Kolkata - city of contrast

Kolkata is a city of contrasts and a vibrant and joyful place. I've recently returned home after 3 weeks there helping lead a team of 9 people from NZ. Here's the team in the BMS Hostel garden (BMS is the Baptist Missionary Society, where we stayed), wearing their Indian clothes. Thanks for your prayers about team dynamics. Although the first time we were all together was only Singapore airport (!) the team worked together much better than I anticipated, for which I'm so thankful to them and to God.

We were there to visit and participate in 3 business-as-mission companies, and to partner with UESI (TSCF in India). My aim and prayer was that the TSCF students from NZ would begin to think about themselves as potential long-term overseas missionaries, and also that we would be inspired to be more active for Jesus on our campuses on our return to NZ.

Kolkata is India's largest city in terms of population. We were prepared for the issues that go with large population - smog (lots), poverty (lots) and traffic congestion (lots). But we weren't as prepared for the opulence that we also saw. There is plenty of money in Kolkata. The distribution isn't great, which is surprising, as the state government of West Bengal/Kolkata is communist.

An advert for the ubiquitous iPhone.
South City mall spread over four floors - with NZ's own Pumpkim Patch kidswear store one of the many retailers there.
Quite a contrast with this typical pavement near where we were staying - people living and cooking on the street.And this side street in a retail, non-mall, area.

It was a joy to meet Tranzend ex-pat Kiwis running business-as-mission operations - taking women out of prostitution and/or slum living and teaching them to read and write, teaching them about Jesus, and teaching them practical skills.

Business L, making cards for export.
Business S making cotton bags and sari blankets.
Business F making jute bags. This is their green space - the only green space in the district and there are plans to use it for community sports. It was nice to have fresh bananas! Much tastier than any I've eaten before!


One couple we met at these businesses had served for 34 years in South Asia and when they told us that it seemed there was an audible gasp in the room. But this is good - I want TSCF students and graduates consider going overseas for the cause of the gospel for the long term. Nigel, TSCF National Director, has a wise saying 'we tend to overestimate what can be achieved in one year and underestimate what can be achieved in five.' Some of these businesses bear that out -it's taken much hard work and the work of God over many years to transform sections of Kolkata. It's exciting to see. I long for greater numbers of Kiwis heading overseas for the gospel. The NZ church has long punched above its weight in terms of a very high per capita sending rate, the highest in the world until the early 1980s I believe. And many of those were graduates and had been established in their faith in TSCF mission groups. I'd love to see that again so it was exciting to see some of the NZ students in Kolkata start to think about 34 years of overseas service.

One of the added bonuses of staying in the UK Baptist Missionary Hostel during our trip was meeting the other guests and hearing of what God is doing in and through them. In particular, we appreciated meeting four 18-year olds from the UK, in Kolkata for 6 months with various projects, and also Roy & Mary, (below) a retired couple from the UK teaching English & maths with an AoG mission school for 6 months. All six made us laugh and understand Kolkata better than we imagined we could in three short weeks - thank you.


As Kolkata is a huge city we inevitably spent a lot of time travelling in various types of transport. All of which had their own charms!

The auto-rickshaw, the quintessential Indian form of transport.

Cycle-rickshaw.
Ferry across the river.
Taxis (mighty Hindustan Ambassadors, based on the 1948 Morris Oxfords) and buses (no bus-stops, you just hop on & off when moving - on was easier than off, especially with 9 in a group!!).
Train and Metro. The trains were crowded and we enjoyed having no doors.

The Metro underground was great - clean, quick, cheap. It only had one line so was easy to get used to. Kolkata's Metro was India's first underground, and opened in 1984. Other lines are being planned. No photos are allowed on the underground, but we did snap Stefan before we were reminded of the rules by the security guards:

It was a delight to spend time with UESI. We were greatly encouraged by their wonderful hospitality and in particuar three things struck me about UESI:

1. Their dedication to prayer. One day was a national holiday, for the Muslim festival of Eid. UESI invited us to spend the day in fasting prayer with them ('What, all day praying? With no food?' was the cry from our team - me included), which turned out to be such an encouraging day, rounded off with a meal - pork!!

This church building, built 1821, is where we spent a day praying with UESI.

2. Their dedication to evangelism. We all spent time in some of the many hostels around the city. The pattern seemed the same - a few Christians meeting weekly in an evangelistic cell group with loads of their Hindu & Muslim mates and an open Bible. When we arrived we were expected to lead a discussion & Bible study with these groups, despite our insistence that it'd be better for us to participate not lead.

The boys hostel group at Bengal Engineering & Science University.
And girls hostel groups
At Jadapur University we had praise songs outside the library - with some Hindu students joining in.
The photo below is taken at the Christmas evangelistic programme. This was an excellent afternoon with good clear gospel message in the Indian context. About 50% of the students were not Christians and several became Christians that day!
3. Their graduate work. There are 5 'EGF' (Evangelical Graduates Fellowship) groups in Kolkata, organised by geography. They meet weekly after work to encourage one another as Christians in the workplace, and they also pray and financially support the student work. We in NZ have much to learn from our Indian friends here. My colleague Mark Grace and I are starting some work on this with Catalyst, but we're a long way behind UESI.

One of the EGF groups, in Tollygunge. It was great to praise God together in song, both English and Hindi.

One day we went out by train to Serampore, for a church history lesson - William Carey, the 'father of modern missions', along with friends, were early missionaries to Bengal. He was a linguist, he had a preacher friend, and a printer friend. Between them they translated, printed and preached the Bible into dozens of languages. So inspiring! And another great example of following Jesus in teams of mates, something we're trying to do in TSCF.

This is Howrah Station, by the Howrah bridge - the world's busiest bridge and the start of our train journey upstream to Serampore.
Serampore College, founded by Carey -still a university today. This is the very impressive library building.
On the riverside, a monument to an early baptism of a Bengali convert. Over 200 year later, Christians are still only 1 in 80 of the Bengali population. We met many Christians from both south and north-east India (the part east of Bangladesh), but few Bengalis.

Fellow cricket-lovers will associate Kolkata with the world's largest cricket ground: Eden Gardens. And it really is big.
Cricket was played everywhere, which obviously I loved. And India will dominate the world in years to come if Kolkata street cricket is anything to go by - these boys are very good.

As part of our explorations of the city, we visited the Victoria Memorial, one of Kolkata's art galleries. It's a very impressive building.

And the last photo if for Lizzy, who loves to hate unneccessary quotation marks. I saw this at a roadside stall.

I found Kolkata to be a city of diversity. It was great to see how God is working there, yet it's also so nice to be home with Lizzy awaiting the arrival of our boy in days to come.