I fully expected this trip to be a tough one. We were fore-warned it was cold and raining almost everywhere we were scheduled to go to. I had mentally braced myself for much shivering, sniffling and suffering as my long-standing
sinus problem always acts up in cold weather. Before we left, I had already sent SOS for
prayer support. As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I had some bouts of
the sniffles, but nothing unmanageable which a thick shawl and lots of
tissue couldn't take care of. Better yet, everywhere we went, the
heavens held up, though rain-clouds hovered overhead. I don't doubt it
was God's own hand at work; we pray, He answers; after all we are on His business. 
When you are being jostled about daily in the back of a van , pushing some 3000 km (the most grueling of which was a 16hr overnite drive) over 10 days across highways, byways, and narrow village tracks, images begin to blur after a while. Everything starts to look somewhat the same... dusty roads, stretches of green fields, sun rise, sun set, remote villages seemingly appearing out of nowhere, weather-beaten hardened faces of the poor, dirty kids, run-down dwellings passing off as homes. So really there was nothing particularly spectacular about this latest India missions trip of mine. Except that I learnt a lesson to take to heart - that miracles don't always come in flashy thunder-n-lightning earth-shattering displays of supernatural power. Sometimes miracles happen so quietly we aren't even aware of them, until we pause awhile to look back at the life that passed us by. So it was with this trip. It seemed a repeat of the many previous trips I had been on, except for a changing of the names of people and places. But now that I have the luxury of thinking about it, some precious things about this trip do stand out....The face of an upper-caste lady who had been widowed for 4 years, in whose eyes I saw the glisten of tears, evidence of a still-grieving heart. I didn't know, she didn't know we would meet but God already knew she needed someone who understood about a love lost and to tell her about a better Love available. I saw the same unutterable sorrow of a man whose wife had died suddenly in a senseless road accident. He needed to know (as I know) that though we may not understand a lot of things, we can be assured those who believe a resurrected living God have no fear of death because He says we will be reunited with our loved ones in the faith in a beautiful eternity when the time comes. That knowledge gives those of us left behind a solid reason to go on living and believing, not in the defeat of sorrow but in the victory of joyous hope.
Some places stand out in my memory... The beauty of an expanded church , once a mass of gray concrete and ugly steel rods, now decorated with stain-glass high windows through which sunlight streams in to touch pews of warm wood. At the other extreme the thatched hut of a young pastor working in the slum community with a roof so low you have to stoop to enter. Where the kitchen is just a little kuali sitting on a fire-wood stove in an area which rivals the toilet of a modern-day bungalow. His (family) toilet is a patch of ground outside, draped over with a piece of cloth. In such destitute and adverse circumstances, he carries on preaching to and living out the gospel of hope amongst those whose lives are bereft of all that we tend to take so much for granted. Those who don't know the God he preaches will never be able to comprehend the miracle that shines through their smiles, the way they eagerly come forward to be prayed over again and again, still choosing to believe our God is good. 
Everywhere we went, the children came crowding around. Bright shining eyes, curious hands reaching out to touch me. I guess I must look like an alien to them. They ask me questions I can't answer because I don't know the language, but they know instinctively how to hi-5 or shake hands, they are the ones running after the van waving furious goodbyes as we leave. They are the first to unabashedly raise hands, stand up and pray aloud after they hear the greatest story of how Jesus came to save the world. The cynical say that's manipulation, because kids don't know better. Perhaps the truth is they do know better - they are not afraid to want to love a God who loves them. And that's when I realized the most miraculous isn't the physical, mind-boggling stuff that surely an omnipotent God can do with a mere snap of His fingers to 'prove' His existence, whether it's 2000 years ago or now, irrespective that humans will debate, argue and dispute over. The real miracle occurs in the heart that allows itself to be touched by God, when one is willing to be vulnerable before Him- much like the child who comes in confidence to the father, not needing to know many or all things except the one thing that really matters - which is simply that his daddy loves him; therein lies his confidence.
So we did what we always do on missions trips- we prayed and we preached the truth of a living God who quietly does miracles in the heart that turns to Him. After all that is said and done, if He isn't true, I would have believed in vain, for which the worst thing that can happen is that I would have lived and died as a first-class fool. As Apostle Paul said "... if Christ has not been raised (from death), your faith is futile... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied"( 1 Corinthians 15:17, 19) But if Jesus is the Way, the Life and the Truth, it matters not whether what anyone else says anyway, because in that case, I will be laughing all the way to heaven, conversely, who then is the fool? So like someone put it succintly, 'For the truly faithful no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient'.
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him" - Hebrews 11:6
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