Images of faces, richness of color, challenges of travel, savory vegetarian food, a search for hope and meaning—all impress me as I travel through India and consider what it all means. What a place of contrasts, from the sweltering southern plains to the deep, dry cold of the northern valleys.

On my trek over the 14,000-foot Hampta Pass, the simple lives of shepherds with their sheep and goats left me wondering why I think I need so much to travel comfortably. Comfort is certainly elusive wherever I go in India, whether walking on a Delhi street or riding a bus on a torturous northern road; whether enduring a pounding in a taxi wallowing through monstrous potholes or shivering in a rainstorm.

I doubt the apostle Paul experienced much comfort during his travels. Why did he go? Because we are all commissioned to go into all the world, to share hope with the masses of people in India and elsewhere. Everywhere I see hopelessness in the eyes of men carrying 150 lb. bags of gravel, in the eyes of children begging on the street, in the eyes of women carrying yet another impossible load of corn stalks, grass or sticks up a mountainside. I hear their silent questions: What is in store for tomorrow? Will there be food for my children and for me? Will I be able to appease the gods so the demons will stop harassing me? Can I make enough merit that my next life will be better than this one?

When you are struggling for your very existence, questions about the meaning of your suffering or your ultimate destiny are displaced by the immediacy of your current burden. How does God reach these people with the beauty of the Gospel? “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom. 10:15). Yes, we have Good News, and we are bidden to go out and share this hope. Will you go, or might it be too uncomfortable? Where are your feet taking you?

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