Updates from India 59

This month a change in our blog.
Our story.

Since we came to India we have written this blog to record our experiences of our life here and how God is using us to do His will. But how many really know how all this happened? Why did we give up a comfortable life with a house, cars and all the trappings of western life for service in India?

We write this so that our testimony will glorify God; it is our story, as one of God's tools, forged from two parts to make the whole greater than the sum of those parts. But this story isn’t about me or Kris, it’s about Jesus and what He has done and is still doing for us as a couple. The challenges and the doubts. The strain on our faith and our marriage and the joy of following His word. We went through all that and much more. The question occurred to us, why are we writing this? The answer is simple because we have to. For some time now the pressure on both of us to put what we went through down on paper has been growing inside, it has reached the point where it’s time. ‘’Ok Lord, we are doing it’’

We will be posting a piece every month telling our story and how our lives came to be where and how they now are.

Part 1

Where to begin?

After a lifetime of denial at age 53 on a mountain in America God saved me, Chris, both my life and my Soul.

At the time I was confused and awed by what had happened to me. I have been a lifelong biker, when God saved me he proved to me he was real by doing the impossible, he took an out of control motorcycle with no brakes on a mountain corner that should have crashed and without any drama stood it up and parked it on the only spare ground on a road with no barriers and no room for mistakes, in a series of S bends. As I said I had no brakes and no control and I was preparing to hit the ground, he saved me, witnesses said it couldn’t have happened, I should have crashed, but God didn’t let me. Three days later I accepted Jesus as my Saviour. Before I became a Christian I tried just about everything going from paganism to witchcraft, for a long time I followed where the Devil led.  My faith came as a revelation, and to be honest as a complete surprise to me. I am still discovering the great depths of God’s love for me. Every day he amazes me, it is so hard to explain sometimes but before I knew him there was an empty space inside, now I am full, now I am complete.

If you would like to read a full account of that incident and my journey to Jesus then I recommend    ‘A Long and Winding Road’, it’s an account of some of my life prior to becoming a Christian. I was not a nice person, drugs and violence filled my life. I walked with the devil for so many years. I had been physically and sexually abused as a child and God was to me at best a myth. There on that mountain in the USA, He took me to Him and saved me. I didn’t know why then, it has become clear to me since that he is using me and my life experiences to help others come to Jesus. That is why I wrote my book

 It is always difficult to begin telling any story let alone one that changes lives utterly. Just where do you begin? For me, it was after I accepted Christ into my life in the USA after a lifetime of denial. For Kris when she as a child knew Jesus was real, then years later became born again. Spiritually I was baptised in the USA when the Holy Spirit entered me but it would be years before I was baptised in water to be truly born again.

For me (Kris, born Christine), my experience of becoming a Christian was very different from Chris’s. The longer I have been a Christian the more varied I see how God works in the individual’s life, but for the majority and I count myself among these it is a gradual coming to know the Lord. I had my first real experience of knowing Jesus when I was about 9 years of age. I had been seeking God, I tried talking to him, praying, I went to chapel most Sundays (partly because there was a boy I liked called Ian, I had my first crush whilst seeking God, hee hee).

 I sometimes used to have nightmares, made worse by my sister hiding behind the curtains or jumping out from behind the wardrobe or from inside it. Often when I had these nightmares my dad would come into the bedroom I shared with my sister and pray for me, he told me to say the Lord’s Prayer and recite Psalm 23, which I did and it always helped calm me. I also used to dream that my grandfather on my mother’s side was teasing me in my sleep and would have conversations with him, he did not frighten me but I think it worried my sister and my parents.

One night I was alone in bed and I woke to see Jesus standing in the corner, he did not look like the images of him in my Bible which showed him as a white blue eyed man with light brown hair. No his image was less Western, he looked more Jewish if I have to be honest. I was absolutely scared and prayed to him to go away as I was frightened, I did not hear him speak but knew he had said to me that he would leave me until I was ready to meet him again. He went and I was so relieved I actually fell asleep quickly, this was not the usual case after my nightmares. I have been told by Christians since that it was probably my imagination or a dream, I know in my heart this was not so. As an adult I continued to search for that missing link, I read my horoscope, had my palm and tarot reading and even consulted a spiritualist, but nothing satisfied me.

I then met several people from Emmanuel Church, some were colleagues others patients I nursed, they seemed different to the other Christians I had met. Eventually, I went to see for myself as I had been having dreams about the church on a regular basis. It was exactly as in my dreams except they danced the conga around the church which terrified and at the same time horrified me, I had been brought up staunch Methodist chapel which is quite severe and reverent. It would be several weeks before I returned, I just had to as my own Methodist church I was attending seemed so dead and boring. I could see that these Christians whilst not perfect were actually trying to live their lives as the Bible tells us to. Several weeks later during one of the appeals to accept Jesus as Saviour, I looked around at those responding and thought no it’s not for me, but God had other plans and my hand rose up without my assistance. I was stunned and could not pull my arm or hand down, it was then I heard God speak to me and say are you ready now, Yes, I was and as soon as I said so I could move my hand and arm. I made the decision to accept Jesus as my Saviour and have never regretted that decision to this day that was in 1996. The following May I was baptised by full immersion in Durham Swimming Baths along with 19 others; this is a day that will stay in my memory till I die.

A close friend said she was happy for me when I became a Christian but said I should not let it change my life. My reply was and still is that if it does not change my life I don’t want it. It is a sad thing but our friendship ended on her part with me becoming a Christian, I often think about her and pray she has come to the Lord but we lost touch and I have no idea where she is except she got married some years ago, I don’t even know her husband’s name so tracing her would be so difficult.

I have to say that as soon as I accepted Christ as my Saviour all things to do with Horoscopes, Black Magic etc became abhorrent to me and to this day I have no desire to read my horoscope or read Denis Wheatley which I had previously been addicted to. I believe this is because Jesus lives within me. I am not saying I have stopped doing everything that was wrong in my life but God is gradually changing me into his image, I just wish sometimes I didn’t make the same mistakes and that it was quicker. As Chris says we are not perfect, I agree we are human and sometimes I know myself I can be selfish and thoughtless but I recognise this and God is teaching me patience as the changes come about still many years after being saved.

We urge you to apply Occam's razor to all that is written here. It is the law of parsimony, economy or succinctness. It is a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect that explanation is probably the truth.

We are not asking you to believe us, just look at the other possible explanations and apply that razor.

This account is not written to make you believe in Jesus or to change your life, it is written because God won’t let us ignore the need to put into words our experience with Him any longer. If by so doing we help you find His love then the credit is His, not ours, we like all Christians are ‘tools’ that He uses as and when He wants to accomplish some purpose and we are so full of love for Him that it is a joy to be used knowing we are doing His work.

In 2010 God made a new tool, He took two parts and made a greater tool by combining Chris and Kris into one being, He then used us in ways we could never have imagined.

Christine (Kris) and I were married at Emmanuel Church, Durham in 2011. This was the second time we married but more on that later.

We had met on the internet where our faith drew us together. Kris could have been anywhere in the world.

When we talked it seemed as though we had been passing each other for many years. I had been teaching as a third year student at a Horticultural college when Kris had come to see if that was what she wanted after she had to give up nursing, sadly it wasn’t so I never met her then. Some years before I had gone into hospital to have surgery on my cheekbone, Kris had been a nurse on an adjoining ward, we never met then either. She was also offered an appointment with me through Shaw Trust (A charity helping disabled people recover their self-esteem and find meaningful employment) she went to them to help her get back into work following her retirement from nursing on medical grounds, however as she was keen to have the interview as soon as possible and I was not available, she saw one of my colleagues instead. As we have both said if we had met on any of these occasions we would not have been able to have a personal relationship as both our contracts forbade this type of interaction between clients and or patients, God’s timing is always perfect even when we are not aware of it; in fact especially when we are not aware of it. The cords of our lives were drawing together and only He knew.

I was teaching young people from sixteen to nineteen who had been excluded from school (Still for Shaw Trust). The work was difficult and very stressful but amazingly worthwhile. Helping people turn their lives to a new direction is a fantastic feeling. One evening, sitting at the computer I was writing lesson plans and had become bored after several hours of what is for most teachers a tedious task at the best of times. So I took a break to look at some of the ‘silly’ sites, all sorts of conspiracy theorists and fringe ideas, I love them. On one particular site there was someone talking about faith, what it had done for them and how it was real. Interested I replied that you could have faith in a mushroom but it wouldn’t do you any good.

Her reply started a debate between us that confirmed in both of us the others sincerity.

For months we talked on line, complete honesty between us. She was Artygirl and I was Geminate. We were anonymous people, somewhere in the World, we told each other the complete truth: My past, all my problems with drugs and violence, my childhood, she her disability and depression. We went to E-mail, again for months we talked openly and honestly about ALL our preferences, all our desires and dreams, then the telephone, gradually learning to trust each other, until the day we finally met.

Why did she go onto that site that night, why did I read at just the right moment to see her post?

Above all where was she in the world?

She was living twenty minutes away. 

She knew my car having seen it drive through her village; she even sat behind me at traffic lights one day!

Why was she a dedicated Christian talking about faith when I needed so much to understand myself what real faith truly means?

Why had I searched for a church for seven years without success?

All I had found were traditional ‘English’ churches that for me felt empty or ‘Christian Centres’ that were more weekly gossip meetings where I could never fit. Call it all coincidence, or apply that razor…..you choose.

Kris: I have much to thank God for in my life, I worked for many years as a Nurse and Health Visitor before having to take medical retirement due to progressive degenerative Osteo arthritis at the age of 40. This was devastating for me to hear and I did not take it well, I became very depressed and had to take anti-depressants for several years. I went from being a half full kind of person to half empty, not something I liked.

I became more immobile as I was no longer able to take the medication to control my pain as it triggered severe Asthma attacks. My walking got so bad that I was using arm crutches and struggled to walk 5 to 6 steps which were agony for me.

I used to be able to pop to the shop and it would take 5 to 10 minutes the same now took me at least 2 hours.

I had to stop my pride from taking over and eventually agreed to apply for a disabled car badge, I also had to change from driving a manual car to an automatic due to the pain and difficulty I had with my condition. To make matters worse I was then diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and although difficult to accept the diagnosis it did explain my tiredness, fatigue and difficulties I was having. I was taking a lot of strong pain killers but nothing seemed to get it under control and sometimes I became housebound.

I was working now for a medico legal company reading medical reports, dealing with complaints etc., but I had to go part time as I was not coping.

The Consultant and my GP who were great got me an appointment with the Pain Clinic and  I started on pain patches which had to be changed every 5 days, after a while my skin reacted to the patches and they were changed to a different make which was changed every 3 days, these were morphine based controlled drugs.

I had been trying to avoid them for several years but my pain got so bad it was a last resort, acupuncture had a temporary effect but did not last.

I remember seeing the pain consultant and telling him I had been pain-free for 1 hour which I thought I would never be again, he assured me he could get the dosage right to give me more time pain-free or at least able to ignore the pain at times.

I am very grateful to him and his team I really needed it at that time, I had prayed for healing for many years myself and through my church but nothing had changed at that time.

I gained a large amount of weight put on at least 4 stone, in part due to my lack of mobility and the high dosage of steroids I was taking which caused Cushing’s Syndrome. I was not in a good state, physically or mentally yet I still felt very much Gods presence even though I could no longer get to Church on Sundays or to mid-week meetings.

I never felt he had deserted me, friends I had known for years were treating me differently they couldn’t see it but they were, not everyone but some I would not have expected it from had you asked me prior to me becoming disabled. The roles were now reversed I had spent most of my life caring or nursing others now I needed people to care for me. I was not a very gracious recipient of their help at times, but I was learning to be tolerant but gently tell them when I could do things myself I would even if it did take a long time and caused me pain, I just had to do it I could not and would not give up. The doctors said however that I had to face the fact that I was going to end up in a wheelchair. 

To be continued next month.

 The saga of my book continues

A couple of sample pages

Working cover

Engine cases ready to go for polishing.

Even Bleu' is puzzled by what's going on!

The Sat Nav now fits on the
speedometer face where I can
see it perfectly. Note; it has a speed reading on it as well as lots of other useful info. It is a simple on/off fitting so easy to secure when I am away from the bike. We will mainly use it for touring.

This belongs to a friend. 'Can you help me fix it?'
It seems I am becoming known around Udaipur
as a bike guru! It has been stood for a good
while without any TLC. A voyage of discovery.

The young man who owns this bike now has quite a history with it.

It was bought new in 1986 by his father who rode it until his passing in a road accident in a car. The bike was lent to various family members and the eventually sold. During this period he also lost his mother, again in a car accident. He went to live with his uncle.

After some time he found the bikes new owner and bought the now sadly neglected bike back.

He tried to do what he could to repair it but didn’t have the knowledge and couldn’t afford a dealers price to restore it. So for several years it has sat in all weathers waiting.

Then he met me! As it happens I am right in the middle of the book so he started watching and learning.

I knew he had an old Enfield and asked why he didn’t ride it. He told me the story and what else could I do?

Kris agreed completely that we had to help him restore this so he had the bike his father loved.

So, here he is learning and working on his own bike. The problems are many and varied but we will get there. He is a quick learner and works hard.

Updates on this to follow.

I am a great believer in 'learning by doing'.

Kris has been fantastic about having now two
bikes in her sitting room. I am trying to keep the
mess to a minimum. I think I have the best
wife in the world.

The herb garden

Kris is planning a herb bed here. 

The 'Mint' is really growing well.
Many more herbs to sow this monsoon.

We got the wire this week for the front vegetable
garden. Its main job is to keep the cows out.

It began at about 3 pm, the sky went really dark, and the wind began to rise until it was blowing hard enough to bend big trees. Then the thunder and lighting, finally the rain came down like Niagara Falls. Our first proper monsoon storm had arrived. It continued until the early hours of the next day. If you don’t live in a country that has a monsoon you really have seen nothing like a full monsoon storm. Several inches of water in the drive and road running like a river. And that’s in the first ten minutes. After an hour the flooding starts as water accumulates and cannot flow away quickly enough. Houses that are below the road level begin to flood; we, fortunately, are higher here so only get some water under the doors, easily blocked with old sheets.

Looking outside in the morning we could see only slight damage around us. Stuff that was sitting outside blew all over, nothing to worry about though.

No, this is not an evening shot, it's 3 pm on what was a sunny day. I didn't compensate for the dark as I wanted to show you what it was really like.

Same shot, same camera settings, different day.

Our three legged friend Moti had arrived at our gate whining as the rain started and was so happy to be let in and find a dry spot next to our kitchen door. Bleu’ was very happy to have her boyfriend stay over! He had his supper and curled up comfortably. There he stayed until the morning; with no rain, he decided it was time to visit all his breakfast spots in the street. There are several houses that feed him in the morning, we feed him last thing in the evening. Needless to say, he is not thin!

When we lived in the other house he used to spend the wet days in our garage, it looks like he has decided that we are elected to a dry spot again this year. 

It’s funny in a way, the first day we moved in he came and said hello, which was nearly five years ago. Then when we returned to this street he was so happy to see us again living in ‘his street’. Make no mistake it is his, strangers get watched very carefully and avoid the ‘dangerous dog’ that has been known to bite if messed with. Better than any night watchman and the fact that it is well known to locals gives added security to us all living here. A small price to pay to feed him for all he does for us.

Do you remember our dried out brown lawn?
Three days of rain and its growing like mad again.

 Comments by Kris

This year we decided not to have our annual anniversary dinner party for several reasons, just moved home, next door is a building site and lots of debris and dust, many people out of station (away), and the weather forecast was really bad. Normally I do not ask for a gift although Chris usually ignores me and gets me a little something, this year was no exception. My gift an amazing laptop to replace the one that broke 3 years ago, since then I’ve used Chris’s but it’s difficult when we both need to work at the same time. I got the spec I wanted after lots of searching, I need a lot of memory as I use it for work and my art so this is really great. 

I’m happily typing away on my new laptop and its mega quick, not the most current spec but it suits me and I don’t use it for gaming. Thank you, Chris, for your thoughtfulness and to Abhishek, who came through and even delivered it to our home and set up security etc. Abhishek owns a computer shop in the city and we’ve known him since we came here, reliable work, and trustworthy. I’m actually off to see him today to see if he can repair a hard drive and recover our data.

It’s getting near to monsoon now and we are really looking forward to cooler days, we’ve had a few downpours overnight and through the day but it’s still very hot and the heat drains your energy. I’m actually being sensible and rarely go out in the heat of the day being careful of my health as my blood pressure has been quite unstable lately. 

I check it regularly and take medication if needed. Otherwise, we are both well, as are Bleu’ and the chickens.










Bleu’ does not like the rain, but surprisingly the chickens are not fazed by it. We put up a larger cover for them to shelter under partly to get out of the sun but also to get out of the rain. 

I remain puzzled they have a large coup which they go into to lay eggs, even Fred the cockerel goes in but they don’t sleep in it at night and don’t use it for shelter when it’s raining, strange birds. They remain very curious, friendly and mischievous and will take food out of my hand and run off as if they’ve been naughty such characters.

The students are on holiday and the college gets its annual inspection at beginning of next month, so that will be a long day maybe two. The final year students have just finished their juries and dissertations and theses completed were entertained by fourth and some of the third years as is a tradition. Interesting evening, where we all reminisced and talked about their futures obviously with drinks, food and entertainment. Chris and I even sang a song, a moral tale as that always goes down well. We chose “cigarettes and whisky and wild wild women” We didn’t do too badly and all seemed to enjoy it. It was a late night but an honour to be part of the student’s special evening. This is our third we’ve attended and they’re all different. Soon another batch of first years to take for the workshop, wonder what they’ll be like? ahh the anticipation of bright young minds ready to absorb knowledge.

I’m obviously better known than I thought, I was at a shop getting served when someone asked me if I was having a good holiday? A bit strange as tourists rarely visit the hardware shops. I was about to reply when another customer and the shop owner said no not tourist, local she lives at Jeevan Tara Colony, whilst I knew the shop owner the other guy was not familiar but he must have seen me around. I know it’s not the same as being on the front cover of Time Magazine (which I’d hate) but it did make me feel special. The other thing is I’m recognised in the local vegetable Mundi (market) but I suppose it’s because I stick to certain stalls where I know I get a good deal and good service. I’ve even been offered chai (tea) when I fill up my scooter with petrol at the local garage. I always decline politely as I’m lactose intolerant and it’s made with milk. We chat about the cricket and they ask after Chris which is nice. In fact thinking about it I often get offered chai when I’m shopping. It’s a custom to offer chai to good customers but is not seen on a regular basis.

Later today I’m off to the vegetable Mundi with a plan, salad ingredients and large baking potatoes are on the agenda but I also hope to get some nice apples so I can make an apple pie tomorrow, here’s hoping. 

Now that's a good salad! 

Garlic bread, breaded chicken pieces.
cucumber, butter fried mushrooms, Tomatoes,
red and yellow peppers, iceberg lettuce, 

Gloucester cheese, Danish blue cheese and fresh onion.

I would be assured of nice apples if I went first thing in the morning but I would rather have a lie in. I know Chris likes apples a lot as I also plan to do an apple crumble this week not had one for years.

Chris's sneaky shot of Amberbai as she and
I were engrossed in a Star Trek Movie, she
had not seen this before and was mesmerised.
Amberbai has little English but was amazed
by the action on screen.

As you can see we’ve decided to give our testimony here to show why we came to India and why our faith is so important for us as individuals and together as a couple. I hope you enjoy it and no doubt there may be some surprises as our story unfolds over the next few months.

Take care and have a good month.

God Bless you all from

Kris and Chris in Udaipur, Rajasthan