A Pause for Thanksgiving and Remembrance

2/9/12 

As It happens the place name I had been given as the new name for Erinpura turned out to the the new name for the railway station originally also with the name of Erinpura. It led to remarkable detour in our search, accompanied by a family group who took great care to show us two unusual graves in the area, neither of which was the right one. They were like all villagers I have met, full of grace and warmth and hospitality. Then we followed a lead to another community which is the more substantial residential and market community which once had the name of Erinpura and now goes by the name of Shivganj. It is exactly on the border between Sirohi and Jodhpur districts were JWD’s article indicates. Facing the marketplace and a pedestrian precinct, Bumpy was asking directions and as is quite normal the enquiry led to a string of several conversations among local townsmen, one of which got in the car with us and accurately led us to the now desolate and brokendown walls of the former army graveyard. My new contact (by phone) in Ajmer was another Rev. Massay who now 76 years old remembers JWD well from his childhood. Rev. Massay gave me precise directions for finding the grave – a limestone grave to the right after entering the cemetery. It turned out that the correct grave was so overgrown and almost invisible that Bumpy, and our guide and I actually checked the inscriptions on all the g raves in the cemetery before finally realizing that there was one in the corner we had missed. I pulled back thornbush after thornbush, crouched, and peered, and with great satisfaction and a loud shout to the others, read the name Thomas Blair Steele. I had prepared myself for the possibility of neglect (which I had imagined I might use my own hands to clear) but not overgrowth to this extent and I saw immediately it was beyond me alone. I asked our guide to find some local help to cut back the thornbushes and to clean the area around the marble plaque. The result was that a whole family set about the task and the pictures convey their good work. When their work was done, and much to their curiosity I sat cross-legged on the ground and prayed aloud, laid flowers on the grave (two garlands – one for JWD and one for Granny Helen Collier (each of whom had entered upon their labours in Rajasthan at almost  exactly the same age as this young minister who died had done) - and took pictures of the family and they of me.  As I bade farewell to the patriarch of the family that had done the work for me, he asked me when I would return. I answered as I often do, “it could be many years from now,” to which he replied that he would never forget the day for the rest of his life. At that, as I began to say what the visit meant to me, I broke down in tears. It has happened frequently on this journey of thousands of miles, most often in the quietest of rural settings in the simplicity and silent solemnity of sacred spaces. It was as much as I could do to mouth my thank yous, bow to the father and mother with my hands tight together in the traditional greeting of peace, as I turned and made my way to the car.

Once again my visit has stirred the awareness of missionary history. As I relayed my experience by phone to the a young pastor in Ajmer, Rev. Sunny Kumar, he expressed his deep gratitude to be so much clearer on the exact location of this grave and his desire to make it a project to attend to its care.   

As I write I am settling in to my hotel in Jodhpur, still without reliable internet connection, but happy to be preparing this blog for upload sometime this weekend. Now to consider Sunday’s with more attention. This Sunday promises to be another weighty day for me, preaching in Somerville Memorial Church, a church that I know JWD preached in many a Sunday and for whose life and well-being he prayed and ministered faithfully.