After exiting the boat, I followed my friend thru the very large train station in Howrah. From this station, you can board a train and travel most anywhere in India. The wealthy and the poor wait for their arrivals. You can travel general class (sardine city) or first class A/C sleeper. We pass thru the station and cross many tracks and arrive in a little group of buildings and step inside a small bright green painted room where 40 young children are tightly seated on the floor. These children are homeless drug addicts. Yes these precious kids aged 5-11 are drug addicts. Their daily routine is to acquire a few rupees to buy some glue or whiteout to give them a high. Sniffing glue helps you forget the hunger in your belly and helps you escape the hopeless life you live. They try to sleep somewhere in and around the train station and try to avoid the police.
Stan and his friends give the kids a breakfast and a lunch for their stomach and the Word of God for their souls. He has been doing this for quite a while and is a simple guy obeying the Lord. Stan has no pretension and claims to be a grunt worker here for Jesus. Stan, his wife and three young children came here a decade ago with only $3,000 to start their new life. He was a blue collar worker. No Bible School degrees. No fancy title. I know his story. He only recently got his own vehicle. That’s nine years of mostly non-AC taxis travel in the traffic jam oven of our mega city. Not easy.
Yes, Stan is a grunt for Jesus. I wish we had more grunts here like that.
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