INTRODUCTION

This is the story of two young people determined to serve others less fortunate than themselves. It is an exciting saga of how they and their three sons go back centuries in time to dwell among simple aboriginal folk in one of the most remote and backward jungles of India. It records a miracle of survival as they identified with their tribal friends to the point where, at one stage, their economic standards were lower than those of whom they served.

Readers of this book will be taken on an exciting adventure with the authors as they struggle against almost overwhelming odds to achieve their purpose. You will share their desperate endeavours to keep 32,000 people alive during a critical famine. You will feel their pain as they conduct medical, surgical and dental programs with few resources and no professional training. You will empathize with them in their treatment of leprosy, tuberculosis, smallpox and cholera. You will experience with them family life in a small thatched-roof mud hut in which they battled against torrential monsoons, snakes, wild animals and the constant threat of bandits. You will agonize with them being opposed by powerful, jealous, landlords and moneylenders who concocted criminal charges against Keith. You will share with Keith as he endures one month in a primitive Indian prison - an experience that, following full acquittal, won him and Ruth to the heart of India and her people.

The necessary love, motivation, determination and patient endurance to achieve their purpose, are virtues which Ruth and Keith attribute to a Strength beyond their own. This is a story of achievement, in spite of almost insurmountable problems and frustrations. It is a portrayal of a life- time of service for which the authors each received one of their country's highest awards -- MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA (AM) - - for "Service to Agriculture and the Management of Leprosy in India and Bangladesh".

The theme of the book highlights the vast Spiritual Strength and Resources that are available to those who, as "Possibility Thinkers" and with positive attitudes towards others, submit themselves to the Supreme Spirit of the Universe. The authors set out on a quest to find the Secret to Life itself. They found that Secret through a series of events that could only be described as miraculous so:-

PURSUE YOUR DREAM WITH ETHICAL ZEAL AND NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!

This book first appeared in hard copy, (1000 copies now sold out) published by Vital Publications, Melbourne, Australia, under the title "The Making of a Miracle" (ISBN 0 909116 30 X), back in 1982.

Grateful acknowledgment is given by the authors to the publishers for permission to quote from the REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible copyrighted 1946, 1952 (c) 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA

Thanks also are expressed to the Oxford & Cambridge University Presses for the use of quotations from the New English Bible 2nd. Edition, (c) 970, and to Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, 111. USA, for the use of The Living Bible, (c) 1971.

Publicly quoting any portion of the text may kindly be acknowledged. (The Authors - Australia Phone (08) 8265-0417; International +61+8+8265+0417; Email :- keithskilli@ozemail.com.au

Dedicated to OUR BELOVED "MOUSSIEJI" (Auntie) - Founder and First Principal of the B.C.C.M. Girls High School, Daulatapur (INDIA) .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks are due to our three sons, Robert, Paul and Bruce who shared many of our experiences in India. It was their suggestion that this saga be recorded. Without their constant encouragement, cajoling and goading, this story would never have been written.

Dr. Roland Huff, Director of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, Nashville, Tennessee, provided further stimulus by nominating that our experiences be documented and preserved for further research purposes.

Ruth's parents and sisters, Mirrie and Irma, along with several interested friends, contributed by carefully preserving the hundreds of letters and reports we had sent from India during our 25 years in that land.

Gratitude also goes out to Clare Skeat, Janson Holloway, Shirley Ludgater and Ern Sherman for their helpful criticism of the manuscript. Without the many painstaking hours they spent correcting and typing the text, it would never have gone to press and certainly not into cyberspace. Special thanks go to Vaughan Thomas and Geoffrey Higges for helping us present our story as a “E-Book”.

Lastly, but by no means least, we thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving us the privilege of sharing in the "GREATER THINGS" of John 14:12-14.

In order to preserve anonymity, the names of some individuals, institutions and places have been altered. The basic facts, however, remain unchanged. This Saga is based entirely on the experiences of the authors.

FOREWORD

Most people enjoy the stimulus of a challenge from time to time but few would choose to live with the kind of challenges that fill these pages.

They have been written by two people who have travelled the dusty roads of India together and who would each attribute honour to the other. The story is a diary of events in a lifetime of Christian endeavour, but it is more than that. Essentially, it describes the spiritual pilgrimage of a man upheld throughout by the staunch support of his remarkable wife. From the beginning, Keith grapples with the meaning of his faith in a way that allows the reader to identify with his very human struggle.

Keith is a most down-to-earth, no-nonsense type of person who hardly knows the meaning of "standing on ceremony". He writes as he speaks, in a forthright manner, which "makes no bones" about the issues involved and does not stop to whitewash the wrongs he describes. Almost everything he learned, he learned the hard way and the reader will be fascinated by the ingenuity and sheer tenacity of purpose that pervades the story.

After reading the manuscript, an old poem came to mind that could well have been written about Keith:

Somebody said that it couldn't be done

But he with a chuckle, replied that maybe it couldn't,

But he wouldn't be one to say that it couldn't

Until he had tried.

So he settled right in with a trace of a grin on his face.

If he worried, he hid it.

And he started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done ... And he did it !

" . . . But there is never any pretence that he did it alone, or in his own strength. Both Keith and Ruth place their total reliance on God. God directs, upholds and strengthens but He does not rob a person of his personality and natural gifts. Keith and Ruth have these in abundance and their Christian pilgrimage, still finding more hills to climb, has never a dull moment." --- Shirley Ludgater

"In solemn truth I tell you, Anyone believing in Me shall do the same MIRACLES I have done, and even GREATER ONES, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask Him for anything, using My Name and I will do it, for this will bring praise to the Father because of what I, the Son, will do for you. Yes, ask anything, using My Name, and I will do it!" -- JESUS, in John 14:12-14 (The Living New Testament)

AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

INTRODUCTION.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD