On November 11, 2021, I awoke from a vivid dream about telling our story (mine and my husband’s testimony). The direction and clarity of the Spirit’s prompting was not something I could ignore.
And so, I set my own agenda aside and let this verse from Philippians 2:3 guide me: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition…”. Please join me in a walk through my life, and may you see the Spirit of the Lord through all of it, His voice calling, His hand protecting, His power at work.
The Pines Country Inn ~ Wyoming ~ Fall 2021
It’s a typical Sunday morning. I open the office where we serve a continental breakfast from 7 to 9. The only sounds are that of a soft breeze whispering through the trees and the distant coal train humming through Newcastle. Guests are still sleeping and haven’t come out yet. I look out the office window as I turn on lights and see a couple of mule deer moseying their way across the lawn.
A smiling elderly lady appears just moments after I flip on the Open sign, looking for coffee. I welcome her in, and after she has sat down with her coffee, we visit for a while. That’s one of the best parts of inn keeping. She comments on how quaint the property is and how lovely the rooms are. At first, she thinks I only work here, as many guests do, but then it comes out that I am one of the owners. I talk about how much my husband and I enjoy it here and how the place has been such a wonderful home and place to work. And then I say, “We are in the process of selling, though.”
And she asks the question many others have asked, with an unmistakable tone of surprise, “Why are you selling?!” I give a short version of the story, but if you’ve the time, I’ll share with you the full version. And now, I’ll go back all the way to the beginning.
Western Oregon ~ 1980s
I grew up in beautiful western Oregon, but in the early years of my life, my parents were unhappy, and there was a lack of peace. The turning point was when my parents turned to Christ when I was age seven. Because of that, time in church and God’s loving grace, I gave my life to Him at the age of eight. It was more than I could understand, but I knew that I wanted to belong to Him. I was home schooled most of my growing up. Our family moved to North Central Idaho when I was fifteen, and I began to wonder what my future held. We lived in an isolated place without many outside connections, and sadly, our family stopped attending church.
I dreamed of becoming an author of novels. Having a book published was my greatest dream and highest ambition. In my loneliness, I also filled my mind with classic movies and dreamed of traveling to Europe and finding true love. I fantasized and wrote stories all the time, but eventually became discouraged with ever getting anywhere. There wasn’t a possibility of going to college.
For about six months, when I was eighteen, I was trained and worked in a small cafe as a short order cook. My Mom would drive 30 minutes to drop my Dad off for work so she could have the vehicle to drive me and my sister to work and pick us up later at night. It meant four trips a day for her quite a few times and became too much. I wanted to get a car so I could learn to drive, but my parents wouldn’t allow me to buy a used vehicle, insisting that only a new one would be reliable. With no credit, it was impossible to get a loan, and with no car, I couldn’t continue to work, so I quit the job.
I spent some money on a 3 month administrative assistant course and learned typing and basic office skills, hoping that somehow there would be a way I could use it for a better job in the future. But I was stuck. There was still no way to commute, even if there was an opportunity.
I became very discouraged and depressed and felt as if there was no way out of my meaningless life. When I saw no hope for my future, I began to call out to Jesus, crying out to Him to help me. He was my only hope.
On a visit to Oregon, friends suggested that my sister and I get involved with Youth With A Mission, an international Christian missions organization. My parents were supportive of this and in 1999 I went to a Montana base and served in the kitchen for a summer. This base had previously been an army base and situated just a mile from the beautiful Flathead lake, facilitated a variety of missions based schools.
Staff were kind to me and encouraged me to come back to attend the Discipleship Training School. People spent time with me, prayed for me, and welcomed me to join them often at their tables, groups, or off-base excursions. Many of them also shared their missions outreach experiences with me, which gave my heart a thrill of wonder. I felt as if God had opened a new world to me. I heard people talk about hearing God’s voice, and I was full of questions. I wanted to know what it sounded like and how it happened. I was hungry for this experience for myself.
When I returned home, discouragement set in again. I wanted to work and saw a job opening at the High School in town, still 30 minutes away, of course. I knew the only chance I would have would be if I could ride the school bus, but soon found out that it was against policy for school buses to transport anyone except students. I desperately wanted to return to Montana to attend the Discipleship Training School, but it cost over $5000. I kept on praying. I couldn’t go to church, but friends from YWAM were praying for me and encouraging me, too.
And then the impossible happened. My parents decided to sell their home and when they did, they promised to pay for my sister and I to attend the DTS.
After a long winter at home, I returned to Montana with my sister as a student in the Discipleship Training School. God began to change my life and do a healing and transformative work in my heart through training, teaching and counseling. I began to expect to hear God’s voice and look to Him for direction in my life. I also had the privilege of traveling to Nepal for two months outreach as part of the school with a team of two leaders and seven other students. It was the first time I’d ever left the States and I went through complete culture shock. In a number of ways I was disappointed with the outreach. A few outreach ministry projects were set up by the team leaders, but for the majority of the time, we students were told that we needed to “make our own outreach.” We were young people in our early twenties (I was only twenty) who were for the most part immature and had no contacts in a strange place and half the time no idea of the cultural rules we were breaking as we wandered the streets of Kathmandu. This was by no means effective evangelism. But I came away with a closer relationship with God, an awareness of the world and it’s great need for Him and an appreciation for the beauty and warmth of the Nepali people.
When I came home, my parents had moved back to Oregon. Things still were not easy. My parents now lived just outside of a town. I knew that I belonged in church, but my Dad was not willing to drive my sister and I even a short distance to that. One day, I took the phone book and began calling the churches in town to see if there were any that had a bus service. When I spoke with Pastor Fraga at the Assemblies of God church, he told me that they didn’t have a bus service, but that there was a lady in their congregation who drove right past our house who could give us a ride. From then on, Carolyn faithfully picked us up and dropped us off and I found myself part of a loving and encouraging church with relationships that still continue to this day.
I continued to seek God, expecting that He would lead me and make a way for where He would lead me. One day, I prayed earnestly, “God, I will do whatever you want and go wherever you want me to go.” Immediately, I heard His voice, so clear in my mind, an internal sound, “Would you go to India?” It was the first time that I had heard a clear, definitive word from God directly to me. From that time, my heart was filled with a love of India, it’s people and I had a burning desire to go there.
“God chose the weak things of the world…” 1 Cor 1:27b
If there was ever a weak instrument, it was me. Even though God was working on me, I was a young introvert who lacked confidence and trembled at the thought of speaking in front of a group. But I had heard the voice of God, which gave me the courage and boldness to move forward.
I found work at a nearby telemarketing office and sold credit cards for two months before a friend from church introduced me to deep cleaning cabins at Lake Creek Lodge in the spring months. She took me with her, and I wanted to continue through the summer, but the positions had already been filled, one of whom was my sister. After some searching, I found work for the summer months in housekeeping at Crater Lake Lodge and the fall months with my sister at Lake Creek Lodge in Camp Sherman. These lodges offered housing that eliminated the need for transportation.
During the summer in the dorm at Crater Lake, I found myself in a very ungodly environment that tested my commitment to living for God. At a point when I was tempted to spend my time and join in the company of an unholy crowd, I heard the voice of Jesus, asking me the same question He asked Peter, “Do you love me?” It came gently a few times, and I couldn’t take it. It set me straight again in my resolve to run the race for Him.
During these months, I also wrote to YWAM bases in India, and after a warm response from a base leader in Goa, I applied for a position as staff in the Discipleship Training School. They accepted my application, and I planned to go in the fall.
However, on the morning of September 11th, I watched the news in disbelief with my parents as the worst terror attacks our country had ever known were carried out. My parents were adamant after that, that I was not going to travel anywhere. It took three months of waiting until they were comfortable with the thought of my traveling again.
During 2001, I saved up enough money for my airfare and six months of expenses. At last, in January of 2002, at age twenty-one, I went to Goa, India, to work as staff with the Discipleship Training School.
I found myself in a tiny hillside village called Assagao, where the DTS center was located – an ancient Portuguese style house where there were a few other Indian staff and a short time later, about ten Indian students. It felt like a dream. Buses rushed by a number of times during the day at the top of the small hill and vendors on bicycles would ride by in the mornings, slowly and rhythmically sounding a small horn. Exotic birds screeched from the trees overhead and monkeys occasionally came whooping by. But most of the time, it was quiet and the only sound was the soft wind blowing through the leaves.
I was so happy to be in an atmosphere of daily prayer and worship again, as well as enjoying the drastic difference of culture and the friendly, curious conversations with all my new Indian friends. I was the only white person at the base.
It was there, in the front room of the DTS center, that I met Jins, one of the few staff. It was a short introduction, and he quickly left and after that did not talk to me or pay any attention to me other than what was necessary as fellow staff. I thought, “Whatever.” At first, I thought he was arrogant, but with time, I was able to understand that his shortness was mostly cultural, and later on, I came to appreciate his character. But we still didn’t talk much. Being co-leaders of the outreach team, we had to spend time together, but that was it.
The first few months of the school were filled with teaching and weekly guest speakers. My role during this phase was to mentor female students and fill the position of hospitality lead. That meant it was my responsibility to look after visiting guest speakers’ needs and to welcome any guest of the school with tea and snacks.
Learning hospitality in India was an intimidating experience. The people of India are famed for their artfulness and giftedness in hospitality. Thankfully, my coworkers coached me and helped me to learn and practice their gracious ways.
The outreach to tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh was unforgettable. We met people who had never heard of Jesus before. We sang, we preached, we visited countless homes and prayed for people. So many people lived in homes with mud floors, thatched roofs and barely anything inside them, and yet when we came, they would run to a shop to buy sodas and snacks for us. It was incredibly humbling. I felt at home with the nine students and two other outreach leaders, Paul and Jins. There was an acceptance, camaraderie and fellowship that I had never experienced anywhere else.
Prior to going to India, I had decided to go with a very short, pixie style haircut, thinking it would be comfortable, since it is so hot in India. I later regretted that. I failed to consider that in India, a woman’s hair is her glory and long hair is the most common. Indian culture is also not shy about expressing opinion about appearance and I was often asked by staff and students why I cut my hair and to please let it grow. I took the requests to heart and was cured of cutting my hair short.
I was praying that God would bring the right person into my life who would one day become my husband. By now, I had met a number of people who had met their spouse in YWAM and I was hoping for the same. At that time, I could not think of marrying anyone from Indian culture because of the drastic differences I saw between that in India and my own. I wanted to marry someone from western culture, and I once heard Jins say to a student that he only wanted to marry someone from his own place, his home state of Kerala.
It was the end of Jins’ two year commitment as staff in Goa, and next he was going to Kenya. At the end of the DTS, I returned to the States. We said goodbye as we did to everyone else and didn’t care if we saw one another again. As much as my heart was drawn to India, I felt that God did not want me to continue in Goa, so the leaders released me from my commitment. I was also out of money and returned to Lake Creek Lodge in Central Oregon, which was to be my home base between mission trips.
I didn’t communicate much with Jins after that; we exchanged brief and non-personal emails a few times over the rest of the year. He went to Kenya and joined the DTS staff there, and I went through a leadership training school with YWAM Salem in Oregon in the fall.
During the leadership training school, I grew closer to the Lord than I had been before. I was hungry for more of Him and I wanted to follow after Him into His will for my life. During those months, I came to a point where I laid down my desire to find a life partner and I told the Lord, “God, you are enough for me.” After I finished the training, I went back to the lodge again, still unsure of what I was supposed to do next. Unlike other times, I stayed through the winter months.
At the end of the winter, in early 2003, I had a dream of Jins in Kenya. Nothing significant happened in the dream, but it was a powerful feeling, and I sat up in the middle of the night and asked, “God, are you sure?” I knew that this was no ordinary dream and that I had just been shown who I was going to marry.
The next day I wrote an email to Jins and asked how he was doing. After two weeks he wrote back and said that he’d been trying to get an email to me for the past two weeks because he had had a dream about me. We began to write quite often and that turned into an email almost every day. For Jins to send an email took quite a bit of doing. There was no internet where the YWAM base was located in Likoni, so he would walk a mile and take a ferry to Mombasa to an internet cafe. Internet cafes would often lose power, so this proved to be challenging as well.
I felt something strong in my heart and laid awake nights wondering what was going on and if it was God, praying for clarity. I wondered, ‘Could I love Jins?’
I came to find out later that Jins was going through the same thing. We both felt that God was showing us that we were meant for each other, but both were scared of the differences in our cultures and how life would be in the future. Jins told me in an email that he didn’t have love in his heart for me, but that God was speaking to him. Knowing that arranged marriages are common in India, I was worried that he would act in obedience to God, but not come to love me. But I kept coming back to the Lord, seeking Him and putting my trust in His leading.
Long Distance True Love
As the months went on, God began to give us peace and confirm that it was from Him and love began to grow in our hearts for each other. He changed the way we felt. We wrote many handwritten letters and emails over those months, and in November of 2003 I went to Kenya where the base leaders agreed that Jins and I would be going through courtship under the leadership there. I worked with New Hope Aids ministry and didn’t see so much of Jins for the first 2 months as he was with the DTS in the far bush, on the western side of Kenya. Once during that time, I went with the other New Hope Aids staff for ministry and, of course, to visit Jins and the team there. The YWAM base there was called the Mbita bush base. It was a number of buildings spread over a hillside, connected by jungle trails. Lake Victoria lay at the bottom of the hillside property. Jins cautioned me not to walk the trails after dark, especially the ones closer to the bottom of the hill as hippos were in the habit of coming up from the lake and frequenting the trails.
New Hope Aids ministry consisted of myself and four prayerful, unpretentious Kenyans. I loved attending church meetings there; one of my team mates, a tiny girl named Christine could have a whole church dancing and hopping with her worship leading. Our team was there for about a ten days and it was my favorite time of the whole Kenyan experience.
Back in Mombasa, New Hope Aids ministry visited a hospital weekly as well as visited AIDS victims in their homes. I heard stories to break the heart. We often visited a nineteen year old girl with a baby in her barren one room home. Her family from a village area had married her to an immoral Mombasa man when she was sixteen. She had lost two babies already and when she went to a doctor to find our why her third was sick, she discovered that her husband had infected her with HIV. He only came home to eat and her neighbor’s mocked her. I learned that at that time, one in every eight Kenyans had AIDS.
Besides the short time in Mbita, Jins and I spent about three months in each other’s presence. It was a time of asking a lot of questions and getting to know each other better. Saying goodbye was hard when the time came for me to return to Oregon. We were in love and I had no doubt that this man who had more conviction than anyone I’d ever met was my destiny. We knew by this time that we would marry, but we didn’t know how far in the future that would be. We communicated by letters, emails and phone calls for the next 10 months.
God taught us so much in the time together and apart and we knew that He had a plan for everything. Cultural difference no longer were an issue. God had a reason for the cultures we were born in and would help us to adjust.
Jins returned to India in December of 2004, and in March of 2005, I went with my Mom and sister to India, one week before our wedding. We were married in Kerala, India on April 2nd, and that is how God arranged our marriage.
Kerala and Goa ~ 2005-2008
After our wedding, we went on a short honeymoon to the beautiful hills of Munnar, famous for its miles of tea plantations. After that, we lived in Jins’ parents’ house with them and his brother and his wife and little boy. His family owned about 6 acres of rubber plantation and it was and still is like a garden of Eden where everything grows from coconut trees, pineapple, banana trees, mango trees, papaya trees, guava trees, nutmeg trees and many other plants like pumpkins, gourds, black pepper, ginger and turmeric. It is also the home of very dangerous snakes. A month or two after we were married, Jins’ Dad killed an enormous cobra behind the house in the rubber trees!
In the evenings, everyone would gather in the middle room of the house, sit in the floor in a circle and clap and sing a few songs, read a chapter or two of the Bible and then someone would pray. The first time I joined them, Jins’ brother Toms jokingly told me that it was going to be like when the night of Pentecost came. He wasn’t too far off, but I felt then and have many other times since, that the difference in language didn’t matter as I closed my eyes and joined in prayer and worship that was fervent and wholehearted.
I never gained fluency in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, but between that and my mother-in-law’s little bits of English, we got by okay. I learned a lot about the rubber sheets, cows, chickens, chilis and day to day things of rural life there. I couldn’t communicate much with my father-in-law, but he showed me such kindness. He would make cassava(yucca root) and chicken curry and bring it to Jins and I and bring us glasses of chai. He would ask Jins if I was happy there and ask him to tell me not to work too much.
I had heard Jins share his testimony in Andhra Pradesh during outreach and had been awed. Through our courtship and then of course during the time of living with his family, I was able to hear the full story in detail and see where it had taken place. And this is where I will pause my side of the story to share Jins’ testimony with you. It is in his words:
Jins’ Testimony
I was born and brought up in Kerala, India in an Orthodox Christian family in which people did not have a relationship with Christ. This religion is practiced in the form of rituals and we attended the church a few times a year. My Dad was an alcoholic. From the time I was born until I was around thirteen years old, I saw my Dad beating my Mom almost every day. He used to beat her sometimes until she was unconscious, naked and bleeding all over.
We had a house, but my Mom, my brother and myself used to sleep outside in the rubber plantation for fear of my Dad. He broke everything that we had in his drunken rages and used all of the money he got for alcohol. Many times we did not have food to eat. Sometimes my Mom would cook something and then my Dad would come home and throw everything outside. Sometimes our neighbors used to feed us when this would happen.
When I was small, my Mom dressed me in my female cousin’s hand-me-down clothes because we didn’t have money to buy clothes. I once went with my Aunt somewhere and she told me that if I had to pee, to go where no one would see me. When I got bigger, I had to wear one shirt for years. My shorts had holes in them in the back, so my Mom would sew patches over them.
Neighbors and relatives told my Mom to run away and leave her husband. She thought many times of killing the whole family and then committing suicide. She told me one time that she took my brother and I close to the well on our property and thought of throwing us in with the plan to jump in afterwards. But she thought, what if her children died and she did not? And that thought stopped her from doing that.
Another time, my Mom left my brother and I in the house and began to walk away, intending to not come back, but from the distance she heard us crying and returned.
I thought of killing myself many times because there was no hope or peace. I could not even finish school. I was in the 6th grade for three years, and all the teachers knew me very well. I would go and hide up in the hills during school time. My friends’ mothers told them not to be friends with me because I was a bad influence. My highest level of education was the completion of the 7th grade.
My Mom told me once that she took my brother and I out in the plantation to sleep for the night, and she heard some kind of noise all night long close to where we were sleeping. She didn’t know what it was but the next morning, she found out that we were sleeping next to a cobra with eggs.
Myself and my Mom and my brother took my Dad to counselors, witch doctors, and every other means we could think of to help him overcome the alcoholism. Nothing worked. He would stop drinking for a few days and then get drunk again. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even be able to make it home, but he would sleep in the street on the way. Someone told us that if he swallowed a fish, he would get better. I caught a fish, and he tried that as well, but it didn’t work either.
My Mom became a Christian when she was in the hospital once. A nurse told her she should come to church. She began to go and believed in God. I went along with her to church mainly because they gave food there.
After my Mom began to go to church, she had so much peace and happiness that she didn’t have before. She began spending time reading the Word of God and praying. Once, my Dad came along and sat outside the church drunk. He was not happy with her leaving the Orthodox church and becoming a born-again Christian. Our families were not happy with us. My Mom was one of the first born-again Christians amongst our families and in our region. When people saw us carrying the Bible, they would make fun of us. I used to put my Bible in a bag so no one would see it.
Once, my Mom was planning to attend a church meeting. My Dad told my Mom that if she went to that church meeting, he would kill her when she came home. She went anyway and when she came home he was waiting for her at the front door. Straight away, he began to beat her. The neighbors turned off their lights that evening because they didn’t want to be a part of what was happening. Around 9pm, I heard my Mom run out of the house, and my Dad was chasing her. She fell into a pit, and he was telling her that he would stop beating her if she denied Jesus and stop going to church, but she said that she wanted to follow God. I heard a loud cry from her then, and my Dad left her. I ran to where she was and found her barely breathing. I asked her why she didn’t just deny Jesus so my Dad would stop beating her. She told me that I should never deny Jesus, but follow him. I took her to our neighbor’s house, and they helped me to take her to the hospital. There was blood all over her body, and she barely had any clothes on, so our neighbors gave her clothes to cover herself with. After a few days, my Dad found out where she was and came and began to beat her in the hospital. The doctor told me to take her to another hospital because he didn’t want that kind of thing happening in his hospital. My grandfather helped me to do that.
Later on, some pastors came to our house to visit, and when my Dad saw them coming, he started to walk away, up the hill behind the house. He told my Mom, “These people are here to change me, and I’m never going to change.” He later told me that he felt like something stopped him when he was walking away, and he went back to the house and met with them. They asked him to come to church and he went the next Sunday. Something happened to him then, and he was transformed. He became the best father I could have asked for. There was so much change in his life that he became like a completely different person.
After that, we began to have prayer meetings in our house. It was a new thing for a lot of people in our area, where people practiced different religions. We clapped our hands and praised God, and lifted our voices aloud in prayer. One time, during prayer, a neighbor who was not a Christian, but of another religion came and watched for some time, and then he left. The same day after that, my parents sent me out to go to a shop to buy food and about fifty yards from the house, I found a note that the man had left on the ground with a rock on top of it. I took and read the note and got scared and ran back to the house. In the letter, he said that we should not be making noise and to stop the prayer and that if we would not, he and others would take action to stop us. I took the letter to my parents and after they read it, they took it to a Pastor who was a prophet. The man of God read the letter and said, “You don’t have to do anything, God will take care of it. God is going to visit him within one month. You don’t have to be afraid of anything.” I waited and began to count the days to see what would happen to him, because I wanted to know if what the man of God said would come true. Before the end of the time frame the prophet gave, the man had an accident, and he was killed. It brought so much fear in my life, and I began to realize that the God I serve is powerful and He will protect His children.
When I was around fifteen years old, I completely gave my life to Christ. One night after a prayer meeting in our home, I was with my Mom in the kitchen and the Pastor who came for the meeting looked at me and told me that God had great plans for me and was going to take me around the world. My Mom told the Pastor that I didn’t have any education or knowledge and asked him how this could be. He said he didn’t know, but God was going to do it.
After some time, I told the Lord, “If you have plans for my life, here I am.” I told him, “I do not have education or money to do all you want to through my life, but I am willing to follow you. “
When I was sixteen years old, I went with my older brother to Delhi to attend Bible School. I did not know any English or even how to write my own address. At first, one of the Bible school teachers who interviewed me told me I was not educated and that I shouldn’t study in an English Medium Bible School. He didn’t want me to study there because I didn’t even know how to write my address and fill out the form he had given me. I begged him to give me a chance and give me three months. He agreed to give me a chance.
It was really hard for me to learn a new language; it was like starting from kindergarten. I began with my ABCs. God began to help me, and I could not have done it without Him. By the grace of God, I learned English and finished my 3 year degree.
After that, in 1999, I worked with a missions organization called YWAM (Youth With A Mission) based in Goa. I worked with the DTS (Discipleship Training School). I really wanted to see God’s provision in my life and began to live by faith for all that I needed. I began to see God providing for me. Most of the time, I didn’t have any money in my hand to buy simple things like soap or toothpaste. I didn’t tell anybody except God. I wanted to test God to see if He knew what I needed, and I wanted Him to provide for me all that I had need of.
There was a time after coming back from a missions outreach that I had to go home for a break, and I needed around 200 rupees (about five dollars at that time). I packed up all my things and sat in the room and prayed, telling God, “You know that I am here waiting. I want you to provide me with the money that I need to go home and I’m not going to ask anybody for it.” The last bus to the train station was around 5:00 and if I missed that bus, there was no other bus that day. I really wanted to see if God knew that I was sitting there and wanted to see if He would do a miracle. I was telling God, “God, it’s your responsibility to take care of me since I’m serving you.” Nothing happened for some time, but just before 5:00, one of the students who had graduated from the school came quickly to my room and handed me an envelope. He said, “This is for you. Keep it.” And he left. I opened it, and it was the 200 rupees that I needed. I grabbed my bag and suitcase and ran to catch the bus.
I began to put my faith in God more. I wanted to see His miracles more and more in my life. One after another, He began to do those miracles for me, and that began to build my faith in God.
One Sunday in Goa, I was going to church from the DTS center. All I had in my pocket was the money for the bus fare to go and come back, which was around four rupees (about 10 cents). When I was in church, the offering bag was coming by and I had no money to put in besides the bus fare I had and God’s Spirit was asking me to put that money in the offering bag. I was telling God, “If I put this money in the bag, I have no money to pay for the bus fare. I will have to walk around four kilometers, and it’s really hot.” But God kept asking me to give that money, and I finally decided to drop those few coins in. I thought maybe God was going to provide me with what I needed for the fare, but no one gave me anything. I began the long walk back to the DTS center, and when I reached halfway, going up a long hill, all of a sudden, the Spirit of God came upon me. I began to weep and all the rest of the way to the DTS center I wept. I felt like God was doing something in my life, and I felt the presence of God. Even though I walked that long distance, I didn’t feel as though I was walking at all. It is something that I can never forget, how God’s presence came on my life. If I had not listened to God and put the money in the offering bag and taken the bus, I would have missed out on that incredible experience. It is always better to listen to God and obey what He tells you to do because He has a better plan for us.
During the two years in Goa, God began to put in my heart the desire to go to Africa for missions. I had no money, so I began to ask God to open the doors for me. My Dad gave me the money for the airfare and a little money for expenses. I went to work with YWAM in Mombasa, Kenya and I had a return ticket to India after three months, because my Kenyan visa required a return ticket. I was planning to extend my stay to two years and put my faith in God to provide for the finances I didn’t have. By the end of the three months, I was running out of my money. I began to ask God to provide me what I needed. I said, “God, if I don’t go back now, I won’t have any money to buy another return ticket and I have no money to stay here, either.” Deep in my heart, God was telling me, “I brought you here. Trust me.”
I was almost running out of money to go to town to send emails. At that time, I was working with some local people who spent most of their time at the beach. They were very poor and some of them slept in the caves. I would buy food for them and we would cook and eat together. God was asking me to spend time with them and work with them. I told God, “I have barely any money left.” There was a little fear in me as well, because I had thrown away my return air ticket. I was waiting for God to do a miracle.
Around this time, I had written an email to a girl named Rachel, who had worked with me in the DTS in Goa, who is my wife now, telling her about the ministry I was doing there. God put a desire in her heart to support me every month and I was able to stay there for two years. After about one year, Rachel let me know that her seasonal job had ended and she would not be able to continue sending support, but at that same time her Grandparents approached her and said that they would like to start sending their tithe to support me.
I was asking God to bring the right person in my life to marry and I was twenty-five years old at that time. The Lord began to speak to me about Rachel, that she was the one for me. At first, I thought it was just my thinking and I told God to take away that thought from my mind. God began to speak to me for about forty days and there was no peace in me until I had to write to Rachel what was happening. I was trying to be honest with her, thinking that if she would say no, it wasn’t from God. But to my surprise, I got the reply from Rachel that God was also speaking to her at the same time about me. We prayed about it and we both knew that it was God and it was God who began to give us a heart to love each other. After two years, I came back to my home in India and Rachel and I got married there in 2005.
Married Life
A couple of months after the wedding, Jins and I were invited to return to Goa and work with another missions organization called World Evangelism Mission to train Indian pastors and evangelical workers from rural and tribal areas. Funny thing is that this organization now was using the same house in Assagao that had been the DTS Center when we met. It was a blessed time there.
We went back and forth a couple of times from Goa to Kerala. Money was a struggle. In 2006 I returned to Oregon to work at the lodge for five months. Jins continued working with WEM in Goa while I was gone. Towards the end of the five months, Jins called me late one night and told me that his father had died from a heart attack. When I returned, the house was quiet, somber and full of grief. From that time, we stayed in Kerala with Jins’ Mom and he would go alone on short missions trips. The family clung to God for strength.
During these years, I learned to milk the cow and helped with farm chores. I would go with Jins’ Mom daily far up the hill in the rubber trees where we would gather grass into a huge bundle to carry on our heads back down. Jins loved the monsoon season for the fishing. Some nights he would go out most of the night with a lantern, fishing basket and curved knife and come back with a big catch in the wee hours of the morning. I went with him once at night to the rice field and holding the lantern, watched while he threw the curved knife at a fish in the water. The fish fell in two pieces!
We had not planned on going to the States, but after praying about it, we started the application process for a US permanent resident visa for Jins. We had no idea what a long, drawn out process we were in for.
In 2007 I went again alone to work at the lodge in Oregon, this time for three months. I attended my sister’s wedding and I found out that my Mom had cancer. I prayed and prayed and found hope in God, walking the wooded trails of Camp Sherman. When I left for India, I was confident that God held my Mom in His hands and prayed that Jins’ visa process would go well and we could come back to the States together.
In 2008 we received a yellow letter with the date of Jins’ visa interview appointment. I was standing in the rice field below the house with Jins’ Mom, helping her collect grass for the cow, when Jins came from town on the motorcycle. He stopped the bike and headed our way with a letter in his hand and I knew it was good news. The letter gave us the date and instructions for the interview and doctor’s visit in Chennai.
We took the train overnight to Chennai and Jins had the doctor’s physical the day before the interview. Money was tight, so we were careful to budget eating out and the hotel. At the hotel, Jins was reading in Matthew about the miracle of Jesus multiplying the fish and the loaves(Matthew 14:13-21). He told me that God was speaking to him about it, but he didn’t understand why.
The day of the interview was nerve-wracking. We waited in a long line outside of the consulate and eventually entered a large room with lots of seats and four or five windows where people were called to be interviewed. Not long after we arrived there, an Indian woman called us, and she held a large file that contained the many documents and application pages I had submitted in months past. For financial documents, my parents had given a tax document of their property, which was supposed to be sufficient as financial proof. I had no money in my U.S. bank account. We had a letter from the lodge in Oregon stating that we both had year-round jobs waiting for us. We had not been able to obtain a police certificate of good conduct from Kenya, but only a receipt stating that it had been requested(a friend had made a number of attempts for us). The woman told us that the financial documents were not sufficient but to take a seat and wait until we were called.
We waited for five hours. We watched many others walk away, either rejoicing or crying. We prayed, and that is when Jins realized what God was telling him the previous night about the miracle of multiplying the fish and the loaves. That’s when he realized God was going to do a miracle with the very little we had.
Finally, Jins was called, and we approached the window. The American consular officer asked questions and gave us both time to explain. She brought up all the insufficiency that had been brought up earlier and listened to our careful responses. To be honest with you, I don’t remember it all. But I do remember that at the end of it, she looked at Jins and said, “Okay, Jins, I’m going to issue you the visa.” We couldn’t believe it! We were so happy as we walked out of there!
We had just enough money for our airfare to Oregon. We had not told anyone about our need, but God had provided through my uncle and aunt who had no idea they were giving us the exact amount we needed. We flew to the States on April 2nd, 2008, our third anniversary. We stayed with my parents for about a week before going to the lodge to work. We had only our suitcases, but the housing provided at the lodge was furnished. We didn’t have enough money to buy food, so my parents bought food for us for the first couple of weeks.
Lake Creek Lodge
When we started work at Lake Creek Lodge, Jins said to me, “Let’s work hard and save.” We were hired as onsite staff, and so our housing was provided – an old, single wide trailer house that we called “The Green Box.”
Jins position was a groundsman/maintenance man, and mine was head housekeeper. I also worked a couple of days a week at the front desk. We kept a tight budget, spent little, and saved most of what we earned.
I was happy to introduce Jins to the little church in Sisters that I had attended in previous years called New Hope Christian Center. Jins immediately felt at home, and after a short time, Pastor Fraga asked him if he would be the youth pastor.
We had no vehicle but were allowed to use a company vehicle to go to town in. After some time, Pastor Fraga came to us and told us that God was leading him to give us one of his cars. It was amazing to experience God’s provision.
We worked six years at the lodge and grew in our positions. The owners put Jins in charge of all the landscaping, and he learned much in maintenance. I became the front desk manager, then was trained to take over the marketing and, when we left, had worked up to the position of assistant manager. Living and working there was a great opportunity to grow. When Jins had time off, he would go and do landscaping work for neighbors and built a list of regular clients.
Valentine’s Day ~ 2009
When I was three and a half months pregnant with our first child, Jins and I were both scheduled to work as servers in the Lodge restaurant for a special Valentine’s Dinner. However, I went home sick from the front desk and was not well the rest of the day. I could not keep any food or water down. When Jins came home from the dinner that night close to midnight, we went straight to the ER in Redmond, and they said it was my appendix. They said that there was a possibility of losing the baby but that the appendix had to be removed. We prayed, and when I woke from anesthesia early in the morning, I asked if the baby was okay. “The baby is fine.” the nurse assured me.
Jada and Joanna
On August 31st, 2009, we welcomed a daughter, Jada Jins, into the world. Our lives were forever changed. All we wanted to do was look at her. With her came so much joy.
My Mom was there for her birth. She helped me so much the first few days at home. Jins’ Mom was granted a ten year visa and came for five months, the first of quite a few summers. She always took over the cooking and helped with babysitting while we worked.
My friend Jennifer, who had helped me in countless ways before (she had been the lodge manager from 2002 to 2006 and lived across the street), began watching Jada for us every Tuesday. The rest of the days, the management was kind in arranging our schedules so that we could work each other’s day off so that we could both keep working thirty to forty hours a week and one of us could be home with Jada. It was a great blessing.
From 2007 to 2011, my Mom put up the fight of her life against breast cancer. At times, it would be in remission. Other times, it returned to another part of her body. In May of 2011, she came to visit as she often did and, this time, told me that the cancer was in her organs. She left this life on earth that June, and I wondered how I was going to go on without her. She had been my best friend growing up, listened to me, encouraged me, and shown me so much love. My heart ached for my Dad, wondering how he was going to go on alone.
On August 26th, 2012, just five days before Jada’s third birthday, we were blessed with a second daughter, Joanna. While Jada had light brown curly hair and green eyes, Joanna looked like a true Indian baby with big dark eyes and lots of dark hair. At first, we called her Papoose, but it didn’t take long before we nicknamed her Buggy because of her eyes and short neck. That one stuck, and we still call her that.
The next couple of years were some very busy, exhausting, wonderfully blessed years. The girls were our joy, and we could not imagine life without them. We spent a lot of time walking the trails in Camp Sherman. I don’t know if there has ever been a place like Camp Sherman that has felt so much like home to me. So many wonderful memories.
We kept on working and saving, and Jins invested in real estate in India. In 2013, we began to feel restless and stagnant, like we were no longer growing and also frustrated with some work issues. We began to look around for another job, and after a winter of searching, applying, and interviewing, we came across a job opportunity in North Central Idaho. It was a position for a manager couple at an outdoor adventure lodge, and oddly enough, happened to be in the same area as I had lived with my parents during my teenage years. We were hired, and with the help of our friend, Jeff, we made the move in April of 2014.
River Dance Lodge ~ Syringa, Idaho
My position at River Dance Lodge was the Lodge Manager, and Jins was the Head of Maintenance. I was excited, but with some trepidation. Even though I had carried much responsibility at Lake Creek, the full responsibility had not been mine. Jins was the force behind me, pushing me, encouraging me and the one I always turned to for advice. It forced me to grow, and it was quite a ride.
The Lodge had many moving parts. Log Cabins, Glamping Tents and Camping Spaces for rentals, a restaurant/roadside cafe that was also open to the public, and a full schedule of guided activities. Whitewater rafting, float trips, fishing trips, mountain biking, and hiking were among the activities offered. Jins and I both went once on a whitewater raft trip down the mighty Lochsa River. After Jins went, the guides told me that Jins “stuck to the raft like a cat.” The boat tipped during his trip, and the other guests fell out, but he clung to the boat.
The restaurant was not something that I would wish on anybody. We never had enough staff. The resort was in a remote location, and finding good staff that would stick for the season was tough. I had to fire a chef mid-way through the first season and have him replaced with another immediately.
We were on salary, and much was expected, so we worked more hours than I could count. Guilt was something I constantly felt with not having much time for the girls. The manager’s house was a short walk up the hill behind the cafe. It had a big porch overlooking the Clearwater River and was a place we really enjoyed. Thankfully, Jins’ Mom came and helped us with the girls both summers, mostly Joanna, as it was a challenge making Jada stay home. Jada tagged along with us, but she loved spending time with the activity guides. She also liked having a cheeseburger in the cafe and checking to see if there was any spare huckleberry pie!
The Lodge was open seasonally, from May through October. During the winter months, Jins was off, and I worked full time on marketing. I was challenged but enjoyed learning new techniques and growing. However, as time went on, I also began to feel discouraged. I was given general direction and goals that were expected of me, but then left on my own to work on them. I would sometimes find out after I began working on a project that it was not exactly what the owner had in mind. The Lodge owner made biting remarks, and criticism did not come gently. This was hard on sensitive spirit, and after a couple of seasons of that, I began to want out. I loved the place, it’s beauty and wonderful friends we had made, but mentally, I got to a point where I felt I “couldn’t call my soul my own.”
Jins loved the fishing there and began to hunt. A neighbor showed him how to use a rifle, and he took his hunter’s safety course. He tried hard for the elusive elk but couldn’t get close enough to them. He harvested turkey, whitetail deer, and a bear. He told me he had seen cougars a couple of times while he was out in the woods. I had never seen someone so much in their element.
After our second season, we began to pray about buying a place and business of our own. We looked at places all over the country, considering all the aspects. We specifically looked for a property that was small enough that we could do all the work ourselves and not need to hire staff. Finding something with a decent house for our family was important. We also did not want to be next to a busy street but preferred something with a bit of land and trees. And then Jins found a charming property in Eastern Wyoming, at the edge of the Black Hills called Pines Motel. Everything about it was exactly what we were looking for.
Back in India, Jins’ Mom told a Pastor who had the gift of prophecy that we were looking at a business we would like to buy and asked him to pray for us. Jins had not told his Mom the name of the business or described it to her. She knew nothing about it, only that we were praying about buying it. The Pastor called Jins and prayed and told him that God showed him a place that is on a hill and had stonework on the front of the building. He told us that we would pay it off in a couple of years and that God had kept it for us, even though it had been for sale for four or five years.
Neither of us had been to Wyoming before, but in February of 2016, we drove over and stayed a couple of nights and loved it. We prayed a lot about it and had peace that it was for us. I wanted it with all my heart.
Due to investing in real estate in India, we did not have enough money for a down payment. We lacked $50,000, some of which was for the down payment and some of which to use for running the business the first few months. By that time, Jins’ Mom had traveled to Texas for ministry. Jins asked her to pray, and she shared our prayer request with some ladies there. One of the ladies said that she would loan us the money we needed, someone who didn’t know us. The money was transferred to us and we bought the Motel.
The Pines Country Inn ~ 2016
When we came to live at the Pines Motel, it felt like we had come home. We arrived on May 16th, moved into the house, and closed on May 17th. By that afternoon, we were checking in guests and running the business as our own.
There were eleven rooms and a small cottage. The owners house was a three bedroom, two bath house and felt so comfortable. It was close to the Motel rooms and not so disconnected from where we were working as had been the situation at the past two lodges, but it was still separated enough that we had our own privacy.
After three months, we paid back the $50,000 back to the kind woman in Texas. We paid off the loan on the business after three years. We couldn’t believe that God had given this wonderful place to us. About the time we paid it off, we changed the name to The Pines Country Inn and changed out the signs. We had felt from the beginning that it felt more like an Inn than a Motel, and guest often commented the same, saying how it felt like they were staying in their grandma’s house.
We didn’t do any drastic remodeling to the property after we bought it because it was in good condition and functioned fine, but it was a little bare, so we really enjoyed personalizing it. To the rooms, we added throw blankets, throw pillows, new pictures, and replaced a lot of lamps. We added new signage, room journals, and a welcoming tea and coffee tray. I also added an assortment of books to all the rooms. Quilted bedspreads were replaced as needed as well as all other linens.. Three of the units had kitchens, which we added nicer cookware and silver to.
Outside, there was a hot tub house. After giving it a season and finding that very few people used it, we got rid of the hot tub, removed lattice walls, and turned it into an inviting guest porch. Jins added little garden areas here and there and chopped out a huge, overgrown juniper bush that resided right in front of the office. In its place, he created an inviting space with a table and chairs and another garden.
Sometime after the first year, I began making banana bread to include with the continental breakfast. Guests began to write reviews, and other guests would come and say they couldn’t wait to try the banana bread because they had read the reviews. There was no turning back after that!
While we loved the place, we were sometimes surprised how much guests raved about it and enjoyed the rooms and grounds. They often said it didn’t feel like they were staying in a hotel and how homey and clean and comfortable it was. And the grounds – people gushed over the grounds and the flowers.
We were often asked if we worked here, to which I began to answer, “Yes, I work here a lot!” We could only guess that people asked this because they saw us doing the work ourselves and because of our age.
Hunting season was a unique season. I eventually labeled it “boy’s camp.” It was more relaxed, and Jins loved visiting, going out with guests, and going out on his own. He harvested antelope, mule deer, and elk. After a few seasons, he became a pro at giving hunters advice and sometimes taking them out for successful hunts. He gained a lot of friends and return customers.
2019
2019 was the year when everything changed in our lives. In February of that year, Jins decided to go home to India for five weeks since it had been eight years since he had been home. When he came back home to Wyoming he told me that he was feeling the urgency from God to preach and start going for missions again and that he wanted to go at least once for that in the winters.
That Easter, he was invited to share his testimony in one of the local churches, and when he did, I could feel the power of God’s Spirit. People were crying, and God used him.
Things were going great at the Inn. It was a busy summer, consuming as usual. Financially, it could not have been better. The thought of missions was something that was on the back burner, but mostly, we were occupied with the business. It is hard to give much time and focus to something when all your time, energy, creativity, and attention are consumed with another thing.
In July of that year, Jins noticed a couple of lumps on his neck that were slowly getting bigger. He had always been prone to migraine headaches, but during this time, they seemed to get worse. He visited a doctor in town who told him to take ibuprofen for ten days, and if it still bothered him, she would schedule a CT scan. He said she just looked and didn’t even touch it. After ten days, the CT scan was scheduled, and based on the results, they decided he should go to Rapid City for a biopsy.
In the third week of August, the doctor called and told Jins that the lumps in his neck were metastatic cancer, which meant that it was coming from somewhere else, likely the head or neck. She said that in about a week, they could schedule an appointment with a specialist to see if they could find out where it was coming from. We were in shock.
Jins talked to his family in India, and they urged him to come home and go to a good cancer hospital there. Most people in our area went to Denver for cancer treatment, five hours away, and that might as well have been as far away as India. We decided it would be best if he went home, where his mother could care for him, and his brother could drive him to the hospital for treatments. I would stay and run the business and care for our girls. We booked the tickets that afternoon.
Jins arranged for someone from church to mow the lawns each week. Two friends from church committed to helping me with housekeeping. Lots of others told us to please let them know if we needed anything. An older gentleman was staying with us on a long-term stay, and he offered to help me if I ever needed anything maintenance related.
Not knowing what lay ahead, we went to the courthouse and applied for passports for the girls the day that Jins was flying out, as we had discovered that both parents had to be present for that. It was unreal.
Jins flew out on Sept. 2nd. Saying goodbye was brutal. We held it together and kept things positive when he said goodbye to the girls before they went to school. We even held it together pretty well when we said our own goodbyes. One of our long-term guests who was there to work had the day off and drove him to Rapid City. I had my emotional breakdown the second he walked out the door.
When Jins arrived at home in India, they first spent three days in prayer and fasting before going to the Tamil Nadu border to the hospital that specialized in cancer treatment. All tests were done on the first day at the hospital, and nothing was left to guess about. They found the cancer behind his nose, close to the upper throat. They put him under anesthesia and removed one of the lumps from his neck to test. When he came out of the anesthesia and was back resting in the hospital room, he heard the voice of God like he had never heard before.
While he was lying on the bed, there was suddenly a powerful sound from the corner of the ceiling and a mighty voice that sounded like roaring rushing water saying to him in his language(Malayalam), “Don’t be afraid. I am with you.” The words came three times, saying the same thing. Jins said that he was filled with fear at that sound, and his chest swelled up, and he began to cry out and struggle on the bed. His brother ran and locked the door because he was screaming. His mother tried to go to him, but she said that she could not get close to him because of God’s glory on him. She realized that God was speaking to him. Jins told me that it was so real. Every time he has spoken about it, his eyes fill with tears and he gets choked up.
Jins told me around that time that we needed to sell the Pines Country Inn, that he was going to serve the Lord full time when everything was over. I was in agreement that it was time, that we all as a family needed to. God had brought us to a place of full submission.
Within three days, all of the test results were in and the doctors made the treatment plan for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma. They began with chemo immediately on a 24 hour drip. This would go on for five days and then two weeks break – for roughly three months. After that, started almost two months of radiation treatment.
Meanwhile, at the Pines, I was busier than busy. September and October were a blur. The girls had school and friends from church and would take them to AWANAS for me and bring them home. Other friends would take them to church on Sunday for me while I was still too busy to get away. On light housekeeping days, I took care of the work by myself, but I depended on the friends who had said they would help me. Nancy, the pastor’s wife who lived a couple blocks down the street, was there for me whenever I asked. She was gracious and a huge help to me – she was also an encouragement and lifted my spirits when things were hard. I can never forget that.
In September, I was also faced with a very real, fearful situation. The month before Jins left, there were three men who booked one of our rooms for a long-term stay – they were working on the pipeline. We didn’t have a good feeling about them from the beginning, but there was no legitimate reason to turn them away. About five days after Jins left, they began to ask where he was. I told them that a family emergency had come up and he had to go home for a time. I didn’t tell them anything else.
They would use our picnic area, where they smoked and drank until late and sometimes have friends join them as well. I would avoid using our front walkway and only go around the back of the Inn to go to the office or laundry area. I told the girls to do the same and keep the door locked when I wasn’t at the house. There was some comfort in that we had a few older men staying long-term as well who were kind and fatherly and that I knew I could call if there was any trouble. Jins’ police officer friend in town would also make extra drive through checks of our parking lot and send his deputies to do that. But fear would set in when I was alone, especially at night.
After a couple of weeks, one of the men called me late one night, saying he was locked out of the room and the other men had the keys and weren’t there. I got him a key and nothing happened, but the next morning, I went to the hardware store and had extra keys made. I put the extra keys under a pot outside their room, and when they came back from work, I called them to let them know the keys were there. When I called, the three of them were in the room, and they said there was a bad smell in the bathroom, and they wanted me to come check it out. Everything inside of me told me this wasn’t right, and I prayed, asking God for help.
At that same time, the guest who was staying in the room next to theirs also came from work. He was a friend of ours that I knew I could trust, a big man, intimidating in stature and appearance. I went to him and told him what was happening and he told me he would take a look. I stood outside and waited while he walked into their room. He told them that he didn’t smell anything and that there was no problem. It was a relief to have his help. The fear continued to plague me, especially when I was alone and at night, and I prayed that God would remove those people from our place. Another week passed, and then one morning, they just packed up and left without a word.
I share this with you, because, looking back, I see what God did for me, protecting us, watching over us and caring for us. He never once left me alone.
When hunting season began on October 1st, lots of return guests came, one by one asking where Jins was and excited to talk hunting with him. It was the time of year especially that he was always the heartbeat of the place.
Quite a number of times, I would drive the girls to school and hurry back to the Inn, only to have the school office call after an hour or two to tell me that Joanna, our youngest daughter (in 2nd grade) wasn’t feeling well and that I needed to come pick her up. I knew that the underlying cause was anxiety.
Friends all over were praying for us. In some of the most discouraging times, they were there for us. Pastor Fraga’s wife, Mary in Sisters, Oregon called me and prayed for us, filling me with hope. She and her daughter, Sherry texted me often to check on us and send encouragement.
When I received Jada and Joanna’s passports, I immediately began to apply for Indian visas, in case we all needed to go for a time. Mine was no problem, but I quickly found out that both parents signature had to be notarized on multiple pages of each application for the girls. It wasn’t possible and would have to wait.
I turned to the Lord, ran to him with every fearful thought, anxiety and worry during those months. I clung to Him and let Him fill my heart with His comfort and hope. Things were difficult, but His mercy was new every morning. He gave me a strength that was not my own to meet the challenges.
Before Jins began the treatment, he was 175 pounds and by the time it was finished, he was 145 pounds. For about forty days, he did not eat and struggled to even get a glass of water down. They put him on an IV three or four times during the radiation treatment. Because the radiation as targeted on his face and throat, swallowing food had become near impossible. His Mom would sit next to him and try to make him drink at least one glass of water a day. All his skin peeled from his neck and the doctor told him that the inside was much worse than the outside. Sometimes when he would throw up, skin would come out too. Acid from his stomach would burn his throat and he would be in tremendous pain. Even for weeks afterward, the sensation of anything going down triggered the reflex to bring everything back up.
Jins told me that even while he was going through so much pain and suffering, deep in his heart, he knew God was close to him. And God kept reminding him, that “I am with you.”
Towards the end of January of 2020, he visited the doctors in Tamil Nadu for the final checkup and they said that he was all clear.
After he had gone back to his Mom’s home in Kerala, Jins visited a local Christian dentist. He told Jins that there are tribal people not so far from their place, where he is allowed by the government to visit because he is a doctor and that in the future, he could take Jins with him.
Jins told me that God had spoken to him about starting our own ministry and asked what I thought about the name “Christ For All Tribes.” I thought it was perfect. The ministry would focus on bringing the Gospel to tribal people around the world who had never heard before.
Jins was anxious to come home. As much as I wanted to have him back, I also wanted him to be well enough first. Even though he should have spent more time resting and recovering, he had me book his tickets home in February. Little did we know that this was just in time to get home before international flights were to be shut down because of the outbreak of the coronavirus.
A New Chapter
Jins was home. Weak and fragile, but okay, and we were so thankful. Little by little, he regained his strength and began to eat more. It wasn’t long before everything shut down because of Covid-19. We closed the hotel for the last half of March and all of April, except to accommodate a couple of monthly guests. We made the most of the time and had the best family time together. We spent more time in prayer and Bible study and sharing about the things of God with each other and with the girls.
The Inn was for sale, but 2020 was clearly not a good year for someone to invest in the hotel business. We still knew that God had something else and kept it listed with a hospitality broker. One of my aunts mentioned to us that she had been on a road trip and that she had stopped at Branson, Missouri, and said what a nice place it was. Out of curiosity, we looked it up online and looked at homes for sale there. The more we looked, the more we felt drawn and felt a peace that it was where we were supposed to move next, the place to be our home base for missions. Over the next year and a half, we kept looking at Branson. We would try looking at other areas, even in Missouri, and didn’t feel peace about it.
That summer season caught us by surprise and was much busier than we thought it would be, but 2020 went by and there was no serious interest in our place. We continued running the business, trusting that God would bring a buyer in His time. We spent the quiet winter months applying for Overseas Citizen of India cards for myself and the girls. Jins had been granted U.S. citizenship a couple of years before and had also been granted the Overseas Citizen of India card. It is about as close to dual citizenship as you can get. The girls got theirs in the spring of 2021 and I finally got mine in the summer.
During those two years, from the time that Jins was diagnosed with cancer, God also was doing a new work in our marriage. A tenderness, patience and kindness that had been lacking came subtly back. As we pressed into God and prayer, we grew stronger together than we had been before.
The summer of 2021 was our sixth summer at the Pines, and it was the busiest one we’d ever had. Jins had always shared about God with people and some of his testimony, but this summer, he didn’t hold back. In the mornings, Jins would stay in the office during breakfast time to take care of that and whatever people needed. So many times that summer, people told us that God had brought them to this place. I can’t tell you how many times I passed through the office and someone would be crying, listening to Jins. He prayed for people, and they asked to stay in touch. People we didn’t know even came and prayed over us.
Around the first of September, the realtor called and told us that we had an offer on the place. As we prepared to sell and sought God’s direction, we were just as sure as we had been the year before that God was preparing a place for us in Branson, Missouri.
A friend of Jins asked him, “Why move to Missouri?” Jins told him that he could not give him a clear answer that would make sense now, but to ask him in ten years, and he would be able to tell him why. God has a reason and purpose that we can not understand. It is our job to trust and obey, and that is all.
From the time that we received a verbal offer on our home and business to the time of closing, about three months went by. There were quite a number of times during these months that I didn’t think the buyers were really going to buy it, and a few times that I gave up hoping that they would be the ones. But also a couple of times during those months, a friend of Jins from India who spends a lot of time in prayer called him and told him that the place was going to sell very soon. On one of the phone calls, he said, “Start packing! It’s going to happen very soon!” The sale was finally closed on December 9th of 2021.
A couple of times in 2021, a word from God also came from the same humble Pastor in India who had told us just before we bought the Pines Motel that we would pay off the business in a couple of years and that God had kept it for us. He said that God was going to take us to a new place. He said that God is gong to use Jins all over the world and he was about to be so busy with traveling and ministry, going from place to place and that God was going to use me too.
God is not asking us to see the big picture or understand the full scope of things, but to trust him and take the next step of obedience to His leading. He wants our whole heart, our full devotion, and a loving relationship with us. The more time I spend in His Word, I see that He wants us to live a life here on earth that is by His Spirit, because He is preparing our hearts for an eternal life that is immersed in His presence.
Thanks for reading along. I hope that our story so far has been an encouragement to you and reflects God’s power and love. The story is far from over! Please come back and join me as our journey continues on the blog from time to time.
Life By The Spirit 
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