Rhys Hall, Castlemaine
Graffiti suggesting the contrary defiles the Johnstone Street railway bridge in Castlemaine. A 1987 experience I had in Bombay showed me God is alive.
Returning to work as a missionary in South Sudan after home leave, I planned to seek the manager of a Christian magazine called STEP in nearby Kenya en route. I was to assist a publishing business in Juba, South Sudan’s capital and wanted permission to reprint STEP articles. Juba youth had shown interest in the few copies reaching them.
The flight involved a 10 hour stopover in Bombay airport, India. Being a large airport there were perhaps 400 seats and most were full but I found an empty one and tried to sleep. A man came up to the person on my right and stood talking, keeping me awake. I offered him my seat and looked for another. It wasn’t easy but eventually I spotted one beside a man sleeping across three seats! I then slept for two hours. Upon waking, the guy was awake sitting next to me and reading a Bible. Contrary to my usual practice, I started to chat with him. He was Haron Wachira, the Manager of Kenya’s STEP magazine. He’d missed a connecting flight and waited in the airport four days.
1 of 23 Million Kenyans. I’m in India. Maybe 400 airport seats. The chance was less than 1 in a billion. God had engineered the meeting.
On reaching Nairobi, my visa to Juba was refused. Would I go home? Inspired by what had happened I started a publishing house in Kenya that produced more than a million schoolbooks and hymnals etc for South Sudan. Haron helped train South Sudanese church workers to write books. God is alive!