After Nepal we flew to Nagaland, which was the second place in India that God had specifically spoken to us about. Even though we weren’t sure what God had for us there, we knew that just by going we were fulfilling His direction to us.
Nagaland is one of the north eastern-most states of India, bordering Myanmar and close to Bhutan and Bangladesh. In many ways it feels like a different country than the rest of India, as the Naga people are ethnically, culturally, and linguistically distinct from what they call ‘mainline India’. It is also an overwhelmingly Christian state, with 80% of the population being Baptist. This was quite a readjustment after being in Kerala (around 30% Christian and mostly Catholic or Orthodox) and Nepal (only around 3% Christian).
Letting God make the connections
A common theme from our first few weeks in Nagaland was that God can connect us to the right people at the right time. It was amazing to see God work in this way and it was a reminder not to place too much weight on our own ideas. We need to stay open so we can say ‘yes’ to what He has for us.
This began during the plane ride into Nagaland. We were seated at the bulkhead and the other passenger in our row was a chatty guy who works for the state government. One of the biggest hurdles for our time in Nagaland was that we wanted to stay for around six weeks, but tourists need a permit to visit the state and it is limited to thirty days. We had been unable to find out how we could extend the permit or what the process for an extension would be. When we casually mentioned that we would like to stay in Nagaland for more than thirty days, our fellow passenger said we could contact him if we had any issues, because his department issued the permits! We couldn’t believe that God sat us next to the very person who could assist us and we didn’t have to do anything to make it happen.
And God’s connections didn't stop there. A few days before arriving in Nagaland, a friend in Kerala gave us the number of a local pastor. Our friend told us that the pastor would help us with our itinerary and maybe even accommodation. We were very happy to contact the pastor and organise a time to meet, but as we didn't know anything about him or his church we were hesitant to rush into making plans. However, God had a different idea! When we landed at Dimapur airport the pastor texted us to say that he and his wife were waiting outside the airport, which was a surprise! They had borrowed their friend's car to pick us up, and they proceeded to drive us out of town to their restaurant for lunch and then drive us back into town to drop us at the accommodation we had booked.
We clicked very quickly with the pastor and his wife in that first meeting, talking about our faith and love for God. As it turns out, we are all the same age and have similar experiences with leading youth — the pastor is engaged in full-time youth ministry and we had been leading a youth group back in Melbourne for a few years before we left. Because of these similarities, it felt natural to offer to support him in whatever way we could. Even though the youth pastor and his wife serve in a Nagamese-language church, they speak good English and we were able to easily communicate and touch hearts.
Connecting with the youth pastor and quickly getting involved with his ministry was a good lesson for us, as although we didn’t have many plans for our time in Nagaland, we did have a vague idea that we would stay in Dimapur town and find an English-speaking, non-denominational church where we could meet people and slot into their community life (like we did with the church in Kochi). We certainly didn’t expect to be helping the youth ministry of a Nagamese-language Baptist church located thirty minutes out of town. But our ideas were not God’s plan, and if we had held too tightly to them, we would have missed out on everything which was to come from our connection with the youth pastor.
The other thing we had to learn was to let the youth pastor and his wife care for us, as they wanted to organise our transportation and accommodation, which felt awkward and took things more out of our control. But we were blessed by their help to rent a scooter and to stay at a local Bible college. More than that, we were so drawn into their lives and ministry — which included attending and speaking at multiple youth services each week, joining them for home visitations with the congregation members, and even being included in their family events.
Many times we couldn’t help but stop and give God our recognition and thankfulness that we were connected with the right people at the right time. He had been speaking to us about Nagaland for many years, and we could see His wisdom in bringing us together with these specific people at this particular time.
God makes the plans. He knows where He wants us and who He wants us to meet. So often we convince ourselves that God needs our ideas and our planning, but actually all God needs is our obedience to recognise the connections that He is making and give ourselves wholeheartedly to those people or that situation.