Tall, orange flowers stretch up to the morning sun. The bright colors make a stark contrast to the weeds covering blackened tombstones. When I ask the guide about the flowers, he just shrugs and explains the Elephant Flower grows among the weeds.

“Oh, so is it a weed?” I ask.

“No,” he replies. “But this flower likes to surface amongst the weeds. One will appear and then years and years later, there will be a nice little grouping of these deep-rooted flowers.”

“After many, many, many years, you can see they have overtaken this entire cemetery,” he adds.

It seems very fitting that this type of flower grows in the final resting place of William Carey, the “father of modern missions.” Carey moved his family from England to Kolkata in 1793 with the hopes of bringing millions to Christ. In his first seven years, only one chose to follow Jesus.

Now, hundreds of years later, believers are scattered throughout this city in small clusters. They are taking root and multiplying, just like the elephant flower.

Join us on this week-long journey through Kolkata. We will meet believers descended from Carey’s first evangelism efforts and see how the vision he cast so many years ago grows stronger. We will also see areas of this city that are eerily similar to Carey’s first impressions – a people deep-seated in a religious belief, searching for peace. We will see a city of diversity.