15
Into Asia
India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Formosa (Taiwan), Japan, Korea 1956

When we toured Japan and Korea during the Korean War, most of our meetings were held for the United Nations forces stationed there, especially the American troops. I was fascinated by what I saw of Asia’s culture, and Korea’s wartime devastation and poverty had moved me greatly, but I knew that we had only begun to glimpse Asia’s rich diversity and complexity. Now, as 1955 drew to a close, we found ourselves preparing for a much more extended journey among the teeming populations and cultures of that vast region.

INDIA

“Billy Graham was cutting through India like Gabriel in a gabardine suit.” That was the way Time described me in the February 13, 1956, issue. It was nice to get some coverage in the Luce magazine, but I preferred the Associated Press wirephoto of me astride an elephant in Kottayam, looking far from angelic as I held on for dear life to the tough hide behind those huge floppy ears.

For years now, even as far back as my anthropology studies at Wheaton, I had been fascinated by India, with its vast multireligious and multicultural population of (at that time) over 400 million people, and I had prayed that someday God might open the door for us to go there.

Plans for an extended series of meetings in India actually crystallized in my thinking during the week-long May 1955 Crusade in London’s Wembley Stadium, which was a follow-up to the Har-ringay meetings of the previous year. Between 50,000 and 60,000 Londoners trekked to the chilly stadium in Wembley each evening, in spite of the fact that it poured rain five of the seven nights—weatherwise, one of our bleakest Crusades ever.

One morning during those Wembley meetings, I asked Jack Dain to join me at the Kensington Palace Hotel for breakfast. A former lay missionary in northern India and an officer in an Indian Gurkha regiment during the war, Jack was now serving as Overseas Secretary for the Evangelical Alliance in London. (He later was ordained and became an Anglican bishop in Australia, where he assisted us greatly in some of our visits there.) I told him that I had recently received an invitation from all the major Protestant denominations in India to hold a series of meetings.

Grabbing his napkin—neither of us had a blank piece of paper—Jack quickly sketched a map of India and marked six cities scattered around the country that he felt would be the most strategic for us to visit: Bombay, Madras, Kottayam, Palamcottah, New Delhi, and Calcutta. Each one of the six cities, he pointed out, had a small established Christian population that would provide a foundation for preparations and follow-up.

Shortly before leaving the United States for India—and just a half-year after that meeting with Jack—I was able to meet with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for a briefing on relations between the United States and India. He felt that it was especially important for me to know that the visit to India of Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin two months earlier had had as its sole purpose drawing India into closer ties with the Communist bloc.

On January 15, 1956, we left for India from New York. The Team for this trip was a small one, but it did include a Christian newspaper reporter from Chattanooga, George Burnham, selfdescribed as “an ex-alcoholic.” Six hundred newspapers had signed up to carry George’s stories, and later he wrote a book about the trip.

It took us a couple of days by plane to cover the eight thousand miles to India. Grady Wilson, Jerry Beavan, and John Bolten were accompanying me. John was upset by the length of the flight, but he had no recourse but to settle down. During a stopover in Athens (at three in the morning, local time), we began talking about the Apostle Paul’s visit to that ancient center of culture and philosophy, remembering how the apostle had adopted a special approach in his sermon on Mars Hill (see Acts 17) in order to build a bridge to his pagan audience and win a hearing for the Gospel.

“Billy,” John said, “you are on your way to India, a country that has no conception of God. You will need a special approach to break into people’s thinking, because they know nothing of the Bible or of God. Do you have such an approach in mind?”

Admitting that I didn’t, I suggested that we make that issue a matter of concentrated prayer.

Shortly after taking off from our next stopover, which was Cairo—we had already been traveling about thirty hours—we flew near Mt. Sinai, where God had entrusted the Ten Commandments to Moses. Off in the distance we could see Israel, where Jesus had been born and lived. Suddenly it came to me: Jesus had been born in the one part of the world where the three great continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe intersect.

That was the answer to our prayer for an approach to the people of India.

“I am not here to tell you about an American or a Britisher or a European,” I said everywhere we went. “I am here to tell you about a Man who was born right here in your part of the world, in Asia. He was born at the place where Asia and Africa and Europe meet. He had skin that was darker than mine, and He came to show us that God loves all people. He loves the people of India, and He loves you.”

We could see people’s eyes light up as they realized that Chris-tianity was not exclusively for Europeans or the white race but that Christ came for all.

Bombay

When we arrived in Bombay on January 17, 1956, the situation was not promising. In violent political riots unrelated to our visit, just before our arrival, two people were killed outside the stadium where we were scheduled to hold a meeting. The riots got worldwide headlines, but it was not the kind of publicity we needed! When, as part of those same ongoing riots, a rock-throwing mob attacked the police station after several Christian leaders had conferred there with government officials, it was clear that our own event had to be canceled, although I met privately with ministers and other Christian workers. Alone in my hotel room afterward, all I could do was cry out to God to help me love those people as Christ did.

Out on the street, as one mob swirled by, I asked a young man with a rock in his hand why he was rioting.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Someone told me to.”

Later I saw some young men beating an old shopkeeper who had refused to close his stall. Altogether, we later learned, fifty people were killed during the riots, and hundreds were injured in violent clashes between the rioters and the police.

Although I had read about the destitution of India frequently enough, nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming poverty we saw on every hand.

Later, in my diary, I recorded my reaction: “It was one of the most heartbreaking scenes that I had seen since I left Korea [during the Korean War]. . . . The missionaries and others, and even the Indian leaders, had warned us already not to give money. . . . It’s a most difficult thing, however, to turn your back on such poverty as this. Some of them may be able to do it, but I can’t. I gave as many rupees as I possibly could to as many people as I saw in need. However, the missionaries and Indian leaders were right—we soon collected a great crowd who were begging and screaming and fighting for money. Only with considerable effort were we able to break away from the dangerous near-riot I had caused.”

But there was at least one light moment in Bombay. Outside my hotel one day, I saw a man with two bags go out into the middle of the street. From one bag he let out a cobra, which immediately wrapped itself into a coil and struck out at everyone who approached. He let out a mongoose from another bag, which went right after the cobra. During the tussle that followed, the man took up a collection from the crowd.

I went outside to take in the scene more closely. Standing next to me was a congenial American. He invited me back into the hotel for a cup of tea. He was Reuben Youngdahl, pastor of the largest Lutheran church in Minnesota, and we became good friends.

Madras

At our next stop, Madras, the city was jammed with people who had traveled long distances to participate in our meetings. I read, for instance, that 100 people from Hyderabad had ridden the train for days to get there. With the translators standing beside me—Mr. Titus for the Telugu and Mr. J. Victor Manogarom for the Tamil—I preached to integrated crowds of 40,000 in which all the rigid lines of caste and gender were temporarily ignored. We also had two choirs—one for each language—which repeated each number (including the “Hallelujah Chorus”), adding to the length of the service.

At one point in my address, I knew that I had said something awry. Talking about Jesus, I had said, “He’s alive!” Mr. Titus promptly rendered that in Telugu, but Mr. Manogarom faltered. I repeated the expression several times. Finally, he uttered, “Avan poikaran.” The Tamils gasped. As I learned afterward, the best Mr. Manogarom could make of my North Carolina accent was, “He was a liar!” No great harm was done, for the mistake evened itself out in the next few sentences.

As I continued, I tried to assure my listeners that it was wrong to think of Christianity as a Western religion. It had been in India long before America was discovered, going back as far as a visit by the Apostle Thomas in a.d. 52, according to tradition. Out of 100,000 who heard me speak in three days, 4,000 recorded their decisions for Christ. We could have used more counselors, but we made up for that shortcoming by distributing twelve thousand copies of the Gospel of John. Such a result witnessed to the spiritual power generated by the twenty-four-hour prayer chains that had preceded our visit.

Rooms in the city were at a premium during our Crusade meetings. Hundreds slept in the streets at night and camped at the meeting site all day. Our morning services were at seven; the evening ones, at six. In addition to those services, we also met with a variety of different groups at other locations. One day, for example, I spoke to a student gathering of 7,500 out of which 250 responded to the Invitation to commit their lives to Christ. Many were from non-Christian backgrounds.

In both Bombay and Madras, I had some opportunity to observe the practices of Hinduism, one of the dominant religions in India. In Bombay we watched the funeral of an old man whose body was placed on a pile of wood and burned. As the flames died down, the son took a stick and punched a hole in the skull, hoping to release the man’s spirit. In Madras we visited a Hindu temple dedicated to the worship of Siva—a form of worship that was (I discovered as soon as I entered the temple) phallic. We also watched people offer their sacrifices to the priests. I recorded my reaction in my diary: “We stood and watched it and almost wept, longing that these people might know the forgiveness that is in Christ.”

In my messages, I did not directly attack the views of those who adhered to other religions; I was not in India to stir up controversy. Instead, I concentrated on presenting in a positive way the message of Christ as simply and forcefully as possible. Throughout my ministry to date, I had seen that the message of Christ, if accepted, had the power to replace false ideas and beliefs. However, it was necessary at times in India to explain that Christ wasn’t just another deity who could be added to the list of thirty thousand gods and goddesses already worshiped by Hindus in general. He was uniquely God in human flesh, and He alone was worthy of our worship and commitment.

Our visit to Madras gave me a glimpse into something else that I found upsetting: the Ugly American. One day in our hotel, Jerry saw three half-drunk Americans loudly berating and abusing the mail clerk, a kindly little man who had been very helpful to us. In my diary, I recorded my heated reaction: “These are the types of American tourists that are giving us a bad name and making people hate us all over the world. . . .”

Kottayam

In Kottayam, at the southern tip of India, the support for our presence was almost unbelievable. Any doubts I might have had about the relevancy of the Cross in a cultural setting so different from everything I had known were instantly dispelled.

Girls with baskets, working as a labor of love, had carved out the entire side of a hill into a giant amphitheater with three levels so that the people could sit comfortably on the ground; in accordance with Indian custom, which we were not in a position to change, women had to sit on a different level from the men. From where we were staying we could see the greenest rice paddies I have ever seen, and beyond that —after a dotting of little green houses—was the jungle, with all of its palms. I can imagine few places in the world more beautiful.

Kottayam itself had a population of only 50,000, yet a preliminary service that had gotten almost no publicity drew 25,000 people. The next night, at the first scheduled meeting, 75,000 people came. Three days later—the crowds having continued to grow with each passing day—the final crowd was 100,000. In our few days there, a third of a million people heard the Gospel.

They were all dressed in white, and tens of thousands of them brought along large palm leaves to sit on. Those traveling from a distance, in order not to rely on the local stores, brought their own food. As for the Team, we were fearful after hearing stories about foreigners who had gotten sick because they were not acclimated to India’s food and hygiene. Most of us, therefore, ate enormous quantities of bananas every day of the trip, and we peeled them ourselves. I myself had few problems, but I wrote in my diary that “I’ve eaten so many bananas until I feel like I’m going to turn into a banana.”

Jerry, Paul Maddox, and I were staying in the nearby house of Bishop Jacob, a tall, gray-haired, commanding figure who was clearly loved and respected as the leader of the Church of South India. At first I liked the idea of staying in a private residence. Then the bishop casually let it drop that some snake charmers had captured twenty-six cobras in his yard the week before! He tried to quiet our fears by assuring us that cobras seldom came into the house.

Our first night with Bishop Jacob, I was awakened about four in the morning by amplified music blaring outside. I had been dreaming I was on an airplane, and when this booming started, I thought the plane had crashed. When I looked out of my window, I realized that the music was coming from the roughly 5,000 people who had already gathered for a prayer service.

Palamcottah

Attendance figures were comparable in the other cities we visited. In Palamcottah crowds were waiting to cheer us, but they almost turned over our car as we tried to make our way to the cathedral for a meeting of women. At a later meeting for ministers in the same cathedral, I had to crawl out a window after speaking because the crowd was so great, both inside and outside.

I also became aware there of another problem that concerned me very deeply. “Jack Dain,” I wrote in my diary, “is fearful that many of the Hindus are beginning to accept me as a god. Many of them fall down and practically worship me as I come by. Many of them try to get in my shadow. I told them time after time, very much as Peter, that I am not a god but a man.”

One of the most moving experiences for me personally during our stay in Palamcottah was a side trip we took to a place called Dohnavur, made famous by the work of one of the century’s great Christians, Amy Carmichael. Ruth and I had treasured Miss Carmichael’s devotional writings for years and prayed for her work among youth who had been abandoned by their parents and dedicated to a life of sacred prostitution in a Hindu temple. Although Miss Carmichael had died a few years before, the loving family spirit among those who lived and worked in Dohnavur moved me to tears. In the room where she had breathed her last, I was asked to pray. I started but could not continue. I had to ask John Bolten to finish for me.

New Delhi

In New Delhi, 15,000 people gathered on the grounds of the YMCA. We were honored by the presiding of a Christian government leader, Minister of Health (Princess) Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, daughter of a prince. She had been in British prison with Jawaharlal Nehru, where they became friends; he later made her a cabinet officer in his government. Rajkumari was the person who had the most influence in our coming to New Delhi, and she opened many doors for us. She also entertained us at a dinner with a number of influential people.

Through her influence I also had the privilege of meeting Prime Minister Nehru. This assisted us in other ways, because once you have been received by the head of state in a country like India, mayors and governors are more likely to welcome you to their area.

Bald except for a fringe of white hair, Nehru wore that famous jacket to which his name was given, with a high open collar and buttons all down the front.

It was a very awkward interview initially. When we first sat down, he did not say anything. He simply waited for me to speak.

I thanked him for seeing me and said that I knew many Americans respected him, although they did not fully realize the great problems he faced. He made no response; he just sat there twiddling a letter opener in his hands. Not quite knowing what to do next, I embarked on a summary of our Indian trip. Once again he made no response.

After a few moments of silence, I decided to tell him what Christ had meant to me and how He had changed my life. Imme-diately, Mr. Nehru’s attitude changed, and he began asking questions and making well-informed comments about Christianity in India. He added that he was not opposed to the work of missionaries, although those who became involved in political matters (as some apparently had done in northern India) would not be welcome. He even commended us on our trip, saying in sincerity that he thought we had done good work. I appreciated the comment.

After thirty-five minutes, we ended on a very cordial note.

One day in New Delhi I was in a taxi that turned a corner rapidly and accidentally hit a baboon, which screamed and then lay still. A crowd gathered immediately and began to throw stones at the car, and the driver said we must get out of there at once or we could be killed. Animals are sacred in the Hindu religion, and I was very concerned that if the Indian people thought I had killed an animal it might close the door to any future ministry there. Nevertheless, I was impressed by how friendly and loving the Indian people can be, and whenever I am asked what country I would like to go back to, I reply “India.”

In New Delhi, my interpreter into Hindustani was a scholar by the name of Dr. Akbar Abdul-Haqq. His father had walked all over that part of India, staff in hand, proclaiming Islam; but while in a mission hospital for medical treatment, he had forsaken his Islamic priesthood and been converted to Christ. Dr. Abdul-Haqq himself was a Methodist who had received his doctorate from Northwestern University in Chicago; he was head of the Henry Martyn School of Islamic Studies in Aligarh, India. He admitted that he was not particularly supportive of my visit at first, and for two or three weeks turned down the strong request that he be my interpreter. But after the first night, seeing the responsiveness of the Indian people to the biblical Gospel, he made a confession: “I believe God has called me tonight to be an evangelist.”

Several months later, he joined our Team as an associate evangelist and has had a great impact on many lives, not only in his native India but throughout the world, especially in universities.

By now I had developed a certain amount of skill in preaching through interpreters. That was due in part to Dr. Oswald J. Smith, the noted preacher from Peoples Church in Toronto. In the late 1940s, when he and I were in Europe, he showed me the value of short sentences and a fairly rapid delivery when preaching through an interpreter. I also learned the importance of having an interpreter who was a Christian and knew Scripture thoroughly, since I often spontaneously interpolated Scripture passages and thoughts in my sermons that were not included in my prepared text.

Christians made up a large part of those Indian audiences, I was sure, but there were many Hindus too, who simply recognized Christ as a great religious figure alongside Buddha. That did not make them Christians, though.

I knew I was not qualified to pass judgment on some of the things I heard and saw, so I tried to be complimentary as much as possible. I thought the sari worn by Indian women was a beautiful garment, for example, and told them I was taking one home to Ruth.

THE PHILIPPINES

In mid-February we left India and met with missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand; in the whole of that country at that time, there were not more than a few hundred Christians and just a handful of missionaries. When I returned there years later, I was grateful to see that the churches were growing.

After Bangkok we went to Manila for a couple of days. That required another cultural adjustment as we coped with a different variety of circumstances. I was grateful to be invited by President Magsaysay for a pleasant conversation together at the palace.

It was not Communists who opposed our visit to the Philip-pines; it was the Catholic Archbishop of Manila, who told his people to stay away from the meeting. As is often the case, the climate of controversy got people’s attention. I think the Archbishop’s opposition contributed more to the Manila experience than all the careful planning, which one paper thought rivaled that for a bullfight.

In this land that had only 700,000 Protestants, the 25,000-seat Rizal Stadium was absolutely jammed, both in the stands and on the grounds. Ours was the largest Protestant-sponsored meeting in the history of the Philippines; several government leaders attended. Cliff directed 1,000 people in the choir, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 responded to the Invitation. We later learned that 30 percent of those who had committed themselves to Christ that day were Catholics. In that era, we—Protestants and Catholics—were slowly growing in our understanding of each other and of our mutual commitment to those teachings we hold in common.

My experience in the Philippines, and in other countries where the Roman Catholic Church had significant influence, taught me that most people were not going to take us seriously if we spent all our time debating our differences instead of uniting at the Cross.

HONG KONG, FORMOSA (TAIWAN), JAPAN, AND KOREA

The last two weeks in February were a whirlwind as we held meetings in Hong Kong, in Formosa (now Taiwan), in three Japanese cities—Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka—and in Seoul, Korea. I enjoyed meeting Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei, Formosa, and Prime Minister Hatoyama in Tokyo, where he postponed his appearance at a session of Parliament for a half-hour in order to accommodate me.

In Japan we also had the opportunity to hold meetings for American armed services personnel, with senior officers in attendance from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. The Army even hosted a luncheon for us. We held pastors’ conferences as well and met at one point with 1,200 missionaries.

We could hardly get inside the 15,000-seat Kokusai Stadium in Tokyo for one of our meetings because of an overflow crowd of several thousand waiting outside in the bitterly cold weather. At that meeting, there were a thousand decisions for Christ.

When we returned home, after a stopover rally in Honolulu on March 11, I knew beyond a doubt that the Far East would feature in our future plans somehow.

On my return to the United States, I went through Washing-ton and brought President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon up to date on the details of my visit to India. I mentioned that when Soviet leader Khrushchev had given Nehru a magnificent white horse, that fact was reported on the front page of all the Indian newspapers. But when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles offered India $50 million, that offer appeared only as a small item at the back of Indian newspapers. I felt the average person in India had no concept of $50 million but could readily understand and appreciate a white horse. Hence, I suggested to the president that we give not only wheat, but also a distinctive white train to deliver it from one end of India to another, so the people would know the gift came from the United States.

“I want you to talk to Dulles about it,” said the President. I did so, but nothing came of the suggestion.

However, Dulles kept me a long time because he wanted to hear every detail of our visit to Asia as well as my impressions of India and Nehru. He also wanted to talk with me on a personal matter. Before becoming secretary of state, he was active in the Federal Council of Churches, an antecedent to the National Council of Churches. He told me that his son Avery had just decided to become a Jesuit priest.

My conviction about the place of Asia in our ministry turned out to be true. Since that first tour, we have returned to India and other parts of Asia repeatedly. Many of those trips are still fresh in my memory, as if they happened only yesterday, although the details of all but a few are too copious to include in these pages.

I recall, for example, the closing service of our Crusade in Seoul, Korea, in 1973. Well over 1 million people crowded Yoido Plaza on an island in the Han River; that was the largest live audience we ever addressed at one time. (The number was not an estimate; the people were grouped in squares, and hence easily countable; and there was electronic tabulation too.) My interpreter, Billy Kim, had just graduated from Bob Jones and had received a letter from Dr. Bob warning that if he interpreted for me, his support from America would be cut off. However, Billy Kim did interpret for me and said that he had never seen a Korean audience so still and so attentive. There were no toilet facilities on the vast grounds. After the meeting, when the people left, there were little spots all over the landscape. What sacrifices they had made to come!

And I recall our visits to Taiwan and Hong Kong, which fell within a few weeks of each other in late 1975. Our Crusade director for Asia, Henry Holley, masterfully managed to organize preparations for both Crusades in spite of the enormous logistical problems. Our return visit to Hong Kong in 1990 was carried by satellite and video to more than thirty countries throughout Asia, with interpretation into forty-eight languages. Further Crusades in Manila (1977), Singapore (1978), and Japan (1980, 1994) also stand out in my memory.

INDIA REVISITED

One trip to India, in 1972, deserves more than passing mention for several reasons.

President Nixon, at the request of the American consul in New Delhi, had personally asked me to seek an interview with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in part to find out from her what kind of ambassador she wanted from America. He asked me to notice every single thing about her—the movement of her hands, the expression on her face, how her eyes looked. “When you’ve finished the interview,” he said to me, “go to the American embassy and dictate your report to me.”

And so, when I visited with Mrs. Gandhi in the Indian capital, I put the question to her. She told me she wanted someone who understood economics, who had the ear of the President, and who had influence in Congress. This I reported to the President. He later appointed Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Whether my report influenced the President’s decision, I never learned.

Our purpose in going to India was to preach in Nagaland, an isolated area tucked in the mountainous, jungle-covered northeast corner of India near the Burmese border. The area was home to a dozen separate tribes, each with its own dialect and often with a history of headhunting. Tensions among Nagaland’s tribes, and an armed guerrilla movement bent on independence from India, made it a highly unstable area. During Akbar Abdul-Haqq’s crusade five years before in Nagaland’s largest town (and capital), Kohima, three people had been killed during an assassination attempt against the Indian government’s chief representative.

On one hand, because of Nagaland’s instability, very few foreigners were granted government permission to visit the area. On the other hand, Nagaland was home to one of the largest concentrations of Christians in India; at the time of our visit, more than half the population of 500,000 were Christians, almost all living in villages. November 1972 marked the hundredth anniversary of the coming of Baptist missionaries to Nagaland, and we were invited to Kohima as part of that celebration.

Almost miraculously, the Indian government in New Delhi granted a permit for us to enter Nagaland in late November. This permission was in response to an appeal from a delegation headed by the Reverend Longri Ao and other church leaders from Nagaland. (Assisting them was a gifted young Indian clergyman named Robert Cunville, who was head of the North East India Christian Council and had been invited to be director of youth evangelism for the World Council of Churches; he later joined our Team as an evangelist and has had a wide ministry not only in India but in many other parts of the world as well.) Nevertheless, by the time we got to Bangkok on our way to India, news came of renewed guerrilla activity in the area, with several soldiers killed in an ambush.

Reluctantly, I decided to cancel the trip; I feared that the tens of thousands of people expected to travel to Kohima would be too tempting a target for the guerrillas to resist. Others also urged me to cancel because they were afraid I would be an easy target for assassination, something I had never paid much attention to in the past. Finally—just a few days before our scheduled arrival in Kohima—I asked Walter Smyth to release a press statement in New Delhi announcing the cancellation.

When word reached our hosts, they were deeply concerned and immediately called to prayer the thousands already gathering in Kohima. Most had come several days’ journey on foot, bringing their own food and bedding.

Early the next morning, I answered an insistent knock from two men at my Bangkok hotel door. One was a Nagaland layman, Lhulie Bizo, who happened to be traveling through Bangkok when he heard of our decision; the other was a former American missionary to Nagaland, Neal Jones. They strongly urged me to reverse the decision, pointing out the great harm that would be done to the churches if the meetings were canceled. They challenged me to trust God for the safety of the meetings. Believing that God had sent them, we agreed to continue with the original plans and went on to Calcutta that afternoon to arrange the final details.

I was met at the airport by the American consul. He was a friend of Mother Teresa’s, and he took me to visit her in the home where she and her co-workers ministered to Calcutta’s dying. I was deeply touched not only by her work but also by her humility and Christian love. She mentioned that she had held five dying people in her arms the night before and talked with them about God and His love as they were dying. When I asked her why she did what she did, she quietly pointed to the figure of Christ on the Cross hanging on her wall.

From Calcutta, Cliff, Tedd Smith, singer Archie Dennis, Charlie Riggs, T. W. Wilson, and I flew to Dimapur. Then we were driven the last three hours up a rough, twisting, dusty mountain road to Kohima. We were in convoy, with well-armed troops ahead and behind us. Brush along the roadside, favorite cover for armed guerrillas, had been cleared away by the Christians. A week or two before, on this very road, a fatal ambush had taken place.

Kohima, at 7,000 feet above sea level, had a population of about 30,000. There was no access to the capital except by car and helicopter. The countryside was lush with greenery, where I was told I could find banana trees, snakes, and Bengal tigers—everything a good dense jungle should have.

As we rounded a curve about three or four miles from Kohima, we came upon crowds of people—tens of thousands of them lining the road to welcome us. They waved and hit the sides of the vehicles with their hands. I got out and started shaking hands with the people, but other hands, the hands of police, grabbed me and pulled me back into the car; the officers felt I was in great danger.

A few hours later, when we arrived at the soccer field at which we were scheduled to hold our meetings, there were 90,000 people already inside, with thousands more outside. They were arranged by tribe, and each tribe had its own interpreter with a public address system pointed to their area. As I spoke, I paused after each sentence. There followed a cacophony of sound as all seventeen bullhorns blared at once, each in a different dialect.

After that, we were taken to a government house to spend the night. The chief minister of the cabinet of Nagaland had arranged a dinner for us. At that dinner, the schedule for the next day was discussed.

“We have early-morning Bible studies,” he said. “Of course, we would like you to preside, but because you have several other things during the day, if you want to send one of your associates, we’ll accept that.”

“Maybe Charlie or Cliff could take that meeting,” I replied. “By the way, how many people do you expect?”

“About 100,000,” he said without hesitation.

“Well, I believe I’ll take that meeting after all,” I managed to say.

When Charlie, Cliff, and I were shown to our quarters in the government house, we were introduced to Nihuli; he was the person who would handle our baggage, make us tea, and do whatever else needed doing. He took our shoes to wipe the mud off them.

“We can do that,” I told him.

“No, please let me,” he said.

As he was brushing the shoes, I asked him about the early-morning service. I especially wanted to know, I said, who would be teaching the Bible before I arrived.

He didn’t reply. When I pressed him further, he admitted that it was he who would be teaching the Bible to that huge crowd. The man cleaning my shoes had just taught me a lesson on the servant attitude and spirit of ministering so often adopted by Christ Him-self. I have never forgotten it.

When I went to bed that evening, I could already hear the crowd assembling and praying in the darkness.

Next morning, as I looked down from the platform, I saw that many of the people were attired in tribal dress. On their faces they wore different colors, and in their hands they carried spears and guns. Some of them, from as far away as Nepal and China, had walked for two weeks to hear me interpreted in perhaps fourteen, perhaps as many as seventeen, languages.

Charlie, T. W., and Cliff also assisted in teaching the classes. During the Wednesday morning service, gunfire broke out nearby. The crowd stayed calm, but one man had been killed a short distance away. We knew permission to stay longer might not be granted.

At the final service that afternoon, more than 100,000 people jammed into the stadium in the hot sun, with many thousands more outside. At a closing reception that evening in the chief government minister’s home, we sampled some local delicacies. Cliff asked for a second helping of the hors d’oeuvres.

“What kind of meat is this?” he inquired.

“Dog meat.”

“And what are these?” he asked, pointing.

“Fried hornets.”

“Oh,” he said, looking a bit queasy. After that, Cliff only pushed the food around on his plate.

Mrs. Gandhi had told me that she would be following the trip with great personal interest and warned me of some particular dangers. She ordered two helicopters to pick us up at the conclusion of our meetings. It was Thanksgiving Day back in the United States, so they had put some cold chicken on board for us. The helicopters were Russian-built and had a huge fuel tank sitting in the middle of the cabin like an old country stove. When we took off, the machine vibrated terribly; the blades didn’t seem to synchronize. The pilot, who sported a handlebar mustache, noticed that I was somewhat tense.

“We’ll be flying over one of the most dense jungles in India, and there are lots of tigers down there, Dr. Graham,” he said. “You may even get to see one of them. But don’t worry. We’ll get you through.”

As we bumped along above some of the most rugged jungle in the world, I could not help but praise God for the privilege of allowing us to share in the lives of those remarkable people. We were grateful that several years later a treaty brought a measure of peace to the region.

At Dimapur we boarded a plane for the flight to New Delhi. When we got up to cruising altitude, the pilot asked me to come up front and see him. As I entered the cockpit, he turned around and kissed my hand. As a Hindu, he apparently saw me as a holy man and wanted to show respect. He pointed out that it was a beautiful evening and we would be able to see Mt. Everest. “It will be out of our way,” he said, “but if you would like to see it, we will go that way.”

I said I would very much like to.

He turned the plane and went two hundred miles out of the way to show me the absolutely magnificent sight just at sunset (although I have to admit I was never quite sure which of the many peaks was Everest!). Then he banked sharply and resumed his course for New Delhi.

IRAN

On our return to the United States, we had a stopover in Tehran, the capital of Iran, where I visited with the shah. As I stepped out of the car at the hotel afterward, I was surrounded by an angry group of students. Why, they wondered, had I, a well-known Christian, gone to see the shah? I did not know much about religion in Iran; I did know, though, that in addition to Islam there were still some Nestorians in the country, survivors of an ancient form of Christianity dating back many centuries.

“This is an Islamic country, and we are going to make this an Islamic state,” they shouted. “The shah is standing in our way, and America is behind the shah.”

I told them that the shah had been kind enough to invite me to visit him if ever I was in Iran. I did not get into an argument with them. I really didn’t know enough of their political situation to get into even a discussion. I did manage to tell them of Persia in biblical times, especially of Queen Esther. They quieted down eventually and finally left the hotel. But they made me aware for the first time of dissent in that country. And I was reminded once again of how difficult it was for a visitor to grasp the politics of a country other than his own.

Later, during a visit to Washington, I heard a late-night knock on my hotel-room door. It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

“I want to thank you for appointing me ambassador to India,” he said.

“I didn’t have you appointed,” I protested. “I just passed on to Mr. Nixon a message from Mrs. Gandhi.”

“I’m sure you had me appointed,” Moynihan insisted. “I’m a Catholic,” he went on, “but would you have a prayer with me?”

I was in my pajamas; but he got down on his knees and I got down on mine, and I prayed with him that God would lead and direct and help him in his new responsibilities.