Jacob Jacob: A Spiritual Love Affair with India

By Peggy O. Holloway

Oh God, who are you? What is your name? Come down here and talk to me! was the plaintive cry of a young boy in India. Born into a desperately poor family; his father was a Hindu Brahman priest. The young boy had been thrust from his home onto the streets of India because he refused to worship the man-made idols of the Hindus.

Travel with him as he is transformed from Raja Gopal Raja, a ragged and desperate Hindu boy, into Jacob Jacob, Gods messenger. Signs, wonders and miracles accompany this spiritual love affair with India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 21, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462843053

Peggy O. Holloway

Peggy O. Holloway is a first-time author. She and her husband, Vernon, live in Cherryvale KS where they retired after 22 years in pastoral ministry and mission work. These active ministry years come alive as Peggy shares her personal spiritual journey including her love of contemplative prayer. Also incorporated into her work are the deep and loving relationships she has with her three grown children and her eight grandchildren. Besides writing, Peggy is also in demand as a guest speaker in churches and women’s groups around the state of Kansas.

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JACOB JACOB

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A Spiritual Love Affair With India

Peggy O. Holloway

Copyright © 2007 by Peggy O. Holloway.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

43989

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Endnotes

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to James and Santhama Jacob, the faithful evangelists

and pastors of Jesus for India Ministry, and to all the partners

and friends who have contributed to the work in India.

I want to also acknowledge my loving husband, Vernon,

and our children and grandchildren who have been

a constant source of inspiration

and encouragement as I have written this book.

May the telling of this love affair with India be a blessing to you

and to the whole world.

Introduction

Occasionally in one’s lifetime someone crosses your path leaving a permanent footprint on your heart. Call it destiny, a soul-mate, or divine design, such a person’s impact is so deep and definite that your life is never again the same.

We met Raja Gopal Raja, now known as Kajanami James Jacob, in 1984. He had been recommended to our church as a great missionary speaker from Kerala, South India. In that very first meeting our hearts were knit together and before leaving, this little brown man told my husband: Before the year is out you will be coming to India!

Yeah, right! my husband thought. We were just simple folks from the wheat lands of Central Kansas. Never the less, he tucked that thought into the back of his mind, thinking if you want us to go to India, God, you’ll have to speak to Peggy!

Within a few months the Lord did speak to my heart about India; and by January we were on our way. As you open the pages of this book, may the nation of India come alive to you and may your life be impacted by God’s faithful servant, JACOB, JACOB.

"I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else’s story,

the delicious ache of a last page."

Naomi Shihab Nyw

Image%2001%20-%20Just%20ahead%20of%20Chapter%201.jpg

James and Santhama Jacob with sons Patrick (L) and Chris (R)

Chapter One

It was hard to sleep on the jet liner bound for Bombay India. I was excited and nervous; overwhelmed by the fact that for the first time in my life I was completely surrounded by people from a foreign land. I was in the minority. Beautiful ladies in their saris, men with their penetrating black eyes and turbaned heads, crying babies and the elderly filled the huge cabin of the airplane. The strong smells of Indian food mixed with the scent of hundreds of human bodies assaulted my nose. Eventually, weariness overcame my sensitivities as the plane droned across the ocean separating home from the adventure to come.

We landed in Bombay India for an over-night rest before taking another plane to Cochin where James Jacob would meet us. What a shock to fly low over miles of crude huts surrounding the airport. These were the desperately poor who made a meager living by begging in and around the airport. It was 2:00 AM as we proceeded through the dimly lit concourse. The Indian military, with large rifles on their shoulders, stood guard. On one wall blood was splattered indicating that terrorism was a reality. Remember, this was in 1984, years before 9/11. We were not used to armed guards in airports in America. It was at the same time frightening and yet comforting to watch them judiciously scanning the crowd of arriving passengers.

In the main lobby young boys, desperate to make money, ran towards our luggage, as they competed over which one would help us. My husband yelled "STOP! You". He was pointing to a bright-eyed strong fellow and together they loaded our bags onto a luggage—cart and away we went. The gaggle of boys was already surrounding other passengers.

We were directed by a travel hostess to a three-wheeled cab which would take us to our hotel. The driver was a swarthy Indian man with a turban wrapped tightly about his head. My husband directed him to the Holiday Inn. Ju? he asked. Holiday Inn we replied. JU? the driver asked again more adamantly. "Holiday Inn" was the only answer we knew to give. The driver grunted at us and took off slowly driving away from the airport into the dark of night. We looked at each other as if to say What in the world are we doing here?

After fifteen minutes of driving through the slums and filling the gas tank of the small conveyance while mothers with small ragged children begged at the window, we rounded a corner and there was our hotel: the Holiday Inn on Ju Beach. We had to laugh at the driver’s antics because he knew all along where our hotel was. The lady who had assigned us to him in the airport had explained. He had simply taken the opportunity to help his relatives on the way.

Things looked much better in the daylight next morning as we made our way to the domestic airport. Flying over the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea was a beautiful sight. Just as promised, the little brown man called JACOB was waiting outside the fence as we deplaned in Cochin. He was smiling ear to ear and waving like mad to be sure we saw him. He had brought an entourage of pastors and evangelists with him to meet us. This practice continues to this day. Warmly welcomed, we climbed into the car for our last two hours of travel to the mission compound. Cars were racing along the narrow street, horns beeping. Buses, bicycles and motor bikes weaved in an out of traffic. In India there are very few traffic laws, but lots of traffic accidents. I decided the best thing for me to do was just lean back in the seat and close my eyes.

Standing on the balcony of the mission compound, I looked out over the swaying palm trees and fragrant flower garden. The sun was setting over the western horizon of India, such a beautiful sight. Barefoot women who had been working in the rice fields all day shuffled down the road towards home. Some carried piles of rice grass on their heads. Others held a large basket. To me they were beautiful and graceful even though I could see the years of hard labor and meager sustenance etched into their faces. Their feet had never been in a pair of shoes. Wide and calloused and dusty from the road, these feet had carried the weary women back and forth to work in the rice paddies for many days.

Sipping the cup of strong Indian coffee sweetened with raw sugar and milk, I wondered how in the world did I get here? We’re such a long, long way from Kansas, Toto!

Had it really been only a few months since Jacob, the master of the mission compound, had visited our church? Was I really thousands of miles from home, or was this all a dream? No, the chanting coming from the three Hindu temples close by the walls of the Padinjara Parambil compound told me that I really was in India. The Hindu priests, I learned later, were crying out their curses on the white devils that had come from America. Posters had been plastered everywhere announcing the meetings we would be speaking in.

Jacob strolled the compound grounds below me, securing the gate and checking on the students who would be staying in the compound church overnight. He smiled and sang a little song about the happy family who loved Jesus and lived in His protection.

Truly this was like heaven on earth for the little brown man with the wavy black hair and gleaming white teeth. There was a time when he couldn’t have dreamed of having a comfortable home, a loving wife, two handsome young sons and a world-wide ministry.

I settled back into a chair there on the balcony and let my mind recall the words of Jacob’s testimony spoken in our church just a few short months ago. The amazing story of how he became K. James Jacob, son of the living God, replayed itself in my mind.

Born the seventh child, to his mother Pouvamnmal and his father, Kandasmiraja, he was not expected to live. Five of his siblings had died soon after birth or during the process.

This July morning in 1952 was already hot in the squalid little hut where Pouvamnmal struggled, unassisted, to give birth. As the sun rose higher it seemed determined to add its scorching, miserable heat to the already suffocating process going on there. Suddenly though, a small cry broke forth! A son had been born. And he was alive and apparently healthy enough to be making crying demands of his exhausted mother.

Shall we name him? asked Pouvamnmal, hardly believing the child would live.

His name shall be Gopal Kandasmiraja told her. Raja Gopal Raja, a fine name for a fine son. And he will grow up to be a Hindu priest like his father he proudly declared.

Being a Hindu priest was an honor in name only in the little village where Kandasmiraja served. Everyone in the village, including the Hindu priest and his family was dirt-poor. His family didn’t know what it was like to go to bed without hunger pangs in their stomachs.

It had not always been like that for Kandasmiraja and Pouvamnmal. At one time he had been a highly respected landowner in Chennai, also known as Madras. He grew spices and cinnamon there and traveled extensively to Ceylon and Singapore as a spice merchant. But he felt that the gods had been unkind to him, he lost money instead of growing wealthy in his travels and eventually lost even the land in Chennai. Now his family barely existed in desperate poverty.

Jacob had testified of those days as he shared about his boyhood: "Even the little grass hut in which I was born belonged to someone else. We had no furniture at all. No chair, no table, not even the customary grass matt on which to sleep. The roof of our hut was made from palm leaves. During the monsoon season it leaked terribly and the dirt floor would become cold, slimy mud.

Our meals consisted of a handful of boiled rice, occasionally with a bit of vegetable in it. On very special occasions we might have small, small bananas. We ate our meager meal with our fingers. We didn’t know