God leads…

It was the winter of 1987, my wife and I had just relocated from Mumbai to Delhi. We had found ourselves a little flat in the Western suburbs of the city. We were expecting our first baby.

One evening my wife expressed her desire to learn Braille and transcribe books for blind school children. I thought it was a splendid idea. In fact I realised that Braille could add tremendous value to me too as a visually impaired advertising professional. It could help me with my presentations. I could take down notes at meetings and so on. Having been educated in the main stream right from the beginning, I never had the opportunity to acquire the skill of reading and writing Braille.

Armed with this desire, we approached a school for the blind in the capital. a teacher was assigned to teach us. We made several visits to the school. I must confess that at 30, I found it near impossible to learn Braille. My fingers were too insensitive to decode the dots. They were too close together for my touch to manage.

Though we gave up on our mission of learning Braille, our visits to the Blind school proved to be providencial. While moving around the school looking at the facilities and interacting with the teachers and students, I was stunned and shocked. I realised that I was extremely lucky to have been born to my parents who saw potential in me and chose to invest the best in me. At the blind school I found that there were several boys with better eye sight than me literally languishing. The buildings were poorly maintained, the curriculum was highly compromised and watered down, the faculty appeared to lack the conviction and accountability. I was angry and disgusted. I felt, I should be doing something about it.

In the meantime, we ran into some rough weather. We lost our baby. I was loosing interest in my work. Life seem to be drifting. I was anxious.

My wife and I discussed our situation. We prayed about it. We strongly believed that God had a definite plan for us. We saw the loss of our baby, the visit to the blind school and my disenchantment with advertising as all signs from God clearly telling us that it was time to move on.

In faith we took the plunge. I bade farewell to advertising. My wife took up a job as a horticulturist.

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Hebrews 11:1

(This story of Faith is to be continued in my next post)Tags