, Russ and I are learning much more about daily life and culture outside of church walls.  We will share some of that with you in a later Blog.

--Alice Sharrock