PART1
The harsh light of our laptop screen burned my eyes. I put my head down in my hands and pressed on my eyelids. Through squinting eyes and a furrowed brow, Christian continued typing and clicking. “I think this one looks the most natural,” he said, bringing up a photo of Radika. “I think someone could find her using this one.”
“It’s our best option,” I said, looking again at the grid of 30 pictures we have of a thin Indian woman in a wool cap. “I just wish we could see her hair better.”
“I’m getting a call from the newspaper. Just a minute,” Christian said, taking out his phone. He paced back and forth, nodding and saying, “Han ji,” (“Yes,”) and repeating our description of Radika.
Although Radika had lived in our village for the past 10 years, we had never seen her out walking, buying vegetables or knitting on the sidewalk. She was a loner, unconnected and without family, floating in a sea of unrelated faces she called aunty, uncle, brother and sister. But then, one day, we were introduced.
After months of resisting the idea of hiring household help, I had finally caved. It happened when Chayana came to visit me one evening at dinnertime. As she walked in the door, she noticed our bathtub overflowing, and turned off the spigot. I was in the kitchen with the kids. Priti and Prem ate their dinner with a vengeance, scattering bits of food across my freshly mopped floor. I stood at the kitchen sink, washing my way through a wall of dishes. Priti’s toys lay around my feet, and rice and dahl containers littered the floor—Prem’s handiwork.
“I’ve been wanting to visit you,” I said, smiling and glancing about the room. “But . . . there’s all this!”
“I think you need some help, beta,” Chayana said, laughing. I laughed, too. Christian had tried to convince me a hundred times to hire someone, but I valued our privacy, and I wanted to think I could do it all myself.
“I think I know someone,” Chayana said. “She’s a good worker, but she has been through a lot in life, so she’s a little different. I’ll send her by tomorrow.”
The next evening, Radika arrived. There was nothing of the stereotypical shy, demure Indian lady about her. She swung open our door, strode to a mat and plopped down. Immediately, her phone rang. “Hellooo?” she said. Soon she was scolding the phone, holding it in front of her.
“She’s feisty,” I said to Christian.
“Fine. Eat ash!” she said, concluding her phone conversation with a popular invective.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“My aunty,” she said. I stifled a grin.
We discussed the help we needed—someone to be at our house about four hours a day to do dishes, some laundry and sweeping. She listened, nodding, and then leaned forward, hand to her heart. “I will do good work. And I can learn anything you want to teach me.”
Prem crawled into the room and came over to Radika, putting a chubby hand on her knee. He was instantly in her lap, playing with her jewelry, laughing at her as she made silly faces at him.
“I’ve never seen him take to someone like that,” I said to Christian in English, our private language in situations like this. “Let’s hire her.”
The next day, I tried to adjust to being someone’s boss. It wasn’t easy to tell someone to do my chores for me, so I avoided giving orders. But Radika found what needed to be done and did it well, clanking dishes as she sang local ballads about heartbreak.
It was December, so our partners, the Singhs, often came over to sing carols. We always included a few Hindi songs in the mix for Radika’s benefit. She would sit next to me on the floor, her slender frame cuddled up to my arm, and stare over at our Hindi songbook. Soon she admitted that she couldn’t read. She had never been to school a day in her life.
“My mom died when I was six,” she told me the next day as she fiercely pounded some chapatti dough. “After that, I had to go to work. I cleaned people’s homes—did the dirtiest jobs you could imagine, cleaning people’s toilets, giving them foot massages . . .” She stopped kneading and wiped a stray hair from her forehead with her wrist. Then she looked up at me. “Didi, if I even looked at their food, they would scold me. I got the old stale roti, or nothing at all. Nobody has ever treated me like you are treating me.”
I stopped sweeping, and the two of us sat at the kitchen table. Radika dried her freshly-washed hands on a towel. “When I was 13, my dad sold me. He just sold me,” the lines around her eyes deepened. “He married me off to a man 20 years older than me. Didn’t even give me a dowry. That family gave my dad 5,000 rupees, so I was theirs—their slave.”
My heart and stomach twisted within me as Radika described the abuse and terror she lived under for eight years. Finally, somehow, she was able to obtain a divorce and run away. She had to leave her children, a boy and a girl. I thought of all the local gossip about Radika I had heard—that she had heartlessly abandoned her children for no reason, that she had been married five times. She knew what people said about her. In India, people can say anything they want to about someone with no family. There is no consequence, no one to stand up for you. And so Radika avoided visiting people, lest she be accused of something more and the rumors grow.
“I’ve worked in a lot of places,” she continued. “And I’ve never seen any man treat his family like Christian treats you. I’ve never heard him yell, not even when the kids are being loud and naughty.”
One day as Radika did breakfast dishes, I began rolling out chapattis for lunch. Seeing the flour sprinkled evenly over my dark-green countertop gave me an idea. “Come here,” I said. “Look at this.”
I used my finger to write out the Hindi letters for the sounds M and N in the flour. Then I wrote the word Pap, which means sin. I read them for her. Radika took her finger and carefully copied what I had written in another smattering of flour. She squealed and hugged me. “Maybe you can teach me to read!”
“Of course!”
As winter snow accumulated, our village went into hibernation under a blanket of grey fog. In our small living room, our wood-burning tandoor radiated warmth, and the yellow paint on the walls enhanced the sense of coziness. Often, when Radika finished her work, she would sit near the wood stove, pull her thin knees up under her chin, and close her eyes.
One day, Radika flounced into our kitchen and announced she was getting married. “His family knows everything! I told them my whole story, and they still want me!” she said, eyes sparkling like Cinderella going to the ball. “They took pity on me. They understand it wasn’t my choice to marry so young. They’re a good family. They will give me a new life!”
I was too happy to speak. I gave Radika a big hug. In India, it is rare indeed for a woman to remarry. It’s hard to describe how important it is to an Indian family to find a “fresh” bride; a kuvari; a virgin. This is one reason why many rapes go unreported. Even unwanted sexual contact ruins a girl’s prospects for marriage. But here was a family whose humanity must have been touched by Radika’s story. And they had chosen her to marry their son.
She would leave the next day to stay at the home of a relative of the groom, and her wedding would occur the following month. The next evening, Radika came to say her goodbyes. As usual, she arrived talking on the phone. “You swear to God you won’t drink?” she was asking. “I need you to promise you’ll never hit me.”
Radika ended the call, then stretched her stiff fingers over the tandoor to thaw them. “I went to see the devta,” she said to me, her brow knit with anxiety. “He said if I get married, I’ll go crazy.”
Christian and I sat down on the floor nearby. My heart began to pound, and a familiar sense of prompting brought butterflies to my stomach. With a glance at Christian, I began telling Radika where the devtas come from. I told her about creation, the fall, and about Satan’s desire to be worshiped as God. I told about Christ’s death and resurrection to cleanse us from sin. Radika nodded, leaning forward. When I was finished, Christian read her Jeremiah 29:11 in Hindi. Radika stared at that massive Hindi Bible, full of words she couldn’t read.
“Is the story you just told me in there?”
“Yes,” we said in unison. “It’s all there.”
“I believe you.” We were stunned. Could it possibly be that easy?
“I believe you,” she said again. “All these other gods just want people’s worship. They fight over people’s devotion. I’ve seen it myself. Why should we honor them when our Creator made us?”
“I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t get married, Radika,” I said. “What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t trust what a devta tells you, nor should you ever ask them again!”
“I will only serve the true God from now on,” she said.
We enjoyed an American meal—spaghetti with sauce and garlic bread. Then we took pictures of all of us together, and some of Radika alone. Soon it was time for her to leave.
“Bhaia,” she said to Christian, “I need help moving some of my stuff in the morning.”
“No problem,” he said. Then he pulled out a 500-rupee note (about $8) and pressed it into her hand. “If your new family turns out to be not so great . . . I mean, if something happens . . . just don’t spend this, okay? Keep it on you all the time, and if you have to run away, use it.”
Radika stared at us. Often, her slender, five-foot frame radiates such energy and gusto that one could easily forget she is short. But at that moment, she looked very small and vulnerable. She blinked and then burst into tears. She buried herself in our arms and cried into my shoulder. Her sobs were loud, the kind you hear when an Indian bride leaves her home.
“Goodbye,” she said at last.
Almost a week went by. Christian and I didn’t think very often of Radika, as once again we set ourselves to the task of trying to balance a lot of housework with our ministry obligations and parenting, trying to allow for luxuries like sleep and hygiene. But after we hadn’t heard from her in a few days, I started to feel a sinking in the pit of my stomach.
“Christian,” I said on Friday evening as we lay in bed, “I can’t stop thinking of Radika. It doesn’t make sense anymore. Why would that family want her? She has no dowry, no pedigree, you know? She has already been married. I just feel weird about this.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Christian.
The next morning, Christian began to search online for information about bride trafficking. Although we knew this kind of trafficking existed, we had thought it was largely confined to the crowded slums of Mumbai. Soon Christian discovered that our area is the number-one location for bride export. And the city Radika had said she was moving to? The number-one importer. Sometimes brides are trafficked to become indentured housekeepers. Others are used for more sinister purposes. But all are lured by many promises about new lives.
“Did we just send Radika away to become a slave again?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer. “Do we have any phone numbers for her?”
“None of them are working,” Christian said. “Neither are the ones for her other relatives. Nobody knows where she is.”
We found an agency that specialized in rescuing people from bride trafficking, and we decided to submit Radika’s details. While Christian filled out the forms, I went to the kitchen to try calling Radika’s phone again.
“The number you are calling can’t be reached right now,” said a British-accented voice. “Please call again later.”
“Christian,” I called, walking back into our bedroom. “I’m scared for her. She can’t even read well enough to catch a bus. We have to do something. We’re all she has. She doesn’t even . . .”
Christian’s face was buried in his hands as he sat in front of the computer. He was crying. We held each other and cried for a few minutes. Then it was back to business.
At least we had the pictures of her we had taken before she left. That was a start.
PART 2
Farmland, bursting with greenery, stretched out all around us. A dirt path extended up the side of a slight hill bordered by lacy-leafed trees. Christian and I looked up the path, we and our children covered in dust from the journey. We had traveled eight hours to make sure Radika was okay.
After we filed our missing persons report with the police, one of Radika’s groom’s relatives phoned us. He said she was staying with him until the wedding, and he invited us to visit. It soon became apparent that Radika’s disappearance was due to several people’s cell phones malfunctioning, and not to ill intent. We put a hold on our police report, but I still felt uneasy. So, after Radika’s wedding, we packed our family into a bus and made the journey to Uskigaun village.
“I hope Radika’s new family are as nice as they sound on the phone,” I said to Christian. “I hope we’re not putting ourselves in any danger by coming here.”
“When I visited their other relatives last month, they seemed truly sincere.”
“Yeah. I just want to see these people for myself before I trust them!”
We lugged Priti, Prem and a few backpacks up the hill. And after passing a house and its accompanying buffalo, we found ourselves in a spacious courtyard. The telltale jingle of wedding anklets sounded from inside one of the surrounding rooms.
“Namaste Didi (Sister)!” Radika said, running to me and embracing me. I hugged her close, and she kissed my cheeks. The whole family gathered, all grinning and namaste-ing. Barking their welcome, two dogs ran laps around the group.
Radika’s new mother-in-law had a soft, easy smile, her light brown hair draped in a rose-colored dupatta. Radika’s father-in-law sat in a plastic chair, knees pulled up loosely to his chest, his slender frame wrapped in lean muscle. “It is good you came,” he proclaimed, nodding his white head sagely. The dirt on his hands and feet, the well-kept farming tools leaning against their house and the neat rows of plants all around told me that they were farmers.
Immediately we were served a snack. We chatted for a while, and the family fussed over us. Where would we like to sleep? Were we tired from the trip? Would we like to have our feet washed? How about a massage? The family treated us like royalty, reminding us that the saying, “The guest is god” is not just a saying in India; it’s a way of life.
The next morning, after a breakfast of fried spinach and cornbread made in a mud stove, we sat in the courtyard enjoying the warm air. I watched Radika. Did she remember our talk about God? Would she be true to her decision to serve Him only?
After doing the dishes, Radika asked her father-in-law, “Shall I do puja now, Papa?”
“Yes. It’s time,” he said.
I watched closely. Radika began singing as she gathered a few items from around the courtyard. “Praise the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord,” she sang. “Prabhu ka kar dhanyavad.” She repeated that one line of a song she had learned at our house over and over as she lit incense and candles. She noticed me watching and smiled. “I’m taking the Lord’s name,” she said in a whisper, which means she was worshipping God and taking His blessing into her heart.
That evening I found myself alone with Radika. She showed me her room, which glistened with row after row of idol posters on the walls. She showed me her small closet, which stood against one wall, and her bed, which lined the other. “Didi, I have a plan,” she whispered.
“Oh? Do tell!”
“I need to have some medical work done. I want to do it in the town near you, and I want to stay with you for my recovery.”
“You want to stay with us?” I asked.
“I know they will let me,” she said. “They’re afraid of Bhaia (brother) because of the report he filed with the police. They know you are my only family in the world. And because of that report they know you’ll protect me. They will let me come.”
“You’re welcome to come, Radika,” I said. “You are welcome in our home for as long as you need to stay.”
“My husband already has the money put aside,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “He cried for me when I told him my story. He really loves me.”
“Radika, I am so happy for you! God has blessed you with a good family.”
Two months later, Radika arrived at our home and declared our living room couch her bed. She squirreled away a few precious possessions in our room, and after about 20 minutes it seemed she had always lived with us. We even found her sitting in our kitchen, feet up on the table, talking to her husband on the phone. “She is totally at home,” Christian commented with a grin, nudging me.
“She would be at home if she were eating dinner with President Obama in the White House!” I whispered back, laughing. Radika began to call me Bhabiji, which means “Elder brother’s wife.” It is a very endearing term, and I came to love it.
That evening, Radika and I had a chat. “We often have worship in the evening,” I said. “We read a Bible story and then talk about how to apply it to our lives. We also sing. Do you want to do that with us?”
“Oh, yes!” she answered immediately. My heart thrilled.
“Since I arrived in this house, my life hasn’t been the same. I used to have terrible heart palpitations. But from the first moment I stepped into your house, I began to know what peace is.” I leaned forward and nodded. “Bhabiji,” she said, “I want to follow God and learn about Him. I have never felt peace like I feel here. Yes. I want to learn!”
Over the next several weeks, Radika, Christian, myself and our kids all fell into a fairly comfortable routine. Christian had to make several trips, so I had a friend to keep me company while he was gone. I was busy with some writing for AFM, so Radika played with Prem and Priti a lot, who soon started to babble away in Hindi. Of course, all was not perfect. We had to make some adjustments, but prayer paved the way for us to live in peace.
One night while Christian was away, a prowler showed up on our porch. “Radika,” I whispered, waking her with a shove and handing her a trekking pole, “a prowler was just at our door. I think he ran away. Want to check it out with me?” We took our poles upstairs to our landlord’s unfinished house and checked all the doors and windows.
“Just show your face to me,” Radika kept saying, gripping her trekking pole fiercely. “I’ll bust your face open!”
I chuckled at this tiny woman who had grown accustomed to taking care of herself. After praying, we both slept the rest of the night without so much as a twinge of fear. The next day, the whole village was buzzing with the news that several homes had been robbed in the night.
In the evenings, we went through the most important Bible stories for our faith. I was often amazed by Radika’s insights. It seemed the Holy Spirit Himself was teaching her. She began to join us in praying, and her prayers were long and earnest. “Father God in Heaven,” she prayed one evening, “I know Jesus died for my sins. He made Himself my sacrifice. I don’t want to sin anymore. Keep me from sin and forgive me. If there is anything I don’t understand right, show me Your truth!” Radika had accepted Christ as her personal Savior!
“Radika, when did you first believe?” I asked her.
“That night, when you told me where the devtas come from, I knew it was true. When I was with my ex-husband, a woman visited us from Russia. She was a chain smoker, but she knew about Jesus. She told me a few stories.”
“She planted a seed in your heart,” I said.
“Yes. And now it’s growing!”
One night, several people came to our home to interrogate and accuse Radika. In this area, a person without a family is at high risk of being hurt by gossip and angry words, because there is no one to defend them.
Radika’s normal first response to this kind of conflict is self-defense and anger. But after her accusers left, she collapsed into my arms and poured her heart out to God in prayer. That evening, we discussed the flood story. Noah, too, was unjustly made fun of. Radika was able to go to bed in peace, knowing God was her vindicator and protector.
Often in her prayers, Radika asked God to allow her Bhaia to be her brother in future incarnations. Finally, we had a study together about the state of the dead. She was thrilled to hear that we could all be together one day with Jesus. Although she felt alone in her faith at first, God brought more Christian Indians to visit us over the next month than we’d had in a whole year. They witnessed to Radika and encouraged her. After this, she began to really notice the futility of all the oblations and rituals her Pahari neighbors participate in.
One day, Radika announced that she would travel to her former village. Her divorce was apparently not legal yet, and she had to get documents from her ex-husband in order to finalize it. “I have to do this,” she said to me, trembling. “I’m afraid, but I know God will take care of me.”
We prayed together. Radika adjusted her purse and pushed back her shoulders. As she marched out the door, she turned around and looked at me. “God is with me,” she said. And then, saluting our home (because she says God is here), she left.
Just two days earlier she had told me of some of the inhuman abuse she had suffered at the hand of her ex-husband. Now she was going to go try to get documents from him that he didn’t want to give her. I was afraid for Radika’s life. Only God could protect her now.
PART 3
I swirled a handful of bright orange dahl in a pot of water. Little specks of black rose to the top, and I dumped them out and filled the pot again. Then there were sweet-spicy onions to dice, and a handful of garlic and ginger to crush with a stone. I checked my phone—4 p.m., and I still hadn’t heard from Radika. “Dear Lord, please protect her,” I prayed. Prem and Priti tumbled into the kitchen, and each grabbed one of my legs as I sprinkled cumin, coriander and turmeric into a sizzling hot wok. My phone rang.
“Quiet down, kids! Bhuaji is calling! Hello?” I answered the phone, all at once breathless.
“Bhabiji!” I heard Radika shout over the sound of honking and the rumple of wind in the earpiece. “I’m almost there—almost home!”
Soon Radika was in the kitchen by my side, kissing the kids, then rolling out chapathis. I served Priti and Prem their food, and then looked at Radika.
“Well?”
“Bhabiji, I believe! I have faith! God was with me!”
“Did you meet your ex-husband? What happened?”
“It took me a long time to get to my village. It took several hours by bus, and then I had to hitchhike up into the mountains. My husband was there with the village panchayat—you know, the group of important men who make decisions for the village.”
“They were having a meeting?”
“Yes. There were probably 20 men there with him. I prayed, and then I felt this amazing courage come over me. I stood and explained that I wanted my divorce finalized. I was shaking, because I was the only woman with all those men. They could have hurt me, but I was brave!”
“What did they say?”
“One man said, ‘I ought to hit you across the face for demanding your rights! I would beat you if you were my wife!’ Another man began trying to reconcile me to my ex. I didn’t tell them what he did to me. I just stood up straight and took courage. I told them that we don’t think the same way, and I want a divorce. And do you know the most amazing thing of all?” Radika’s eyes sparkled between her laugh wrinkles.
“What?”
“My husband agreed to give me the divorce!”
It was indeed a miracle. Her husband would have to pay quite a bit of money and spend time in court for the divorce to be finalized. I laughed and hugged Radika. “God was with you! You did it!”
For the next two months, Radika stayed with us. We studied the Bible together many an evening, and she applied all the lessons she learned with joy and excitement. At first, she had a hard time keeping the Sabbath. “Radika, stop it! Stop sweeping! Only the most crucial work needs be done today,” I said, grinning.
Radika looked at me guiltily. “I can hardly stop!”
“I know—I can hardly stop you!” We laughed. Radika put down the broom and joined us for Sabbath school. She had never experienced a day of rest in her life—neither physically nor spiritually.
“Bhabiji,” she said to me one day while I weeded a tiny patch of dirt for a garden, my kids mixing up all my seeds nearby. “I have never felt such freedom as I feel here. When I’m at home I have heart palpitations. I can’t choose when I eat or sleep or what I wear. I’m a bahu now, a daughter-in-law. I’m not free.”
I stopped weeding and looked up. Radika seemed regretful. “Yar (dear), you made a promise by getting married. You can’t change that. But Jesus can give you freedom no matter what your situation is.”
“But will they let me serve Him?” Radika worried. “I don’t know how they’re going to take this.”
“We will pray,” I said, tucking a bell pepper start in its blanket of damp earth.
The next day, a neighbor brought her daughter to play with Priti. While the girls fussed over Priti’s doll (which now sports a sharpie-black bindi, thanks to another little friend), Radika and I chatted with my guest. Before she left, she handed each of us a teaspoon of sugar and ground-up gram. I had a vague idea that it was probably prassad—food offered to idols. So I took it politely and set it on the side of my plate. I often explain that I don’t eat prassad, but this was a new friend, so I didn’t.
Radika took the prassad and ate it.
About 20 minutes later, she grabbed her stomach. “Oh, my stomach! Bhabiji, why does my stomach hurt so?”
“Have you eaten anything?”
“I ate what that lady brought, that’s all.”
“Do you know what that food was?”
“It was . . . oh. It was prassad!” Radika and I had an impromptu study and prayer session about food offered to idols. She was convicted that she should no longer partake of it. This really got her thinking more about her family—not eating prassad would be very offensive to them. How could she abstain?
Several days later, our landlords prepared to move into the floor above us. Their first step was to have an all-day puja ceremony. In their thinking, it was a dedication service that would cleanse the house of impurity, drive away evil spirits and allow them to live here safely.
Our field directors happened to be visiting. They stood with us at our kitchen window as we watched nine different pandits throwing various items into a fire, reciting chants and mantras, tying strings and sprinkling holy water over our landlord’s family.
Radika paced about nervously. I knew she wondered how our family would be allowed to refrain from participating. She looked out the windows and fiddled with some laundry. She played with Priti and checked her ponytail. Soon our landlord came with a long, red string, decorated with large leaves, to tie over our door. Radika lurked inside the house watching with apprehension. To be honest, we were a little nervous, too!
“Bhaia,” Christian said to our landlord, “We are not able tie that string over our door. We cannot seek protection from anyone but God. If you want, you can put it on our shared fence—but please, not over our door.”
“No problem,” our landlord said. He has been amazingly accommodating to our strange religion.”
Radika bolted to the door and peeked out. She watched our landlord take down the string. She sighed and smiled at me. “I can’t believe he listened!”
“We prayed about it, remember?” I said. “God makes a way. Sometimes the test will be harder than this was, but He always makes a way.”
That afternoon, about six hours into the puja, Radika and I both got headaches, so we decided to have prayer and sing together. Our headaches left us, and Radika told me she had begun to feel sick after accidentally out of habit repeating the name of the god her family worships. “I think God reminded me through this headache that I need to stick close to Him. He is guiding me.”
Over the next several weeks, God brought many Indian Christian families to our home to visit. Radika gained insight and courage from seeing that she, as an Indian woman, was not alone. These people promised to pray for her, and some of them even called later to encourage her. Radika was gaining strength for her coming test of faith.
One evening, Radika and I read the parable of the sower and talked at length about the seeds of the gospel. The seeds in Radika’s heart had been planted there when she was 16 by a Russian woman who came to visit her. Now they were growing. Boldly, she began trying to witness to people who came to our home. Often she was disappointed by people’s confusion or rejection of the message. We coached her on how to share. “Be patient,” I said. “It took 14 years for the seed in your heart to sprout. Pray for them, and don’t lose courage.”
The night before we took her home, Radika set out her things to organize and pack. There were Punjabi suits: sparkly and plain, cotton and chiffon, about eight in all. Two sets of bridal bangles, the sign of a newly married woman. A box of bindis, and a tiny container for her spare nose ring—these, too, signs of her status as a married woman. I watched her packing, sad that my friend was leaving and at the same time glad to return to “normal” for awhile.
The next morning, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. Terrible, gnawing pain ripped through my abdomen and throbbed in my head. I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out. Groaning, I grabbed Christian’s hand. “Maybe we will have to postpone,” I said. “I’m sick.”
We prayed. Christian said he thought the pain was Satan trying to derail our plans. I wondered the same thing, but had my doubts—after all, what was so important about going today and not tomorrow? And it’s not exactly uncommon here in India to get sick. But I said a prayer for wisdom and then rebuked Satan aloud. No change. I might have to take a step of faith, I thought to myself. Gathering all my strength, I stood up. Instantly, the pain was gone. “I guess we’re supposed to go today!” I said.
Two taxis and three buses later, we found ourselves at Radika’s in-law’s home in Uskigaun. Once again, the family was more than hospitable. We especially enjoyed the delicious food they made for us. Each meal took several hours of work over a hot indoor fire. The flavors were all at once delicate and intense, highlighting the particular flavor of the vegetable or bean, but also adding its own north-Indian punch.
On our first day there, Radika showed me into her room. As soon as we had arrived, she had removed all the pictures of Hindu gods that lined the walls, telling her father-in-law, who must approve any decorating choice, that the posters were “old and ratty.” Radika, Christian and I all worked together to wash the walls and rearrange some furniture. Then we hung up an assortment of alphabet charts with colorful pictures on them given to Radika by the Singh family.
“Good, good,” said her father-in-law when he entered. “I approve.”
The next afternoon, when Radika’s niece came back from the temple with a handful of prassad, I politely declined for myself and my children, and then glanced over at Radika. She was tucking the prassad discreetly into a corner of her shawl and tying it up. Later in her room, she placed the prassad, along with a protective amulet her in-laws had placed under her mattress, into a paper bag. “We will burn these when they aren’t paying attention,” she said.
That night we talked with Radika in the darkness. Would she tell her in-laws that she was a Christian? No, she would wait and tell her husband first. Then he could help her to tell them. We held hands and prayed together.
The next afternoon, it was time to leave. I felt dizzy as I watched Radika distracting herself with work. Then the three of us gathered in that tiny, dimly lit room, now looking more like a first-grade classroom than a shrine. It didn’t take long for all three of us to start crying. “Oh God,” I prayed, crying into my shawl. “Please, God, this is my sister. This is my precious little plant. I’m leaving my precious little seedling in the middle of a storm. And yet, she is Your seedling, God. I commit her into Your hands. Don’t let anything happen to her!”
Radika fell over onto the bed and wept, praying through her sobs. “I’m alone, God! All alone! I’m the only one here. But I will be faithful. Nobody will stop me. Because You will give me strength. Please be with me and show me Your way.”
We dried our eyes and walked with Radika’s in-laws to a waiting taxi. All around us, corn seeds had burst through the soil and reached silky, sturdy leaves up towards the sun. Radika’s neighbors watched us curiously, smiling from behind hoes and sickles. Green fields stretched as far as I could see, curving and rolling over little hills until the green turned to teal in the distance.
“Lord, please protect her,” I prayed once more as our taxi began the journey out of the verdant fields of Uskigaun.
PART 4
Our “tandoor room,” where we keep our woodstove in the winter, is a cozy 11 by 13 feet. Books fill a built-in shelf on one wall. The other is almost completely covered with photographs. A bed serves as our couch, and mats line the remaining walls. It’s a humble, cozy living room. Yet, at this moment, it felt profoundly small and empty.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I said to Christian. “After so long, she’s gone home.”
“We really need to pray for her,” he replied. “If she doesn’t take a stand for Christ, she could backslide. If she does take a stand . . . I have no idea what her family will do.”
“Let’s pray.” As we had so many times before, we knelt down and interceded on Radika’s behalf. Images of her laughing, singing Christian songs, and namaste-ing towards the sky floated around in my head. Then the phone rang.
“Speaking of whom . . .” Christian said, looking at his phone. “Guess who?”
“Radika!” I sprang up from the floor and onto our couch. Christian answered the phone.
“Bhaia, Brother, I have news for you,” she was saying. She spoke quickly and excitedly, obviously out of breath. Christian’s eyes grew huge as he listened, and he stared at me.
“What?” I cried.
“Here, tell your bhabi,” he said, handing me the phone and whispering, “This is incredible!”
“Bhabiji, I couldn’t help myself! I couldn’t keep it inside!” Radika’s voice sounded like laughter. “After you left my home, I was just sitting on my bed, crying. I took out the pictures you gave me and was looking at them, remembering the stories behind them.” We had given Radika several laminated Nathan Greene postcards depicting various Bible stories. I remembered the way her eyes lingered on the painting of the lame man being healed. “I was looking at those pictures and crying, when my mother-in-law came into the room. She wanted to know why I was crying. And I told her, Bhabiji. I told her everything! Everything I know about Jesus, how He has changed my life, how I want to follow Him but don’t know if they will let me.” My eyes grew big, and I looked at Christian, who looked as though he had won the lottery—happy and totally shocked.
“And Bhabiji, they listened. They listened! They told me they will let me worship God. Since I don’t know how to read, my father-in-law and husband will even read the Bible to me! And what’s more, my mother-in-law has prayed to Jesus several times. We are praying for the pain in her legs to be healed. I just know that if they hear Jesus’ stories and pray to Him, He will change their hearts, and they will follow Him, too!” My heart was out of control with adrenaline and joy. This was a miracle.
“And there’s more!” Radika said. “The other night I was feeling lonely. Even though my family has accepted my beliefs and has even joined me to pray a few times, they still worship idols. So I felt very alone. I soon fell into a deep sleep. At some point, I woke up—completely awake, not sleeping. I sat up, feeling as though a presence was in the room. I looked towards the door, and I saw Him—I saw Jesus! I couldn’t see His face, but I knew it was Him. He was wearing a white robe. I didn’t feel afraid at all. I just felt peace flooding my heart. He was showing me that, though I’m alone, I’m not really alone. He is with me!”
Over the next several weeks, Radika’s family witnessed miraculous answers to prayer—healing of a sick buffalo, a brother-in-law recovering from alcoholism, and many other experiences. Later, Radika and her husband came and spent a Sabbath in our home. He, too, experienced God’s peace and joy as we enjoyed a simple Sabbath School program and picnic in the woods. After that, it would be their choice. Would Radika’s new family choose to know and love Jesus as she had? Would they choose to let the Creator and Redeemer God rescue them from sin and death as He has rescued Radika? For us, it was as good a cliffhanger as any Adventist Frontiers article that says “to be continued.”
The difference is, God is writing this story. And in His time, He will finish it.
