January 27

Setting out from America in 1968... with my youth hostel card in hand... with a goal of hitch hiking to Goa, India. Hitchhiking through Europe, Communist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran (the Shah was still power) Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally India. Hitchhiking down to Bombay and finally taking a ferry over to Goa. It was here that my life was changed.

While on the beach I met an American from California and he asked me if he could read the Bible to me. Of course I said yes... and because of circumstances we ended up hitchhiking across India to Calcutta... barefoot... and because the roads were so hot we had to wait until the evening to hitchhike. No road signs and very few cars.

Because my Hitchhiking partner said it was going to be a faith trip in Jesus Christ, we experienced God's loving care. While hiking I started to experience severe abdominal pain. At that point, a jeep stopped for us... it had a group of men in it, which could have been very dangerous but because I was in such pain we got in. We started up a conversation with the driver and found out they were all doctors and were going to the hospital which is exactly what and where I needed to go.

Also on the trip we were able to stop at a mission that was treating lepers and I was able to administer the medicine that they were treating the lepers with. At that time, my hiking friend was able to preach about being born again.

Arriving in Calcutta... my friend went to see Mother Theresa... I went to the YWCA... and then to a Christian family with whom I eventually lived with. It was with them that I prayed... and was able to live with until the police called and said I had to report. They gave me several days to be out... as the police were watching my family... because they were Christians... preaching the gospel... and they knew I was American and living with them. There was already some problems going on in India at the time so they weren’t allowing Americans to stay. They were not renewing visas for Christians etc.

Upon leaving that day for the airport I saw young boys wearing a red scarf with the hammer and sickle and the older ones and men carrying flags with the hammer and sickle. The communists were infiltrating. And so I left India for the first time and returned several years later. Jeremiah 29:11

Barbara Walsh