Kolkata continued: I am being pushed to the edge

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And then I met Edwin

A man who, although he had so little, blessed my heart with much. I bumped into him near the BMS after a fruitless search for an internet cafe I thought I remembered seeing around the corner. It started in the usual way: "Excuse me, where are you from Wilson, you are Australian?" I politely corrected him and informed him that New Zealand was a far more beautiful country; Australia was just a desert full of criminals. We spoke for a while, him about many of the other travellers he had me, one who had helped him by giving him a tent they no longer needed (a desert criminal of all people!).

He had been unemployed for sometime. It turned out that his employer was involved in a scam and when audited everyone was arrested. "After one week they let me go, they decided I did not know it was a scam, and I id not, truthfully! But I believe it was the holy spirit. The authorities, they do not often listen and I was very lucky."

But since then things had been very hard. He had contracted hepatitis C and his his health had been steaily going down hill. "We have a home (him and his wife), a small home but it is a nice home, but without my job we could not afford to get to it often. It is a long way and we often have to sleep on the street. I am desperate. I feel like God is pushing me, pushing me to the edge. I am so..."

For a moment his eyes clouded and his face crumpled. We had been talking for almost an hour and he had seemed very sure of himself, but for a moment I saw that crack. I saw the true man, desperate and on the brink, and then it passed.

"I have applied for many jobs, but as you can see I do not have any shoes, no one will take me. It is very hard. You can not understand, I'm sorry but you can not, you just can not."

We talked for a while longer, he shared more of his story and his faith, and I a little of mine. Eventually I asked if I could help him in some way. Suddenly he was affronted, assuming I thought thats what he was after all along. I assured him it it was not, and offered him some money for shoes to aid in his search for work, or even just to get him and his wife home for the night, off the street. He and his wife thanked me and said they would pray for me. I said I would do the same and finally we parted, but I could not stop thinking about him.

I did not see him the next day so I assumed and hoped that he went home or at least somewhere better than that piece of footpath I met him on. That meeting had moved me deeply, and helped to start softening the heart I had made so hard.

Is this the way to the Howrah bridge?

After the joyous smells of the fruit market we finally found the Howrah Bridge and it was more awesome, more majestic than any of my memories of it. An enormous steel construction spanning the Hoogli, a torrid ribbon of murky brown water that divided the city. However it had taken us far longer to find it than we anticipated and we were exhausted, so we got scammed by another taxi and headed back to the guest house.

I am so happy!

This is our final day in Kolkata and so we are just relaxing and killing time till our 12 hour bus ride to Siliguri before heading up the hill by jeep and finally mountain train to Darjeeling. We went our for one last time so I could find writing materials, and on the way back I see Edwin.
"Hello Ben! I am so happy, I did not think I would see you again." He was about to get a hair cut but jumped out of the seat to shake my hand. I saw that he also had a new pair of shoes. "I must thank you so much. I must admit I feel bad, but I must be honest with you. I was tempted to spend the money you gave me on other things, but you said I should buy shoes and so I did. And now I have a job. I went to an interview and now I have a job as a welcomer at a restaurant."
He showed me a picture of him in the suit he would wear for work ("I will have to pay for it, they do not give it to me for free") and told me that thay had asked him to find six more people for the place, others to work like him and one as a guard.
"They barely know me for 24 hours and already they trust me with this. It is unheard of. I believe it is all the work of the holy spirit, blessing the gift you first gave me for shoes. They saw something in me so I must not let them down."

Such a small gift I gave for where I come from, but so huge in that place. Sometimes the problems seem so huge, so hard to combat, that we end up doing nothing. And so nothing changes, if anything things get worse. I have many failings and am far from the man I want to be, and I can not really help India. But I found I could help one man. And that small gift led to a job. And that job led to work for six more. I may just as likely have never known this, it was such a small chance that I saw Edwin again, but it was hugely encouraging to hear. I too believe it was the holy spirit, not to blow my own trumpet at all, but God took my small gift of a loaf and a fish and multiplied it. Though the benefit was mostly others, he taught me aswell.

We are stewards of this earth. God gave us everything we have, and he can take it away again. It is not a right, it is a gift. And to be proper responsible stewards I believe we must pass on these gifts.

We have everything and so so many have nothing. How can we hold back?

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