The Story

Our journey began at the foothills of the majestic Himalayas. We had been away from Delhi, living in Uttarakhand for some twelve or so years. In a tiny village that was distressingly over the years, developing with all the usual disorganisation into an unplanned satellite town. The nearest big town being Dehradun. But we were surrounded by fields. Birds, beasts and humans coexisted happily, and on a clear day, you could see snow peaks on the misty mountains.

Returning to Delhi was not something we were contemplating. In fact as far as we were concerned, we were never going back to Delhi again. Rural India is where we felt we were meant to be serving. Or so we thought. However as everyone knows, and we soon learnt, never say never to God!

Twelve years on, God who had shaped us in a beautiful wilderness, was beckoning us back. Feeling like nomads we returned to Delhi. We were aliens in a city we were no longer familiar with. It felt huge, unwieldy, and intimidating. Heaving with twenty million people, how were we going to fit in?

To our delight we experienced Presence, provision and peace right away. Which is always the way it is when we obey.

From the very beginning our eyes were opened to, and our hearts stirred, by the plight of the poor and needy in the city. Street kids who peered into our car at every streetlight. Hungry pleading eyes with a calculating gleam in even the youngest. Young girls selling balloons and ball point pens, lean and wild, ready to fight tooth and nail if they had to. Desperate mothers with apathetic infants at their hips, carried around for hours every day for weeks and months.

We had hoped to build church. What relevance would we have to these the strays and waifs of society? How did God feel about them? What did God want us to be? Certainly not indifferent to those most in need. To what end was our own healing and restoration? Was it not to be a light in the darkness of these times? What would make us salt?And so, with these questions burning in our hearts was born the Hub.

Our first meeting was mostly a raucous bunch of street kids. As far as they were concerned Sunday was just another day in the week. They were disruptive and had frequent brawls. Should we have turned them away? Would Jesus have? Church would only be redemptive by sharing life with those that no one wanted around.

We have sought since to be that open door. A door leading into the loving presence of a caring God. We have had no other strategy but to engage to bring hope and healing where there would have been none, had it not been for God among us.

To be a covenant to the people,

To restore the earth,

To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages;

To say to the prisoners, ‘go forth,’

To those who are in darkness, ‘show yourselves’

Sanjiv and Sushila

#thestory

Photo Credit: Unsplash