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PROLOGUE
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Our tiny apartment, perched three
floors over the suffering city of Calcutta, was silent. The helpers had long
since returned to their homes in the sultry tropical night. Those we had
taken into our own home to help and love, had all gone to bed.
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But for me, sleep would not come.
Nita was still not back. She was out at an area church, ministering again,
sharing her testimony again, as she had so many times.
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Ever since she arrived in
Calcutta, I had felt an unusual stirring in my spirit. My mind could not
settle down. It kept churning, turning over and over the stories I had heard
about her - and me.
What could it all mean? Was I
really linked to this girl by some immense, imponderable destiny?
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I paced, praying for Nita, unable
to escape my thoughts of her. She was a lovely young Sri Lankan, who had come
to work for a few months in our hospital before returning to school in
America. I knew she had a remarkable past - an incredible healing that
several people had told me about, although I had never heard her tell the
story herself. Now, as I prayed in the soft darkness, I sensed, deep in my
spirit, that Nita's healing was only a fraction of the larger picture - a
picture that included my own future.
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"Dear God," I prayed,
wringing my hands, "how am I related to this girl? Does she really need
me somehow? What are you trying to say to me through this person?"
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It was late when Nita finally
returned, but my heart was still longing to know the elusive answers to my
questions. I asked her to tell me her story.
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We sat in the little living room
on either side of a single lamp, and in those wee hours she began to relate a
fantastic tale. As she talked, we both wept and laughed and praised the Lord.
Hours later, with dawn already threatening to bring in another day, Nita
finished her account. There was an awesome presence of God in the room, and
we knelt together before the Lord, weeping and praying and rejoicing in Him.
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My eyes were opened that night. I
began to see that larger picture, of how Nita's story could, and would,
affect my own life's work - and, indeed, the entire continent of Asia.
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I knew immediately that her story
had to be told. It became an unexplainable passion with me. But, who should
do it? Who could I get to capture the poignancy and power of this spiritual
drama?
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The burden of the telling would
not leave me alone. I agonized before God and then He whispered to my spirit
a name.
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I contacted my dear friend Ron
Hembree, pastor of Kennedy Road Tabernacle in Brampton, Ontario, and a
veteran professional writer. He had written my own story, [1] and agreed to
help me with this one.
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Some time later, after Nina had
returned to finish her education in California, I returned to Canada. Before
many days had gone by, the three of us, Ron, Nita, and myself, sat together,
and again I heard the nearly unbelievable story. We were swept up in it for
hours, riding the ebb and flow of its grief and glory, its fury and fantasy.
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As I listened again, I knew in my
heart that Nita Edwards was God's vessel for touching the teeming population
of the turbulent Asian continent. And my own life, my own ministry, would
never be the same. This is Nita's miraculous story.
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[1]
Ron Hembree, Mark. (Plainfield,
N.J.: Logos, 1979).
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And
it shall come to pass afterward,
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that
I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
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and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
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your
old men shall dream dreams,
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your
young men shall see visions...
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Joel 2:28
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PROLOGUE
