1793 to 2012...A Look Back to Take a Journey Forward

 A week from now, I will be in the midst of traveling to India. (Okay, I almost flipped out when I re-read that sentence. I need to start packing asap!) I’ve started reflecting on the journey myself and several other church members will be taking. What new things will we see when we arrive in India? What new things will we taste? What will we experience?

These questions are similar questions anyone has asked when they began preparing to go to a place that is foreign to them. These same questions are probably the ones that William Carey and his family thought at they prepared to be the first Baptist Missionaries that traveled to India.

Two hundred and nineteen years ago William Carey, his wife, and four kids set sail for a new land. They weren’t going to try to settle a new territory like the British did to America. The Careys were setting out on a different type of journey. The Careys had one main goal while going to India: They wanted to share Christ’s love to a place that had never heard of Jesus.

I can’t help but to think about the differences in my journey to India and the Careys’ journey there. While I’ll be taking a little over a day and a half to travel to my final destination, in 1793 it took the Careys five months on a boat to get to India. A result of vaccines and other preventative medicines, I am pretty confident that I will be able to go the entire length of my trip without getting sick. That wasn’t the case for the Careys. William Carey’s 5 year old son, Peter, got sick with sever fevers and died soon after they arrived. Peter’s death from sickness wasn’t the only one. Several other people who joined the Careys on their mission in India also died from diseases.

While I’ll be taking ten days out of my life to travel to India to teach at the India Baptist Theological Seminary, the Careys changed their whole lives when they moved to India. They devoted themselves to showing the people of India that God loves them and has a place for them in God’s Kingdom. When the Careys went to India there were no Christians in the country. Now today, because of the work of William Carey and so many others, I am now able to travel to a Baptist Seminary in India and help train seminary students and pastors to continue spread Christ’s love to their people.

I am excited for the journey that I will embark on next week. My prayer is that as I have a passion for the people of India just like William Carey did, and that God will use me and open my heart to every person I meet along my journey.

Now on to packing….

Written by Rev. Lauren Waggoner. Rev. Waggoner is the Minister to Children at First Baptist Church of Marietta, GA.