Recently, I unpacked a treasure from childhood…a little cloth doll from India. My mother told me years ago that a missionary visiting our church from the Punjab District of India had given the doll to me as a gift. I was too young to remember the incident, but I had always carefully kept the doll through the years as something precious. Because of the doll, I’d always been curious about that part of the world.
In September of 2003, Art and I made a trip to Pakistan. We visited a church in the Western Punjab District. (Prior to 1947, this had all been a part of India.) I was dressed in the traditional clothing of women in that part of the world, a shalwar kameez which is a knee length top over loose fitting pants and a dupatta or scarf around my head similar to the way my doll from long ago was dressed. The congregation met us a distance from the church building. They put a gold turban on Art’s head, leis of flowers around our necks, and roses and white blossoms in my hair and around my wrists. Then they draped a gold scarf over my head. Slowly we walked toward the church between the people lined on either side of the walkway as they sang to welcome us. We learned from our host that they had dressed us as a bride and groom!
It didn’t occur to me until sometime later, maybe because we were in Pakistan not India, but at some point, I realized Art and I had actually been in the very area of the world the missionary had ministered in. Could the doll from so many years before, have been a harbinger of experiences to come? Although I’ll never know, is it possible I met a Christian or two who came to Christ through that missionary’s efforts? I am humbled and amazed that so many years after receiving that doll I actually visited the people of this area!