Justin needed to furnish the house from scratch and he had to dip heavily in the retirement funds that he got from the bank. To balance the investment, Justin bought a three-piece sofa set from a used furniture store, which was summarily rejected by Pearl. Justin scurried back to the store to return it and incurred a loss. With great reluctance, Pearl hung the cheap quality curtains that Justin had bought.
Scaling down one’s standard of living is not easy, even though it was only in the nature of a slightly more compact house with fewer amenities. Nevertheless, after the initial teething problems, they started to learn to adjust in their new situation. It was faith ministry after all, which meant there was no definite income pattern or a fixed salary from the newly formed church. As per Justin’s calculation, the retirement funds would have seen him through to the next coming year. However, to keep up with the need to visit the church families on a regular basis, he had to dig deeper in his pocket to finance his travel and very soon, this made the funds deplete faster than expected. Still Justin never scaled down his visitation. He knew for sure that God had called him for His ministry, and as such, He would make a way for him.
The revelations that he constantly got from reading the Bible made his life very exciting, and by now, he got more opportunities to share in the church services on a regular basis. Brother Eric started concentrating on other centers and reduced his visit to Delhi to twice a month. This gave Justin great exposure with the congregation and the members started relating more with him. The congregants would treat him as a family member whenever he visited them and would share all their family matters without any inhibitions. He felt as if now he had a big extended family that demanded his attention the same way his own family did. People started looking forward to his visits and many would not make decisions concerning their family matters without consulting him.
Justin used to start his day very early in the morning; he would take a cup of tea and with his bible would go into a small five-by-six foot room that served as a study room. By seven, Rahul, his elder son, would catch his school bus and by eight, Pearl would leave for her job with a multinational company. Justin would then spend some time with his younger son, Armaan, who was two years old by then.