In this fascinating and faith-building interview, Rani Joshi, now head of the Evangelical Alliance’s South Asian forum, shares her story. When she met Christ as a young Hindu woman in a Baptist church, life would never be the same again!
Daughter of a Refugee
I grew up in a working-class Hindu family. Along with 10,000s of others, my grandparents and mum had come to the UK as refugees, when Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda in 1972.
Things weren’t easy at home. I grew up in a troublesome home. My mum died when I was still a teenager, just sixteen, and so I played a key role in raising my younger sister who was five with my brother.
A few years later, I went off to university, the first in my family – it had been a dream of my mum’s for me. It felt like a relief, and I threw myself into the classic partying student lifestyle. But, perhaps with the grief of the past beginning to catch up with me, I fell into an even deeper depression and didn’t really know who I was.
On graduating, I quickly got a good job and felt like the world was my oyster – but things soon changed. When I was in my mid-20s, my uncle who I was close to, died from cancer and this really threw me. I was left questioning what life was really about – surely there was more to life than this?
Spiritually Seeking
Although we weren’t especially religious Hindus, the faith was important to my family and formed an intrinsic part of our cultural identity. We didn’t visit the mandir (Hindu temple) on a regular basis, but I grew up around different spiritual aspects including people becoming ‘possessed’ with Hindu goddesses (matajis), going to Navaratri (a nine day festival), celebrating Diwali, people getting their fortunes read and so on.
It’s quite common in South Asian circles to go to spiritualists or people who tell you about your future, and I now began to do this as a way of holding on to my mum and figuring life out. Four months after my uncle’s death, my grandfather passed away and I moved to London to act as a carer for my grandmother. When my grandfather had died, I had felt something dark attach itself to me and I had begun to feel a constant sense of fear. I would wake up in the middle of the night in my grandmother’s flat feeling there was something dark around me, and when my grandmother went to visit relatives in the USA, it continued.
Around this time, I began to feel an unexpected tug on my heart to go to a church. I had always loved the old church buildings, and architecture but now I couldn’t find one that was open – those I went to had their doors physically closed.
A Holy Spirit Encounter in a Baptist Church
However, a series of circumstances, including a failed job interview and a malfunctioning TomTom, would see me finding myself outside a Baptist church in Windsor. A large sign outside read ‘All Welcome’, and so heeding the invite, in I went!
Initially I felt a sense of fear, which in hindsight I realise was the holy presence of God. Walking to the right-hand side, I found a sign displayed asking ‘What’s weighing you down in life?’ – money, love, career, etc – and I found myself breaking down into tears. Going across to the other side, there was a ‘prayer of light’ with candles to use, and I prayed the prayer and lit a candle. Not fully knowing what I was doing, I went to a pew and knelt, and prayed, ‘God, please can You take this pain away from me.’ In that instant, I felt a hand on my chest and complete peace, and the dark presence that had been with me since my grandfather’s death, left me.
Later, I contacted the church’s minister to try and understand what had happened and she said to me, ‘Oo that’s the Holy Spirit,’ and I responded, ‘What’s the Holy Spirit?’
Following a New Leading
When my grandmother came back from the USA, I had a very strong spiritual sense compelling me to leave the flat. And so, remembering what had happened in the Windsor Baptist church, I returned to where I had grown up in Milton Keynes.
I had gone to my aunt’s church in Chesham and she had been a Christian for a few years. I had shared with her and her church family what had happened. They were encouraged and again said I had encountered the Holy Spirit – but I was still sceptical. I had grown up believing every faith led to one god, but never found any real spiritual connection. I was used to hearing ‘you reap what you sow’ as a term for karma and so that led to a way of ‘earning’ my faith to ensure I ended up in heaven! So my faith had been very transactional – the thought that this could be ‘God’ Himself, and all for free, was almost too good to be true.
A Brown Girl in Church?
When I went along to the first midweek service, I remember worrying that they were going to wonder, ‘What’s a brown girl doing in church?’ – because culturally I had been told that Christianity belonged to white people due to colonisation, and brown people were either Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. To be fair, apart from my aunts, I hadn’t come across any South Asian Christians.
But the women at the church were just incredibly welcoming and I ended up doing the Alpha Course. In the first three sessions I had incredibly strong experiences of the Holy Spirit flooding me – I just knew that I needed to be ‘baptised’, even though I didn’t really know what this meant! My baptism service was the first one I attended, and it was wonderful to be able to invite my South Asian non-believing family and friends to witness such a special moment in my life.
Living as a Christian in a Hindu Family
Sometimes the hardest part about coming from another faith background is seeing other Christians not recognising the power and truth of who Jesus truly is. There is a cost of coming to faith as a South Asian, a grieving process of letting go of what you once knew. For me personally, I had to learn and understand what faith is and what culture is, leaving behind some elements because they are so entwined with very different spiritual realities.
So could I go to a Diwali meal? Of course! But could I go to the temple’s big celebrations? I personally wouldn’t now, because it is assumed that as a brown person in the temple, I must be a Hindu and there can be an expectation to bow down to Hindu deities, and there can be pressure to conform – even though that may be innocent on their part. Ironically, it could be easier for a white Christian to go as no one there will think they will be worshipping the Hindu gods! I have attended funerals, including my own family members in recent months, but I make it clear that I cannot be part of the rituals involved, even when people look at me to conform.
The Holy Spirit Still at Work
God has been very kind to my family and a few of us have now become Christians in different ways – including one who did the Alpha course three times before choosing Jesus! Another experienced physical healing through the Holy Spirit’s presence, a way it seems God often reaches out. But in every case, as with mine, there has been a sense of a spiritual battle, of light and darkness being in conflict.
Following God, taking risks and living by faith, has often confused even my Christian friends. However, when they have seen the fruit that’s followed, it has been a real testament to who God is and what He does today!
My Role with the Evangelical Alliance
I have just joined the Evangelical Alliance as the South Asian Forum coordinator. As the first female to lead the network since it was established, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to bring a different perspective. We want to create resources, a space to share, equip and encourage the Church and wider Christian world about South Asian culture – the challenges, the beauty of it and how we can share Jesus with all.
Intercultural Church Resource
A video from the Evangelical Alliance for those involved in intercultural church contexts to equip and inspire.
Photo by Frantisek Duris on Unsplash