E-mail from Asha to her Mentor:
Uncle, I would like to keep you informed on all that is going on between Ashish and me. I would like to be accountable to you. I need your guidance and would like you to tell me if I am doing anything that is wrong.
Ashish and I speak to each other everyday over the cell phone. Ashish calls and does not allow me to call since he is earning and I am still studying. His father also reiterated that it should be done that way.
We talk:
•About our families: our parents and our siblings - what they are going through and how we can be better friends to them and try to mentor them
•Our past experiences: which includes our testimonies, our life until now
•About our plans for the future: what we intend to do, career wise
•Current Issues: that includes how our day was like – the concerns we are going through or facing
•We talk about our faults and weakness and have discovered that we are two totally different people. But we complement each other.
•We openly discuss our spiritual condition and seek to be open and transparent to each other in this regard.
We are careful not to be carried away by our emotions. We are well aware that we will have to wait for at least one year before we can actually get married. So we are careful in what we say to each other and limit our conversations to what I have stated above.
We also seek to glorify God in our relationship. We seek to put Him first in are lives and are very conscious about it: our over riding passion should still be Jesus Christ and not each other. We don’t want to miss the call of God in each of our lives by been taken up with each other.
We are fully aware that we are treading dangerous ground. We know that in this area, much better and more spiritual people than us have fallen. We know what our flesh is like so we pray sincerely asking God to save us from pits we could fall into. We always end our conversations by praying together. Asha.
Ashish travels down to Kerala to meet with Asha’s mentor
During his visit, Asha’s mentor gifted him with the book ‘Boy Meets Girl’ by Joshua Harries. On the cover page of this book Asha’s Mentor wrote:
Dear Ashish,
I don’t have to tell you of how proud I am of you and what the Lord has wrought in your life. My article on your story is sufficient evidence for that. This book is gifted to you with a lot of love and prayer. Study this book with Asha, my dear daughter in love. I am sure the both of you are aware that days ahead have paths that have to be trodden with much more care than the years that have gone by in your life and therefore, I urge you to strive to keep the practical guidelines and suggestions detailed in this book that you may not sin and instead you may continue to be models for all others to emulate. You are in our prayers and we long to see a demonstration what can be possible in this fallen world for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. True Freedom is the ability to do what God wants us to do…
- Mentor
E-mail from Ashish to Asha’s Mentor:
Uncle, I have been extremely blessed and challenged by the time I have spent with you in Kerala. I always praise God for my mentors here in Bangalore, who have been praying and guiding me right from day one. But now I am immensely grateful to the Lord for bringing you too into our lives as our guide. If it weren’t for your godly and timely guidance we wouldn’t have made it through thus far or we would have even stumbled. I told Asha how grateful I am to the Lord primarily for you, as God had used you to change her mind and her views regarding marriage, otherwise I probably would never have got a ‘yes’ from her!
Romance has also begun to sprout in our relationship. Initially I thought it was a little weird, but later on I began to recognize that it made us more comfortable and open to each other. Now, I guess I’m getting a taste of what Godly romance is all about. And we will try to actively shift each other’s focus on the Lord JESUS Himself!!To keep our focus primarily on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not each other, we had initiated some steps to help us in our courtship. I don’t know exactly how far these will be effective, but we thought of giving it a shot.
• Our talks are to be restricted to one hour and not late into the night as Asha has to go for classes the next morning. Restricting our talk time is probably is our greatest struggle!!....Because we hate saying goodbye!!
• We will not seek to drag our conversations for the sake of spending time with each other. When we are out of words or out of flow, we would rather stop! Because the Bible teaches us that sin lies in multitude of words! Trying to drag our conversations beyond the content we have to share could probably lead to sin and can probably harm us spiritually and physically.
• We do not try to primarily attract each other by our conversations, emotions, etc. but rather are honest about our shortcomings. We try to be realistic by analyzing both our strengths and our weaknesses.
• We always end our conversations with a prayer especially with regard to what we had spoken to each other. This prayer has truly been a blessing for me personally!
• We have also come up with a weekly schedule comprising of the following activities.
Each day we focus on one of them:
o Once a week we do a ‘Couples of the Bible’ study. We are actually going through the various couples in the Bible starting from Adam and Eve. Presently we are studying Abraham and Sarah.
o Despite this study we continue to maintain our Individual Bible Study and walk with the Lord, so that we will be open to hear from Him and give us a distinctive balance in our relationship!
o Now that both me and Asha have a copy of the book ‘Boy meets Girl’ by Joshua Harris, we study a few pages of that book together.
o One day of the week is sometimes set apart for prayer: We don’t do this unless we are burdened about a particular issue, as we didn’t want to make it monotonous and ritualistic.
o Towards the end of the week we take time to analyze what the Lord has been speaking to us through out the week through our personal devotions analyze on how our relationship has been going thus far.
Well Uncle, this is a brief summary of what I wanted to share with you. We do not look at these guidelines as strict rules which would probably end up making our relationship legalistic. But these are just like fences which we hope will keep us intentional and healthy about our conversations. Thus far it has been good. Please do give me your honest opinion, advice and guidance in the way that we are conducting ourselves in courtship.
Mentor to Ashish:
I am immensely pleased with what is happening between you. At this point of time I just have one concern: Now that your talk time is going to eat into the time available for her study, you need to be keep check on Asha’s studies. Urge her not to postpone anything related to her study.
Ashish’s reply:
I have told Asha very clearly that what makes me happy the most is when she does extremely well in her studies so that it can be a testimony to all around and to her family and mine. I have told her that it is probably the best indication of God’s blessing on our relationship. So we are striving to do that both from her end and from mine.
We don’t have our usual talk time during her exam days or when she is busy with her project work. On such days I’ve asked her to inform me when I can speak to her - only when she’s done with her studies or project work we limit ourselves to a short period of talk time.
The more I am getting to converse with Asha, the more I understand how different we are from each other. We are in fact opposite poles in many ways. Yet how wonderfully our Maker is drawing us closer to Him and to each other. The more I am getting to know her, the more I am assured that she IS God’s chosen one to be my life partner. I am really getting to love her for the person who she really is!
Mentor to Ashsish and Asha
In a few days from now Asha will be back at Bangalore for the Onam holidays. This is going to be the first time that you would be seeing each other in the changed context of courtship. Knowing that you both desire to glorify God in all that you do, I have a few suggestions for you. As you strive by the grace of God to keep within these fences I am confident that your courtship relationship will remain a sweet aroma before our Holy and All-Knowing God.
• It would be good if the both of you can meet with Ashish’s mentors and spend some time with them. Ask them to plan ahead.
• You may spend time together as an exclusive pair never but behind closed doors. Always ensure that you remain visible to accountable others.
• You may sit and watch the Television together or play a game of caroms, but remain in a sitting position. Don’t lie on the sofa or carpet.
• Plan to do some household chores together like helping out Asha’s mom in the kitchen or Asha’s dad in gardening/purchase of groceries
• With a few members of your family or friends you may choose to go for a walk in the park or for a movie, but avoid water theme parks and pools. You may eat out at a restaurant but not stay over at a hotel.
• Your parents must know where you would be at what time. Return home well before the deadline set by your parents. Everything you do should aim at building trust in your parents, mentors and siblings.
• Make sure that you intentionally set apart time for others in the family and friends. Asha may plan to talk to Ashish’s Mom and Dad over the phone.
• Adopt a hands-off policy (no touching) and reserve your first kiss for your wedding day.
