Homer and Ruth McKay, graduates of Gilead School’s eighth class in 1947, surely found their new home in India to be quite a contrast with their former homeland, Canada. After a long voyage, they were greeted at Bombay by fellow classmates Dick Cotterill and Hendry Carmichael, along with other brothers.

Homer McKay was appointed to be part-time servant to the brethren in the Bombay area. His circuit embraced a large area and population but few Kingdom proclaimers. To visit one isolated publisher, he traveled about 492 miles (792 kilometers) from Bombay to Hyderabad, about a fifteen-hour train trip. At another time he journeyed from Bombay. a distance of about 305 miles (491 kilometers) to visit an isolated family at Ahmedabad. Recounting his experience with a public meeting there, Homer McKay wrote:

“Ahmedabad is a large cotton-mill city of more than a million population, where we had hired a hall for our talk. However, the only advertising was the little work we had done during the week plus a homemade placard hung on the building. Apart from the interested family, there were only. three others​—Muslims—​in attendance. There was I in a large hall with a seating capacity of 500 and about seven in the audience!”