jonos’ post

As we mentioned before, from the moment you enter India, you enter an entirely new world. In all countries and cities you get the good and the bad, happy and the sad, some things are quite open and many things are hidden, but here, in India, it is all quite ‘in your face’… well it is where we are here in Kolkata anyway. The garbage and the burning of the garbage (which is quite problematic to many people’s sinuses) are not only in the streets, but on the MAIN roads! Death and sickness is to be seen in every street, whether dogs and puppies, or children and adults, it cannot be escaped! Almost every day I go to 2 of the Mothers of Charities’ hospices here in Kolkata and spend my time with the patients showing the love of Christ. I sit holding them, rubbing lotions into their skin, and recently I have been massaging a couple of the patients, but I especially love praying for them. I saw a few of those people end up dead there. I also go to Kalighat (the other hospice that I and many other of my team mates volunteer at) in the afternoons and yet again I witnessed the deaths of numerous people. That is why they call it ‘The House of the Dying’! People are brought there to die! Well, 2 days ago we all felt that we should worship between the patients at Kalighat and so we did. We prayed about it before hand and all the way there I prayed for the Holy Spirit to touch the hearts of the patients, volunteers and even the nuns. We finally did worship between the patients, first among the women, then among the men, while holding them, and God really came through! It was beautiful. As we worshiped in ‘spirit and in truth’ God gave us favor with everyone! The last few songs we sang as I was stroking the head of a dying man. At that moment I felt that the Holy Spirit was truly present. The man died as we sang ‘Mighty to Save’. As we walked away that day we were all sad at the death of that man and I got the realization that this man would have died anyway if we weren’t there. The fact that we were there that day to worship might have a much bigger impact than we thought. Who knows, the people who were listening might get saved because of the fact that we worshiped the God who is mighty to save while they witnessed a death. Every second 2 people die on this blue-green planet. Most of those will not end up in heaven, but what we do and what we say to any person who is destined to die one day might change that person’s eternal destiny. So I made a conscious decision that this death will encourage me to make a difference in as many people’s lives as possible, whether I worship among them or speak to them, that their last second on earth will be a good ending and an even better beginning.

“The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.” – Joan Borysenko

“The Ultimate statistic is that 10/10 people die.” – Ray Comfort