Following the student conference at Silver Bay, Sundar traveled on to Chicago and then made his way through Iowa and Kansas before heading to San Francisco.
When Sundar arrived in San Francisco, a reporter asked him what he wanted to achieve while in the United States. Sundar replied, “I do not seek to Christianize America. I come only as a witness of what Christ has done for me. America is already a Christian nation. But although America has many sincere Christians, the majority of the people here have no religion. Here, where it is easy to have religion, where religion is offered on every side, and no one is persecuted for being a Christian, life should be happy and peaceful because of Christianity. But it is not. Instead, there is a hustle and bustle after money and comfort and pleasure, and that all clouds out thoughts of religion. Because it is so easy to have faith in this country, Americans do not appreciate what a comfort there is in religion. At one time the ostrich could fly, but because it did not ever use its wings, it lost its ability to do so. Just so, the people here who do not appreciate the religious faith of their fathers shall lose it.”
Sundar set sail from San Francisco on July 20, 1920, and began the long journey home to India. Because no steamers were going directly to India from San Francisco, Sundar was obliged to go to Australia first. On August 7 seven hundred clergy and Christian workers gathered to hear Sundar speak at Saint Andrews Cathedral in Sydney, Australia.
On September 3, Sundar’s thirty-first birthday, he was in Adelaide preaching. From there he made his way by train across the Australian continent to Perth in western Australia. In Perth no buildings were large enough to hold all those who wanted to hear Sundar speak, so he held his meetings outdoors in a park. Finally, at the end of September, Sundar boarded a steamer at the port city of Fremantle, bound for Bombay, India.
After a twenty-day voyage across the Indian Ocean, Sundar arrived once again back in his homeland. Hundreds of Indian Christians clamored to hear stories of his trip and his impressions of the West. This is what he told them:
Many Englishmen of the present-day do not believe in the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ, and when they asked me questions concerning the miracles, I answered them and added that I saw a miracle wrought amongst them because, in spite of the English people being so materialistic, there were still many spiritual people among them.… There is a good deal of Christianity in America, but that is not enough. Just as a thirsty man cannot quench his thirst even if he is drowned in sea water, because the water is salty, in the same way a spiritually thirsty man cannot quench his thirst in America because it is saturated with materialism. Our Lord’s words, “Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” are true as regards the East, but for America our Lord would say, “Come unto me all ye that are heavy gold-laden and I will give you rest.”
Still, God has His own witness in the West and all over the world. Sometimes I have heard young Indians say that they do not want missionaries from such places, but that is a mistake. Missionaries from the West who come to India keep the churches at home alive, and if the West did not send its missionaries, very soon their churches would become dead like the Dead Sea. Therefore we should welcome the missionaries for the sake of keeping Christianity alive in the West.
Now that he was back in India, Sundar’s mind was once again focused on getting back to Tibet.
Chapter 14
In the Footsteps of Jesus
In May 1921 Sundar set out for Tibet again via northern Kashmir. It was a particularly cold spring, and as he made his way over Rotang Pass, which led to the extreme northern region of Kashmir, heavy snow continued to fall. As a result Sundar found himself clambering along through snowdrifts that were sometimes waist deep. He was bone cold, and as he shivered his way along, he began to notice something he had never seen before on any of his previous trips across the Himalayas. The skin on his legs was beginning to turn a blackish blue color. And then it began to peel off painfully. But Sundar could do nothing about it. Given the extreme weather conditions, he knew that if he stopped even for an hour to rest and take care of his ailing legs, he might well die from exposure, so he kept on moving.
Finally Sundar made it safely to northern Kashmir. There, as he spoke in a number of small villages, his legs had time to heal from the ordeal of crossing Rotang Pass. As he went from village to village, Sundar slowly edged his way closer to the border with Tibet. At the border an enthusiastic young Tibetan Christian joined him, and together he and Sundar crossed into Tibet and began preaching among the villages. As on his previous trip to Tibet, Sundar found the people to be more open and receptive to him and the gospel. And the lamas no longer seemed intent on ordering his execution or meting out some cruel punishment.
Like on the previous trips, getting from village to village in Tibet still proved to be perilous for Sundar. Tibet was rugged, largely barren, and sparsely populated. As a result it was not uncommon for Sundar to travel one hundred miles or more between villages without seeing another dwelling or human being. Although these vast stretches of land were uninhabited by humans, there were plenty of wild animals to watch out for. The two most fearsome of these animals were wolves and wild yaks. Sundar had not had any trouble with either animal on his previous trips to Tibet, but things were about to change.
Sundar had decided to walk on ahead of his traveling companion so that he could be alone to pray and meditate along the way. He had just descended into a broad, barren valley when he heard a strange grunting noise in the distance. Sundar spun around to see what it was, and to his left along the valley he spotted a wild yak racing at full speed toward him. He quickly scanned the surrounding area for someplace to flee to for protection from the charging animal. A stout tree would be the best, but not a tree was in sight. The only place of safety Sundar could see was a large boulder about halfway across the valley. With no time to waste, he gathered up the hem of his robe in one hand and sprinted toward the boulder. As he ran, Sundar looked back over his shoulder and saw that the wild yak was gaining on him. He willed his legs to go faster and faster. At first the boulder did not seem to be getting any closer, but eventually, and with only moments to spare, Sundar reached it. He scrambled up onto the boulder, grazing his shin as he did so, and stood atop it.
Seeing that Sundar had somehow escaped to safety seemed to make the wild yak more angry. Breathing heavily, the beast pawed at the ground with its front hooves, then ran one way and the other around the rock. After half an hour of this, Sundar was beginning to wonder whether the yak would ever tire and let him alone. Another half hour passed, and the yak was still storming around the boulder, as angry as ever, as it waited for Sundar to come down.
Sundar was seriously beginning to consider his options when his traveling companion and a group of traders he had met along the route descended into the valley. When they saw the wild yak and Sundar on top of the boulder, they rushed forward, picking up rocks and hurling them at the yak. At first the rocks only seemed to anger the wild yak further, but the steady barrage slowly weakened the animal’s resolve. And when one of the rocks hit the creature above the eye and it began to bleed, the wild yak finally gave up the fight and turned and ran off. Relieved, Sundar climbed down from the boulder and thanked the men for rescuing him.
Just when they thought it was safe to travel on, another, more dangerous menace swept down into the valley and surrounded them. This time it was not a wild animal but thieves. Thieves and bandits were a constant threat when traveling in Tibet, but usually Sundar carried so little with him that they just let him alone. But this time he was standing amidst a group of traders who carried with them all manner of goods and items to gladden a thief’s heart.
The thieves surrounded Sundar, his traveling companion, and the traders and, after taking all their possessions, marched them off to a large cave located in the hills on the far side of the valley. Everyone was tense, and Sundar knew that chances were good they would all be killed when they got to the cave.
When they arrived at the cave, the robbers argued among themselves about what to do with their captives. As Sundar prayed for deliverance, a deep feeling that he should preach to the robbers overcame him. Despite the possibility that preaching about the Christian God could enrage the thieves, Sundar began to speak. “You think you have taken everything from us,” he said, “but I have something more to give to you.”
That certainly got their attention, and Sundar used their momentary interest to tell them about Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and death and the gift of salvation He now offered them as a result. The robbers listened intently to what Sundar said. When Sundar finished speaking, the leader of the bandits beckoned him to come deeper into the cave. Sundar eyed the long sword the man carried at his side and prayed that he was not about to be murdered.
The two men walked many yards deeper into the cave, until they came to a small room that had been carved from the rock. Inside Sundar saw a chilling sight. Many human skeletons lay piled on the sandy floor. The thief spoke in a desperate voice as he pointed at the skeletons. “All these men I have killed for their possessions. Will God forgive me?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sundar said. “He offers salvation freely to all sinners, even murderers.”
“Then that is what I want,” the thief replied. “All of this bloodshed has been a terrible burden for me to bear.”
Sundar prayed with the man, and then they walked back to the rest of the group. The headman commanded the other thieves to return all the property they had stolen from the group and asked forgiveness from them for stealing it in the first place. Then he built a fire and made a big pot of tea for them all to share.
It was a wonderful moment for Sundar and his Christian companion, but it was nearly ruined when one of the thieves offered Sundar a cup into which he was about to pour tea. Sundar fought the urge to recoil. He had never seen such a filthy cup. He knew there was no way he could bring himself to drink from it, and he politely asked, “Would you mind washing this cup before I drink from it?” He hoped his request would not insult his “hosts.”
The thief closest to him smiled. “I will do that for you,” he said.
The man took the cup and lifted it to his mouth. Then he stuck out his particularly long tongue and licked the inside of the cup clean. Then, with a satisfied look on his face, he poured tea into it and handed it back to Sundar.
Sundar sat in stunned silence. He knew that he could not now bring himself to drink the tea. Instead he tipped it out. The robbers seemed surprised and insulted by this turn of events, and as the tension in the cave rose, Sundar’s Tibetan traveling companion spoke up. “You must forgive him. It is the custom of Indians before a meal to rinse their hands and the vessels they will eat and drink from.”
The robbers began to laugh uproariously. Finally one of them spoke up. “What a foolish thing these Indians do. It is quite useless. If it is necessary to wash your dishes before a meal, you should also wash out the inside of your stomach every day.” With that the men went back to laughing.
An hour later Sundar, his traveling companion, and the merchants were back on their way again, everything intact.
Following his return from Tibet, Sundar spent the winter of 1921 on an evangelistic tour of the Punjab plain and the northern provinces. As he walked from village to village, Sundar found himself thinking about his visit to Europe and America. Although he had found the journey very stressful, he felt that he should go back to the West on another missionary visit. When he returned to Simla after his evangelistic tour, Sundar began making plans to visit Switzerland.
