Though None Go With Me

Barry Blackstone

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781556355455, 9781498250504
• eBook ISBN: 9781498275781
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Though None Go With Me is a series of observations and challenges as seen through the eyes of a Maine pastor on his first trip to India. Barry Blackstone taught for forty days at a Bible college in Kerala State in India. Here he shares his insights on the cross-cultural adventure that has forever changed the way he sees missions and the support of native works in other lands. This book includes flashbacks to youthful days. (Rural India takes the pastor back to his own boyhood in northern Maine.) In India Blackstone faced challenges with language and food, and even a broken tooth. Here each story Blackstone offers is a devotional that brings to light deeper spiritual meaning and insights--more than the actual experience itself. This book also tells of the impact the pastor's trip on people of his own church in Ellsworth, Maine, and of what they did to forge a link between a small church on the coast of Maine and a small church in the hills of southern India!

1

Just Being There

“And many believed on him there.”

—John 10:42*

How many amazing spiritual blessings have you enjoyed recently? How many good spiritual experiences have you had? Perhaps a better question is, how many have you been able to testify to? The difference between the first two questions and the last is, simply speaking, just being there. Nothing can take the place of being there!

So many Christians today live only in the joy and glory of others as they experience God’s great storehouse of blessings (Ephesians 1:3). I for years was one of those standing on the sidelines, cheering and exhorting others on great spiritual adventures around the world. Oh, ever since Australia I have dreamed of another trip into the uttermost parts of the world, but I did not go. In order to taste and touch and tremble at the mighty power of God, you have to be there.

For years, I heard the stories of those who had gone abroad to bask in the moving of the Holy Spirit in other lands. I watched as missionaries and short-term workers went there, to the trenches, to the front lines, and witnessed mighty acts (Psalm 145:4). What I learned in India is that you have to be there to really experience these acts of God!

¶

You have to be there to hear the strange speech of a strange people as they go about their daily duties.

You have to be there to feel the emotion of a tribal service in a concrete house while surrounded by “brown” faces.

You have to be there to taste the food and touch the fabric of a lifestyle so foreign to your imagination.

You have to be there to enjoy your first Muslim convert as she prays the sinner’s prayer after your forgiveness sermon.

You have to be there to smell the smoke from a cooking fire as a traditional Indian feast of rice is prepared.

You have to be there to see a Kerala sunset after a joyful day of teaching at a native Bible school.

You have to be there to touch an orphan by your gift of a simple piece of candy, and to watch as she makes a doll from the candy wrapper.

You have to be there to experience the satisfaction of having a Gospel message delivered through a translator.

You have to be there to savor the thrill of giving gifts that literally change forever the lives of others.

You have to be there to know the joy that comes from catching a new vision of what missions ought to be.

You have to be there to appreciate the sheer pleasure that comes from simply “letting go and letting God.”

You have to be there to view the special places and people that are only seen where Malayalam is spoken.

Truly, it is when you add “being there” to a spiritual experience that it becomes supernatural. And now, I’ve been there!

*All Scripture references taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

2

A Brown Journal for a Brown Land

“What thou seest, write in a book . . .”

—Revelation 1:11

My missionary daughter, Marnie, loves journals. Long before I headed to India, she bought me a hardcover journal to record my thoughts during the trip. Though I had recorded my life for years in various forms, I had never gotten into the current method of journaling. Little did I realize as I pasted a map of southern India in the front of my new brown journal, that before my spiritual adventure was finished I would write a book!

My observations of India started long before I boarded a plane in Bangor, Maine. Within the first few pages of my journal are the dates and events that led up to my decision to go to Kerala State, India. I also taped in the emails between Shibu Simon and me over the months leading to my departure. Emails are not new, but for me this method of communication is rather novel. I have resisted for years the modern advancements of communication, but with my daughter’s journal in hand I would experience all the current technology: email messages, cell phone calls, and website information.

The Independent Gospel Baptist Churches (IGBC) and the Associated Missions of India have a website (http://www.gospelindiasimon.org/). My dear wife, Coleen, printed off the various ministry pages that describe the many outreaches of this mission. I also placed these pages in the first section of my journal. Contained on these pages were information and pictures concerning the Kerala Missions: Mercy Children’s Christian Home, Kerala

Baptist Bible College, the Gospel Team and Heavenly Singers, and Bethany Christian English Medium School. It was a joy when I got to Edayappara to meet the professors, pastors, people, and precious children I had first seen in those website pictures. I also put in my journal a map of Kerala, so I could record my travels in that state, along with the churches and communities I visited. A prayer card of Shibu, Julie, and Joshua Simon and a pamphlet of the Simon ministry were also added.

Since my early days as a pastor in 1973, I have kept a collection of prayer cards of the missionaries that have visited my home or church. In the early 1980s, Shibu’s father, Thakadiel Simon, visited my church in Westfield, Maine. Before he left, he gave me a small picture of him and his young family of six. I found that picture and placed it in my India journal. What a joy to meet five of those people nearly 25 years after I had been given that photograph (Brother Simon passed away in 2003); I would also meet their husbands, wives, and wonderful children.

3

The Amazing Race and Survivor

“. . . and I, even I only, am left . . .”

—1 Kings 19:10

When I left for India, I told my church family that I was looking at my travels to Kerala as participating in “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor” at the same time. For years I have been fascinated by those two “reality” television shows. I have imagined myself and my daughter on either program because of our love of adventure. Despite the fact that I was going it alone, I knew I would be facing obstacles similar to those the contestants on those shows face. I would travel to distant places and encounter strange situations. I wasn’t looking to win a million dollars, but I wanted to be the “sole survivor,” the winner of a wondrous race! “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain” (I Corinthians 9:2...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Prelude
• Chapter 1: Just Being There
• Chapter 2: A Brown Journal for a Brown Land
• Chapter 3: The Amazing Race and Survivor
• Chapter 4: Taking an Old Promise Along
• Chapter 5: Laborers Together with God
• Chapter 6: Notwithstanding, the Lord Stood with Me
• Chapter 7: My India Calling
• Chapter 8: How Cancer Almost Ended My Trip
• Chapter 9: Experiencing Eastern Hospitality
• Chapter 10: An Indian Exchange Was Worth a Lot of Rupees
• Chapter 11: A Map of the Village of Edayappara
• Chapter 12: Morning Has Broken, Like the First Morning
• Chapter 13: Namastay: Good Morning
• Chapter 14: Clipping My Wings and Setting a Curfew
• Chapter 15: My Kerala Drivers and the Divine Chauffeur
• Chapter 16: College Communications
• Chapter 17: The Staff at Kerala Baptist Bible College
• Chapter 18: Sing a New Song unto the Lord
• Chapter 19: A Day in the Life
• Chapter 20: Meat to Eat That Ye Know Not Of
• Chapter 21: A Man by the Name of John
• Chapter 22: The Mission’s First Muslim Convert
• Chapter 23: Three Souls
• Chapter 24: American Mission Board Problems
• Chapter 25: Back to the Basics
• Chapter 26: A Sermon on the Tenses of Grace
• Chapter 27: John Bunyan’s Book
• Chapter 28: The Prayer Warriors of Kerala
• Chapter 29: Grandfather George’s Conversion
• Chapter 30: Great Spiritual Blessings in India
• Chapter 31: My India Interpreters
• Chapter 32: The Imitators of Christ
• Chapter 33: The Hill People of Kerala
• Chapter 34: Beautiful for Situations
• Chapter 35: The Rolling Hills of Edayappara
• Chapter 36: Upon the Mountains of Spices
• Chapter 37: The Presence of God on the Mount
• Chapter 38: A Trip to Tamil Nadu
• Chapter 39: Mountainous Memories
• Chapter 40: An Indian Safari on Water
• Chapter 41: The Orphans of Mercy Children’s Home
• Chapter 42: Evening Devotions with the Kids
• Chapter 43: A School Bus Ride around Edayappara
• Chapter 44: A Broken Tooth and a Saturday Dentist
• Chapter 45: An Old Fashioned New England Boiled Dinner
• Chapter 46: Answers to Prayer
• Chapter 47: A Candlelight Service
• Chapter 48: India Lessons
• Chapter 49: A City Set on a Hill
• Chapter 50: Twelve Cents at Venmony
• Postlude