In the 1800s
In the 1800s, a kind missionary lady from America came to the hill station in India. She got a clear call from God to start a boarding school. She listened, and came with a goal to give very good education to children in the hill stations. The sole heart of the school was to bring the love of Jesus to these children, and open a way to become better people to make a difference around them. She, with the help of other missionaries was able to hire dedicated missionary teachers from abroad and India. It was an excellent boarding school.
School Days
They taught with kindness and patience and walked the extra mile with the students. Creative extracurricular activities enriched the school. Scripture classes were taught in the school, prayers and hymns in the assembly along with Bible readings.
If a missionary teacher noticed a child was rather shy, they would pay special attention to those children to draw them out of their shells to their own particular gifting.
The prayers of the teachers who loved God drew a wall of protection around that school and the angels protected the children from all harm. There was never an accident or a mishap that occurred in the school during those days. The children had healthy fun and were mischievous in a wholesome way.
The staff members lived in cottages all over the school campus. Every Wednesday night, the staff would take turns to have a prayer meeting in their home and all the staff would come. When each one’s turn arrived, that family of that cottage on that Wednesday night would prepare high tea snacks. Some dear Indian families even cooked and shared sumptuous dinners together. No one thought of cost because it was a precious time of prayer and togetherness that everyone looked forward to, which knit hearts together in deeper unity in the very lonely wind-whistling hills.
Parents from different parts of India started to hear about this school and wanted to send their children to this school. As the wave of the fame of the school spread abroad, missionary parents from other countries around the world began to send their children to this school tucked amidst the rolling green hills and tea gardens. A few children came from Poland, Israel, Thailand, Nepal, Australia, America, and England besides different parts of India. This gave the school an international flavor, which brought unity in diversity.
Change in Policies
The missionary founder of the school grew old and finally died. There was now a new school board, who hired a succession of principles. Most of them were good and true to the faith. Over the years, the new board started hiring teachers who did not really care about God or pray.
One year, there was a principle who came from overseas. This principle tried to build a neutral spiritual ground in the school. One day, the Wednesday prayer night meetings were stopped abruptly. The principal explained, “This is too much trouble going through with making and getting all those snacks and things, and also we should be more broadminded and accommodate everyone. We don’t want to hurt the sentiments of the other teachers.”
Coldness Creeps In
Once these Wednesday cottage prayer times were stopped, the air broke and disunity stepped in to rule the roost. The unity cord was broken seven fold.
For no reason, staff started disliking one another, started finding major glaring faults with each other, starting slandering one another and gossiping and the final countdown was when they started hating one another. They formed cliques and avoided those they disliked. Some teachers openly and verbally got into staff fights in the staff room. Tension brewed in the staff room and there was hushed silence in the staff room. The remaining missionary teachers were unhappy.
The old glory of the school seemed to have been lifted off leaving behind cackling fighting cocks. Slowly one by one, they started to leave and soon in one year alone, there was a mass exodus of the missionaries from abroad as they were not happy. The principle from overseas finally retired with his wife and left.
Ugly Rise of Ambition
Another Indian principle was hired, and his name was Mr. Sam. The new principle along with his wife, Mrs. Sam had many ambitions. They wanted the school to rise to heights of fame as the most excellent school in India. His wife was also eager to part of a famous school. She kept scoffing at the few remaining Christian teachers who were from India and commented to the principal, “Narrow-minded people these Christians are. They only keep talking about The Bible, Bible, Bible, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. They should be open to everything and adjust, times are changing, we have to adjust. If we don’t, less students will come.”
In order to get a big name and expand, they needed to do a few things. They needed to do away the Christian elements of the school such as wipe out morning assemblies with scripture reading and instead, someone would read intellectual and inspiration quotes. They needed to stop all hymns and stop scripture classes and introduce moral science instead. The principal felt this would keep the parents and students from different faiths happy and more children would come. He removed all of this along with a lot of the traditional practices of the missionaries. This was more of an egocentric act. He did not want their remembrance to be nailed in the school. He felt that was a brilliant idea and was very proud about it. The new principal did not consult anyone when he did this. He felt he was not answerable to anyone because he was The Principal.
Slowly, the other good Christian teachers felt sadness weighing down their souls and they left as well. The principle hired new very professional teachers.
In the spirit of professionalism, there is very little room for kindness and grace and mercy. In this spirit of perfection and professionalism, the presence of God left the school along with inventive creativity.
Now, no one remained in the gap to intercede in prayers for the children and school. Children got into drugs and there were no counselors and no one to pray for the children. The principle kept expanding the school, and both couple were very proud of themselves.
Mrs. Khanna
The last Christian teacher was still there, a Mrs. Khanna who was a widow. One day, she marched into the principal’s office and rebuked him for turning the school into a business enterprise. The principal shouted at her, “Go away Mrs. Khanna, and go down with your narrow-mindedness, such a shallow mind as yours has no room for a great school like ours”.
Mrs. Khanna retorted, “It was never yours to begin with, the vision that our founder had was God’s vision, you know nothing about that, neither will you ever understand it. You are destroying it!”
The principal’s wife, Mrs. Sam, who was sitting on the sofa in the office turned white, she flew up and screamed at Mrs. Khanna, “Get out, who do you think you are, what audacity to talk to the principal like that, get out you old Christian fanatic!”
Mrs. Khanna looked at them sadly and walked out. She put in her resignation letter, booked a train ticket for Kolkata. She got a ticket for a week later, packed her bags, quietly left the school premises with no one to say a goodbye to her and traveled back to Kolkata.
The Warning and Accident
One night a girl, an ex-student girl had a strange dream. She saw a dream where the school had turned into a green ugly jungle filled with dangerous venomous creatures. To her horror, here was an evil talking snake in the jungle. The snake looked at her, spoke to her and sneered at her. In her dream, she ran to her house, locked the door and stood inside trembling. Later in her dream when she opened the door, the snake had gone. When she got up, she cried, “The glory of God has left our school, alas, it is over!” She felt something bad was brewing over the school even though she was living far away.
A couple of years went by. The school grew lawless and godless. The integrity of the students left because eternal values were dead. The teachers taught for a salary and not with a vision. Prayer had departed from the school. One evening, three boys decided to have sneak out for an adventure and go out to a famous gigantic rock. They strolled out of the school campus and reached the rock. It was called Grey Rock. They jumped on the rock; however, one of the boys slipped, fell and died. It has a terrible tragedy. Such an incident had never happened in the old days.
Ram
There was a boy in class 9 called Ram. He, in particular was a lonely child. He felt very unwanted and had no friends. The old missionary teachers may have been able to help him if they were there, but once they had left, no one was there to even notice him. As the school only aimed at perfectionism, people who were good at everything were applauded and praised, the others not so successful children were like the “have nots.” The “have nots” watched hungrily from a distance waiting for some crumbs of caring or kindness. They somehow managed to make it through their school days like passing shadows. Ram was one of those “have nots” who could not play sports well, did not excel in studies or music.
One day, the school drama teacher was selecting students for the school musical, and asked Ram to sing a few notes. Ram sang a little and the drama teacher exclaimed, “Stop that is a miserable sound, it’s going to rain and pour now!” All the other children laughed at the good joke and then forgot about it. Ram did not forget it and a storm brewed in his heart. He suddenly missed Mrs. Khanna very much as Mrs. Khanna was always kind to him and told him he was a creative writer, something no one had ever told him. Mrs. Khanna took time prayerfully to discover each child’s talents and encourage them in their areas of talent. Mrs. Khanna had taken a special interest in Ram because she recognized he needed a lot of encouragement. She even spent time teaching him after school, but always told him he was gifted and creative and should develop his skills.
No one saw anything great in Ram. In the eyes of a cruel world, they labeled Ram as a “loser.”
Now the holidays were approaching. Ram did not feel like going home either as his father had been a powerful brigadier in the army while, Ram himself was “nothing” as his father often told him. His father often roared at Ram hollering he was “good for nothing” because Ram never got good grades nor was good in sports, nor displayed any exceptional talents.
That particular winter, when Ram went home for the holidays, his father snarled at him the entire holidays. One day, he barked, “Useless boy Ram, terrible grades you have this time, worse than last year..I thought you might have acted in the school musical, but you could not even get into that! YOU ARE GOOD FOR NOTHING!”
Ram did not say a word, and he withdrew further. He rarely spoke to his father or his mother after that. His mother often stood silently watching the verbal barrage heaped on Ram and she never protected or defended him so he felt miles away from his mother too.
One night, as Ram stared out into a black moonless night, he slowly started to develop a plan in his head…as Mrs. Khanna always told him, he was creative, well today, Ram got a wildly “creative” idea and he thought it was fantastic. He started to soon feel excited with his plan…Soon, he was proud of his full-fledged well-thought out workings. He would do something, something great where no one would ever forget him and his father would never call him useless again.
The winter holidays were over. Ram came back, looking quietly pleased with himself. Students found him sometimes smiling to himself and muttered “Odd fellow, weird in fact, he is smiling to himself, mad fellow!” Ram overheard those comments, anger burned within him and he clenched his fists together.
Mr. Sam and Mrs. Sam came back smug from the holidays. They had invited the President to speak at the school and he accepted. Mrs. Sam said, “Ha, this has never happened before in the history of the school. We are making news, unlike those silly missionaries who never really did anything to get national recognition!”
This was not true because the missionaries in fact had put up many events and concerts, which were of exceptional caliber where students even toured the nation, but the principal and his wife could not see that.
Mr. Sam smiled in agreement and said “Yes, a big victory!”
Ram walked past them and muttered a “Good afternoon Sir, good afternoon ma’am.”
They ignored Ram as they always did. He was not one of their bright performers so they did not think he was worth acknowledging.
The next day was an extremely cold winter morning. All the children were in the classroom. Just then, Ram walked into the class room late. The teacher looked up sharply and said “Ram! Why are you coming so late! Go and stand outside as a punishment!”
Ram did not answer and stared at her strangely.
The teacher snapped “Stupid idiot, what are you looking at, go outside I said, can’t you understand anything!”
Ram did not move. He slowly pulled out something from under his blazer and to everyone’s horror, they saw it was a gun. Before anyone could say another word, Ram started shooting, starting with the teacher first who dropped down dead! (Ram had stolen his father’s rifle as he was an ex-army man). Ram randomly shot the children in his class around three of them died along with the teacher. The other teachers and students on hearing the sound came running towards the classroom. They had no idea what was happening. When Ram saw them, he shoot two of them, the others managed to run away. The principal heard a teacher shouting incoherently down the corridor, “Boy gone mad!”
The principal heard it from his office and said, “Who? Mad, Well I’ll show him!”
The principal had no idea what was happening, and he went towards the direction of the classroom. He got a nasty shock when he saw Ram standing outside the classroom with a gun in his hand. Ram looked at him and said “Good morning sir, and good bye sir, you never answered me when I greeted you, today is my last greeting to you and you will never get to reply!”
“No!” shouted the principal wildly, but Ram looked at him without mercy and shot him in the heart. The principal died instantaneously.
Finally, some school kitchen cooks and the watchmen managed to catch Ram from behind and pin him down while the police came in later, a bit too late. Seven people had died that day. It was a horrendous catastrophe. Everyone was silent in shock.
Ram was caught, put in chains, heavily sedated, and flown off by helicopter to a mental hospital in a city. He was not tried for his crime as the court declared him as a mentally unstable minor. Ram’s parents wanted nothing to do with him and left him in the mental hospital. In time, social workers would come and work with him in counseling. Heartbroken parents of the children were inconsolable.
Mrs. Sam’s grief drew her deeper in depression. Frightened parents withdrew their children almost immediately. The safety of the boarding school was questioned, or any school for that matter. Alas, the downfall of the school, never to return to any grand heights again.
Mrs. Khanna heard the news and horrified. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. “Oh no” she cried “We left the children unprotected, drove out prayers, and broke down their walls of protection, and Ram…what drove him to do this evil! We stopped praying for the children and school, even I am guilty of this!”
A Year Later
One day, Mrs. Khanna was in the busy market place buying bread. She noticed a very sad, bent defeated figure, shrived down in weight and she looked unkempt with her hair flying all over and clothes in disarray.
Mrs. Khanna thought in wonder “Who could this sad soul be.”
Then she gave a gasp. It was Mrs. Sam!
Mrs. Khanna, went up and touched her arm. Forgiveness welled up in Mrs. Khanna’s kind heart and her soul was filled with compassion for the sad defeated widow. When the principal’s wife saw her, Mrs. Khanna put her arm around the principal’s widow, who started to sob loudly and weeping she burst out, “We only wanted to make it the most excellent school in India, why didn’t God save all those children and my husband?”
Mrs. Khanna was silent for a long time and then relied very gently, “My dear, when God is kept outside the school, evil attacks more easily. When prayer is left out of a school, vulnerable children are open to more attacks, evil is lurking, waiting to steal, kill and destroy. We cannot, no we cannot leave out prayer. I mean real solid prayer. Children are the most impressionable and most targeted in the supernatural sphere, so children need a lot of prayers, protection, and of course same goes to every person, every area of life!”
The widowed wife looked down in shame. The memory of that angry outburst with Mrs. Khanna and all her snide comments about Christian fanatics came back to her in a rush and she was ashamed. She looked at Mrs. Khanna and said “I am sorry I did not understand how we need God, I am sorry that we kept God out of school!”
Mrs. Khanna said, “All is forgiven Mrs. Sam, I will be there for any help you may need” and she gave her phone number to the principal’s wife, who in reality had no friends and no one to turn to.
“Thank you!” said the principal’s wife gratefully. Mrs. Khanna took her hand and walked with her home. She was ready to walk the widow through that very long road from grieving to healing.
Certain secrets make schools powerful and dynamite and if we leave them out, we are endangering our children. Children are the most vulnerable targets of the unseen world, and the powers of prayer and presence of God provides supernatural protection. We cannot afford to “knock out” God and prayer from our schools. This story is based on a lot of things going on and that have happened..
Rita F. Kurian
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