There is a Friend who sticks Closer than a Brother!

I met Pastor Asher Wasker some 32 years ago in a Bible College in Bangalore. He graduated a year ahead of me, and it took another 29 years for us to meet again yesterday here in Guwahati.

Although we met after 29 years, the memories of those years flooded back as fresh as they were back then. I went to SABC without being able to make or understand one proper statement in English. It took me one whole year to be able to open my mouth in broken English. But I remember friends like brother Asher trying to help me out and covering for me when situations got tough.

There were times I had no money to cut my hair but it was brother Asher who would try to give me the haircut (although his skills were terrible!). He was a very smart young man with refined English. I kind of secretly envied him! Possibly it was because of my greed for English language that I was drawn to his circle of friends! And they never made me feel inferior.

Yesterday, as we were talking about our good old days in that college, he mentioned about some classroom situations. It appears that in my terrible English I would be asking all kind of questions in the class. The senior students would be wondering about this illiterate boy trying to ask questions making no proper sense.

I guess asking questions was ingrained in my blood from the childhood. The first memory of me asking questions was when I was about four or five years old. It was the day I came to know that I was abandoned by my parents at birth. I looked up in the sky asking "where did I come from?" Since then and until the day I met Christ, life was full of questions.

The first Bible verse that captured my imagination was Matthew 7:7 where Jesus says "Ask"! I took that verse seriously and began to ask him a thing that was humanly impossible. I was still a Hindu boy, but the answer Jesus gave absolutely shook the core of my being, and ever since then, he became the Lord of my life. He still amazes me the way he answers!

There were many friends and teachers in that college who contributed greatly to my spiritual, mental and social development. It is my prayer that wherever those friends and teachers are, may the Lord bless them hundred times more of what they had invested in my life by helping me overcome my limitations!

Thank you Brother Asher for blessing us with your visit!