I’d always been fascinated by my friends,who travelled internationally on work and I would pepper them with questions on the weather, food, etc on their return. In my bank job, when I used to issue foreign exchange to my customers, who were traveling abroad, I would be thinking of how exciting their jobs were compared to mine.

It was around this time when a friend of mine prayed for me, he saw a vision of me going around the world, hopping from flight to flight and airport to airport etc. When he shared the same with me, I did attempt to suppress a smile because I didn’t even have a passport at that time.

Few years down the line, I landed a job that literally had me one day breakfasting in London, lunching in Frankfurt and having dinner in Vancouver. I did think about that vision the Lord gave my friend and thanked the Lord for the opportunities to see so many countries etc and that too paid for by the company. One of the things I would try to do was to find a church where I could attend mass at least on Sundays and if possible would also try and connect with people who could guide me to nearby churches or prayer groups.

My last assignment abroad was in Shanghai, China and while it was exciting to be there, the lack of google and google maps was quite a shocking realisation that how much one had gotten used to those conveniences at the fingertips. I don’t quite remember whether it was an Ash Wednesday or a first Friday that I desperately wanted to attend mass. I left office early, braved the jostling of the Shanghai metro evening crowd and got down at the station in high spirits eager to get to church on time.

It’s when I got out of the station that I realised that I wasn’t quite sure of which direction the church was located. No google maps to guide me, I went walking in one direction for a fair bit, then I came back to the station and saw a few youngsters and I approached them to ask for directions but they didn’t speak a word of English. In a bit of desperation I went walking in the opposite direction, but then since I couldn’t find any sign of the church I walked back to the station.

It was at this time I remembered my friend Antony who had mentioned to me that in his early days in Shanghai, he sometimes used to ask his guardian angel to guide him. I thought to myself, to try this and I cried out to my guardian angel asking for help. Immediately I felt this strong urge to walk back in the direction that I came from and I did just that without thinking. I walked a bit, and saw a lady of Caucasian features just entering a gated compound. Without thinking I just ran and reached her just as her automated gate was about to close, and apologised for the intrusion and showed her my phone and asked her whether she knew that location. Now it was a winter evening, quite dark and me in winter clothing running certainly wasn’t a pleasant sight, nonetheless this lady stopped her gate from closing, came out and explained patiently and gave me the precise directions to church.

It took all my resolve not to hug her. She was genuinely amused at my gratitude and I made it in time for mass. I did tell Antony and his wife Jeena about how my guardian angel also helped me get to church, over a warm dinner after mass.

Staying with Antony, next I want to share all about St Antony and the exam result 🙂