Two secret Christians found each other in an arranged marriage miracle

Both of my grandmothers, living in two separate small villages in India miles apart from each other, had each secretly become believers in Jesus. At that time, in that environment, it was dangerous to be a Christian. Becoming a believer would have disgraced your family. Neither grandmother hid her faith from her children, though they did from everyone else. While most of their offspring went back to practicing Hinduism when they married, my dad and mom, independently and alone of all their many brothers and sisters, had each developed a strong Christian faith. My parents came from different worlds. My father arrived in America in 1975 with $7 in his pocket. He had run away from home as a teenager, slept on train station benches, and put himself through school against his own father's wishes. My mother broke barriers of her own, graduating from medical school in India in the 1970s when few women were educated at all. Both had sacrificed everything for a bigger life. When my father returned to India in 1978 to find a bride, he met my mother through her younger brother at a bus station. She had a medical degree, her own ideas and spoke her mind. But on this occasion, her brothers and uncles made things clear: she was not to speak. She should not make eye contact. And there would be no mention of her faith. Anything she said could disgrace the family name. On their honeymoon, while my father was in the shower, my mother sat in the hotel room overcome with doubt. "I don't even know this person," she thought. "What have I done?" She pulled out her Bible and leafed through it, seeking comfort.