Return to India: 5 months 2012

about to commence blogging again on here. For those who are interested about this trip and happenings, and all!

FEAR NOT, FRET NOT, FAINT NOT

How do we avoid discouragment?

How do we see beyond fear?

How can we see beyond guilt?

It's so easy to lose focus.

Scripture is the rock on which we can take refuge. It's about HOW we read it, and look for things to help us and activate it's power.

Also, we have each other to help us find the answers.

So read brother Vit's 3 step process!! I found it really refreshing last Sunday :-)

1. Fear Not.

Psalm 27v 1 /3 my heart SHALL NOT fear.
The media plays on our fears for it's own gain. What is our response to the fear?
LUke 21v28 - we should raise our heads because our redemption is near.
2 Cor 4v8 - God hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but instead every reason to feel protected and motivated.
God has given us the reason to love, because He loved us first.

2. Fret Not.

Don't let anything eat away at your Peace & Joy.
Nebuchadnezzer didn't fear until he was turned into a beast! LOL
1 Peter 3v12-14 - God knows our situation & what we require.
We have to remember that He IS in control.

3. Faint Not.

Ps 61v1-2 When our heart is fainting we need to go to the rock and ask for strength.
Is 40v29 - our God increases strength.

We have God to rely on. He is willing and able and loves to support us.
God is preparing us into something wonderful.
The antidote for fainting is prayer. We'll reap if we faint not.
Seedtime and harvest don't immediately follow each other. They're not simultaneous.
Let's refocus and seize opportunities.

Never Give up - God is on your side.

Fear not,
Fret not,
Faint not.

Debts she couldn't pay

Really quickly, we just had our Adelaide ecclesia's get together this weekend and we looked at the woman who came to the Man of God because her creditors were going to take away her two sons as she couldn't pay up the money she owed her husbands creditors.
In faith she went to the man of God, knowing that he was the only salvation to be found.
When he asked her what she had inside the house, she only had a pot of oil in the house. She'd sold everything else to try and get rid of the debt, but she couldn't do it by herself. Made me wonder if the trial had been so great that she'd gotten rid of every other distraction in her life, and was clinging to the only thing she knew that could help her. Her pot of oil.
Faith requires action, and act she did. When we labour - God gives the increase.
She asked her neighbours for vessels to fill her house, until there were no vessels left. Her faithful neighbours helpe remove the burden of the debt. Are we helping to ease the burden of those struggling around us?

If vessels = people, then we need to fill those around us with the oil of the word. So that when the man of God comes, he will cancel our debt.

When she went and sold the oil given, she ended up with an abundance! She got more than she asked for. She was given life.

This little story really moved me the other weekend. I hope you can think about it a little after ready my version of it, read 1 or 2 Kings 4v1-7. It's a really beautiful story that we can learn so much from. We have no release from our debts until we come to Christ.

I'm glad that we can be quite certain Christ's return is near, so that the man of God can cancel our huge debt.
Then we can be together praising God perfectly together, preaching the word to ALL in full assurance that Christ IS in the earth, and wants all to submit to his just and righteous rule.

The conclusion

To pour out your heart, to give God your confidence, & to keep others trials in mind so you get the perspective right in your life.

Pour out your concern

Some good questions to consider:
1. How much time have I spent in this past week seeking God in every aspect of my life?
2. How much of my prayer has been outwardly focussed?

Praying for other people is a very important part in praryer.

Look at Job for a good example. Job's entire prayer hinges on the forgiveness of his friends. God only restored Job's losses AFTER he had prayed for his friends. If there was no prayer, there would have been no restoration.
Prayer is the only way to restore our relationships. Don't let grudges remain.
Job had to be set right with God & his friends, it also required humility on the part of his friends as well.

Setting our problems right through prayers heals grudges - when we pray for others we seem human ourselves. Pour out your heart for others, pray for the people that frustrate you. Pray for the things that affect your relationship with others.

Don't talk about other people's problems, pray about them and you're find that you're wanting to see the situation from a completely different perspective and try to help them.

John 17 - in the middle of Christ's hugest trial he focussed on the issues of those around him. He prayed not only for those present then, but also for those who were going to come to him in the future. We out to pray for each other as Christ prayed for us.

Pour out your confidence

How often do we recall to mind the amazing things that God has done for us?
If we stop and praise Him, it reassures our confidence towards Him. The psalms hold a power lesosn of balance.
Eg Ps 13. v1-4 his complaint, v5-6 confidence
State everything how it is, God wants to hear us, but don't complain for the sake of complaining, balance your complaints with confidence, even if you have to pour out your complaints first before confidence & praise in Him flows through your lips.

Most of the time I find that I'm not where I want to be at with my relationship with God. How can I get my mind back to where it wants to be?
Tim looked at Ps 61 for this, and encouraged us to force ourselves to think about what GOd has done, so that we don't lose perspective. Ps 77 v5-6/11-12 tells us to remember the past, call to remembrance what God has done for us, and make diligent search.

If we sit down and write a prayer including all the wonderful things that God has done for us it will pour out confidence, and lift our spirits.

Pour out your heart before Him

Bro Tim Badger led a series of talks to this title at the Mount Barker ecclesial camp a couple of months ago, and I greatly benefitted from them, and I wanted to share a few thoughts.

The first one was presented to the title above and was based in Ps 62 (which happens to be a favourite of mine:-) )
'Few of us make claims on God's help to the extent to which it is available, or lay our lives so completely on His strength as we might'. Often the power of prayer is untapped.
Tim explained that you need to think of a animals throat that has been slit to correctly understand the concept of 'pouring out your heart'. The animal has no control over it, and so we need to had our complaint to our Father, and ask Him to take it up for us.
Prayer clarifies our relationship with our Father. Don't rattle off meaningless words, or your prayer might seem aenemic to God.
Ps 42v4-6 - Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation & my God. This verse shows us that there are points that David can't praise, he's too caught up with his own burdens to focus on the blessings he's receiving and has received. He encourages us to keep hoping as we know where our salvation comes from.
1 Sam 1v15 - Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.

I think so often we are told that our prayers should be structured like the Lord's prayer as we are growing up that we tend to believe that. But the Lord's prayer leaves no room to 'pour out your heart' in it's structure. Tim showed us so many examples of prayers of David, where it wasn't until David had poured out his heart, and left his complaint with God that he could focus on God's Greatness, Goodness & be able to praise Him again. Also we looked at Job a bit - see 10v1-2: I will give free utterance to my complaint and God never condemns him for that.

Do we turn our complaints to God when we feel overwhelmed, cause the minute we have, we do start believing that He can help us through the situation.

In Ps 89 v 36 there's a huge cange to the psalm. It was really important for this human to pour out his heart cause only then could he change his (assuming he!) attitude.
Put EVERYTHING before Him.

Pray Hard. God wants you to do it. Raise your mind to Him, even if you're doubting.

Ps 56 - God collects all your tears, every emotion that you have shed is in your bottle that He stores, He knows all about you. (The Jews used to put the bottles underneath their eyes during a period of mourning to catch the emotion to keep for later).

The pendulam jolts between the tow extremes of happy and sad in the psalms, of praise and complaint, but:
However great the burden,
However irreplaceable the loss,
However terrible the desolation which brings about our sorrow,
for the follower of Jesus, the moment must come when, having poured out all his tears into God's bottle, he lifts up the head and says 'Arise, and let us be going'.

Travel Day

My final day in India was spent travelling. I said goodbye to a group of much loved ones with a prayer at 6:30 Sunday morning and caught the sunrise as we taxied down and around and around the mountain to the train station.
The train journey was 6 hours to Delhi, and then I had an hour taxi ride to the wrong International terminal. They of course are both called International terminals, but one is domestic, and the other is for the international passengers, anyways, I made it there with plenty of time. I even saw one of my students from ISH there who wanted to come and say hello.

From Hyderabad I ran out of time, and it was all a little close by the time i got on the airport a/c bus back to the compound and then picked up my things and ordered a taxi back to the airport. The speed of that taxi was like lightening, thankfully there wasn't too much traffic on the road. Back to the airport, there was plenty of time, and i checked straight through and got onboard.

And now I'm going straight to the boarding gate in Singapore for the final leg of my trip home, as it DOES close 10 mins before departure.
Tomorrow morning according to the will of the Lord, I will be at home in Adelaide.

Mussorie

The weekend was lovely. The brothers and sister in North India are very outgoing and friendly, as were the contacts. I think the difference was also that there were so few people there that we could get around and at least get to know everyone in the same age bracket.

Friday morning before everyone arrived, Sarah Aunty, Esther, Cathy, Justin, Sarah and I headed out for a quick walk. Thankfully Sarah dragged me cause I still didn't have much strength at that point to be doing serious walking. We didn't get far before it started raining, so headed into a local hotel and had hot drinks. It continued to rain, so Sarah with my help chose an Enid Blighton book by the title 'Binkle and Flip' and both Sarah and Justin chose chapters to read from it. It was a quaint experience. The only thing missing was a fire in the cut off grate.

Brother Anil ran the weekend, and I've come to the conclusion that the prerequisite for a Dr's training is that the candidate must be jovial. Or maybe they develop their jovialness along the way? Anyways, he was a laugh and a half as was his wife Sonia.
Lucky led the games afternoon, and him and Arvand were nearly unbeatable with their games of Koko. I managed to play my first game and it was just wild. I can't explain the rules, but I've watched it so many times and just felt completely bewildered by it, and decided with a smaller group it was time to learn. You just have to be on your toes and watching for the runner/catcher. When your team is catching, you bob down until someone pushes you forward and then you have to chase the other team around the line of people facing alternately in and out which is your team. Anyways, it poured down with rain half way through, so we took the group inside and tried to teach them how to play naughts and crosses on chairs. The teams were divided into male and female and the males just couldn't get it!! They'd never played naughts and crosses, but they still couldn't pick it up. Sarah and I spent the entire session in stitches of laughter. In Indian style, some of the their team left, but they didn't tell anyone, so when a number was called, the men couldn't remember who was filling in for what number, or what number they were themselves, so 3 men would come at the same time and sit on a chair. COMPLETELY AMUSING!!!

In the breaks we had fun playing table tennis. I hadn't been able to play since the Shunem table got packed up after Andy Galbraith left in January, so it was very cool to exercise my skills against Justin and Tim Uncle.

Saturday afternoon after the afternoon study there was an hour free so a group of us headed down and up the mountain to where a Tibetan Temple was. I'd never seen one and it was quite interesting, but what I want to know is why we don't build ecclesial halls on the tops of mountain with terrific mountain views on every side.

There was an extra little climb to the very top and we managed it and had a 360 view of the mountains surrounding Mussorie. Incredible. Our God is an amazing creator.
Thankfully I made it.

Thud, thud, thud

Normally when I'm awakened before 6am by loud thuds on the roof, I'd turn over and go back to sleep. However, Friday morning at Mussorie 6000 feet up I wanted to get up and watch the Monkey tricks. The monkeys were incredible. It's like giving all the monkeys at the zoo and electric shock and then watching them play. These guys were thudding all over the roof, and hurtling through the branches.

The North Indian Bible weekend, as I had heard it called ended up being a Bible Truth camp as there were only 4 baptised Indians in attendance. The speakers didn't know this fact in advance, and modified their classes accordingly. Tim Uncle was amazing. I got to 2 of his classes and taught SS for the 1st so missed the background.
From Isaiah chapter 45 we delved into who God is, prophecy, what God says will happen will happen, His plan and purpose, Christ inheriting all things from God, us being called children of God, and therefore inheriting the promises, the purpose of suffering. I was staggered. It was a perfect study for baptised and non-baptised and presented without any notes.
The opening line was: What did God want to tell a man who knew nothing about him?
My favourite part of the study was the side study on suffering. Tim Uncle talked about our life before the kingdom is like us being in a gymnasium. The more weight a body builder can take, the stronger he/she becomes. The same applies to our faith lives; the more pressure God gives us, the stronger we become and the more our character is prepared for the kingdom. It was a very good lesson with me about to head home, and being a little uncertain about the beyond India life.

All around the conference venue were scriptural or Christan quotes. It was really lovely to be surrounded by God in the mountains.

One of the quotes only the wall seemed especially appropriate to me, 'What seems like an ending can just be a new beginning'.

Into the Mountains

Due to some very poor planning, when Sarah and I met up with the group from Hyd on Thursday morning we were forced to pay some exorbident (sp?) amount to drive the supposed 6 hours from Delhi to Mussorie. Had it been actioned about 2 weeks earlier when some suggestions were made, we could've all had a lovely train ride to a place an hour away from the conference venue, and then just taken a taxi the rest of the way.
Anyways, it's not to be undone, and I had another of those scary bad India driver trips. I felt justified for my scaredness of the road conditions when Tim Uncle spoke to the driver several times asking him to stay on the left side of the road and not overtake round corners and to just follow the other traffic as he was a completely unexperienced mountain driver. It was just madness.
On our arrival, a heartfelt thankfulness for our safety was made to our Father.

Oh, what a delight. Though feeling completely done in after being sick and travelling from 11am til 8pm in the back of a four wheel drive it was incredible to be up high in the mountains and feel the cool mountain air.
The conference venue was a Christian retreat, and had been built by an incredible British a long time back. The 2 floors were full of wooden pannelling which gave it a very western feel.
The most exciting thing for me on arrival(apart from learning there would only be 30 people attending the weekend) was my spotting of the table tennis table:-)

Agra to Delhi

I was devastated not being able to partake of the famous Hotel Sheela pancakes, in fact, I couldn't really trust myself to touch anything except for the standard Indian 'cream crackers' that really aren't cream crackers at all, but of the plain variety.

By mid morning I had enough strength to drag myself off to visit the Red Fort. Strangely, I found it more fascinating than the Taj itself. The Taj was absolutely magnificent, but I never took a guide, so didn't find out all the interesting details. The Red Fort on the other hand is huge, and you travel all the way through it (actually only a quarter of it is open to the public and the other 3/4s the army lives in) and it took us 2 hours to see just a small part of it. Our guide was interesting, and Sarah enjoyed his discourse. I struggled through it, sitting down on anything I could find in every room when he started his raving and only just made it through. Shakti Laydu.
The part I liked the most was that the man who built the Taj Mahal (I forget his name) was locked up in the Red Fort by his son (I haven't come to a conclusion yet as to whether it was before he went mad or afterwards) in a room where he could see his Taj across the river.
The room where he stayed was filled with mirrors and the Taj was reflected from every angle into his room. Maybe that's what sent him crazy???

Wednesday afternoon, Sarah and I caught a train to Delhi and found a dive of a hotel to stay in but it was too late to do anything else. I never cease to be amazed at how cheaply you can put yourself up for a night in India.

Sick in Agra

Most people go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, I got there and missed out on the opportunity and poor Sarah who came from Hyd so we could visit together ended up heading out there by herself.

After 30 hours and 2 egg curry's I arrived in Agra not feeling like I wanted to eat anything. I met up with Sarah at the incredible Hotel Sheela and we spend the afternoon visiting the mini Taj, and seeing the Taj Mahal from the 'sunside'. It wasn't quite like seeing the Taj as the sun was setting, but it was the river view, and there was a brilliant reflection which I hadn't seen before, so that was cool.
By the end of the afternoon, my stomach was seriously heaving, and by the time we arrived back I knew that dramatic events were going to occur before I recovered.

The next morning, after being up most of the night my legs were like jelly and my head was spinning and Sarah headed off by herself.

Midway places

Remind me not to do them.

It was lovely to be in Kolkata and spending time with the family, but I could've done that at home in Adelaide. I needed to be in Hyderabad, or doing something! I got so restless. I ended up learning a lot about the monsoon that week and found out that it had arrived in Delhi 2 weeks early for the first time in 108 years, and other such trivia that people who don't know about the monsoon don't really care about!

But fascinating fact.... In India there are two arms of the monsoon. One comes in a east westerly direction and crosses from the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh and through Kolkata and onto Delhi, and the other arm rises up from the southern most point of India and heads through southern India to central India and meets up with the other arm at Delhi. But with both arms they basically run out of rain by the time they hit Delhi.

I believed this when I arrived there last week and I felt like the humid max had been reached.

While in Bengal, a there was torrential monsoon rain and consequential flooding, and the making of 2.3 lakhs homeless. This is huge. We had brothers turn up at the flood who had had to swim for kilometre's to reach some form of transport to come into the city on, and they'd seen all their livestock drown and houses get washed away. It was pretty devastating. We were upset because we thought there was too much rain to go out in, and there they were losing everything they owned. One man was able to save his bible. Such a lesson to us.

2nd stop - Kolkata

We were halfway through the following day before the train stopped at Howrah. I got my luggage out and started walking towards the platform when I was greeting by a pink umbrella and my sister. I quickly realised that the pink umbrella WAS my mother :-)

It was just so good to see them again. Dad, Mum, Jen and I went out that evening and took a ferry across the Hooghly River and looked at the Millennium Park before going to Flurry's for dinner. The amount of couples in the park was staggering. Everywhere you looked!! I guess it was a romantic place to be ;-)

It was certainly a treat being back at Flurry's. I think we only went there once last time I was here at the end of the Bible week. Most of the waiters have changed, though there were only 2 or 3 that recognised me!!

Brother Milton Richardson is here from Victoria with Mum and Dad, and Jen's been up here for while now, so there's been quite a crew.
Saturday night we were all invited to the Rajput's for dinner and it was so hilarious. On the way we visited Kamalesh at his house, had refreshments there and met his parents. Both are quite old, in Australia to be in nursing homes. Anyway we're just about to leave there and the monsoon rain buckets down. After about 20 mins Jen had had enough, she didn't want to be late to Erina's so Mum, Jen and I bundle ourselves up and take the one umbrella to face the rains. We got quite wet even using an auto and rickshaw to get us there, but what we hadn't bargained on was the flood that we had to wade through when we finally arrived at their house. To get inside their house we had to pass through just past ankle deep water. Which really wasn't a problem, we've done it before, and it was quite an adventure. The first rla we had in the season.

David works on Sundays so we'd left early to have a memorial with him before dinner and that all went according to plan :-) It was what followed that suprised us all!

Brother Milt hadn't been feeling too well during the day but he decided he'd go ahead and eat the curry anyway. He dealt with that but when he started his first mouthful of Appy fizz, his stomach exploded all over the table!! I ran. Dad ran. We could smell it and our own stomachs were reeling. Everyone headed in different directions and there was general confusion.

So all in all it was quite an interesting day!!

Sunday memorial had the house nearly full, and there are so many attendee's now the room has been rearranged to fit everyone in.

1st stop Rajahmundry

I stopped for 2 days in Rajahmundry on the way to Kolkata to say goodbye to Praveen and Sirisha, and to check that Prisca was booked into a school for the new school year. Also, I'd heard that Andrew and Shubha had opened a school in Kadium and wanted to visit them as well.

It was lovely seeing the little Rajahmundry family again, the kids get older every time I see them, and Prisca calls me her Australian mummy!! She speaks to me quite often on the phone and says 'Hello Abi Aunty, how are you? I am fine. I love you'. it's so cute. She doesn't understand what I'm saying, but she will after a year at an English Medium school. Sirisha's English has improved amazingly over the 5 years that i've known her. She's way better at English than I am at Telegu, but now we can survive quite well on our own and CAN communicate to each other past the basic needs.

Andrew and Shubha's baby little Nissy is no longer Nissy, in fact from being a premature baby, she's now really Really chubby and very cute. Andrew's mum looks after her all day while Shubha teaches at school, and Shubha just goes home for her lunch break as the school is only 5 minutes walk from their house. The school seems well set up with 4 classes and new building projects going on and a plan to grass the play area to make it nicer for the children...probably particulary during the monsoon's.

I was there for 2 days and both days it was cold and I wore a Sari. The weather has finally broken. The monsoon has arrived!!! YAY...in the afternoon every day it gets dark and begins raining. By morning it's still damp, and cloudy, but no longer raining.

When I arrived at the station to travel to Kolkata I found out that I didn't have a reserved ticket from Rajahmundry to Kolkata. I was number 1 on the waiting list. Quite a scary thought, and when I got aboard, my fears increased cause the train was packed with holidayers travelling back north Vacation over and the kids getting ready to return to school.

God provided as usual. I'd explained the situation to the people in the carriage when I sat down and let them know I was waiting for the TT. Even before the TT arrived for me to ask if there was a berth somewhere else, a lady offered me her berth. They would just accomodate the people on the berths, cause they didn't have enough anyway. Her 8 year old son also wanted to share the family dinner with me, so I got treat to some lovely roti with an amazing flavoured tomato chutney. More like a dip than a curry. Was incredible. I felt very looked after.

One mango from every cart

On having travelled through south India during the peak of the summer, I grew to realise that the Hyderabadi mangoes are the best and the cheapest. On arriving back into Hyd, it didn't take me long to have the fridge fully stocked again. I just wanted to buy one mango from every cart. I'm going to miss them a lot, and feel so glad that I was able to be here in India during the summer to take part of the mango season. It has been a truely unique experience.
I've realised that God provided the mangoes in the Indian summer to help the Indians be refreshed by their amazing flavours and to help them survive on a day to day basis.
Since then (in Kolkata) the rain has come, and eating a juicy cold mango in the cold no longer is such an appealing prospect.

How do you pack up your life in one continent to move to another? Some of you already know but it's a very difficult process! I struggled emotionally for a long time before I was able to book my tickets north to see my parents in Kolkata and then to travel west to Delhi for the North Indian bible week. Once the tickets were booked I then had a deadline to pack my bags and head up north.

Hyd CYC camp

After the meeting on the previous Sunday I was asked to prepare 3 evening activities and an afternoon sports day for the CYC camp the following weekend.
Anyways, that gave me something to do during the week when I got back!! There is NO rest for the wicked.
It was nice to be back and see Sarah again, she's like my Indian sister at the moment!! When you do everything together for 4 months, you do really miss each other when you're separated :-)

Thursday morning I was bustling around collecting last minute things like newspaper and plastic balls to play games that I've been brought up with and a few extra things like mangoes and biscuits for just in case food :-)
When I arrived at Shunem on Thursday afternoon all the children were back from their holidays and greeted me enthusiastically when I came through the gate:-) After being helped to remove a massive ant colony that had settled itself in the bathroom that i planned to use for the weekend, I got the children to help me roll up newspaper and stick it together for the hockey game.

The book chosen to look at for the weekend was 1st John, and it was such a good choice, especially for discussion groups. Each session was started with a 5 minute summary and then we split up to discuss the questions on our worksheets. Maggie and I worked together as leaders for the girls group. The girls here are quite shy and often won't speak out if there are guys in the group, so it was nice to have a sisters group and we could freely discuss the issues.

I love looking at the theme of light throughout scripture, and we chose that topic to discuss on the first day. On the worksheet there were quotes from 1st John and John to lookup first to learn the context, then there were a serious of questions to answer and quotes listed as hints.

For the get to know you night, Maggie first handed everyone a name of somebody else in the room and they had 5 mins to meet the person and get to know them and report back. It was a good way of breaking the ice. The hockey game was also a success, they'd never played it before and really enjoyed it and everyone got very competitive which was fun to watch:-)

The weather was still very hot in Hyderabad, and Cathy and I decided that we'd sleep on the roof at Shunem so carried our mattresses up. I wet my sheet expecting the weather to still be cold, but there was a cold wind blowing all night, and I don't think I slept a wink up there!

Friday afternoon I got the softball and bat and took some of the little ones from Shunem, and some of the older ones also joined in, and we had a very rough game of softball. Some of them picked it up immediately, but it was just strange without gloves, or the bases..!!
In the evening we had a quiz, but it was quite difficult with the age groups involved, and some people enjoyed it and some people didn't. Unfortunately everyone was so tired that they didn't want to sit still for long, that the meditation prepared by Brother Nani had to be cut very short.

Saturday in the afternoon we took a hike to a park with a lake in it nearby. It took us so long to walk there with everyone walking at various paces, that by the time everyone had arrived and received an egg puff and some Rasna (typical VBS refreshments) it was time to turn around and walk back home.

Saturday evening was our praise night. I'd prepared a short meditation on Love and Jon Hewitt MC'd and had about 20 quotes read out in Telegu Firstly looking at the Love of God, then at the Love of Jesus and finally at what should our response be to that love. Between each section we had an English song that they'd learnt during the camp. Then there was a 10 min break where people could just meditate on that Love, or say a prayer, and then each ecclesia sang their Telegu songs.
In Australia, it's very common to have time to meditate at the end of a praise night, but in India, they didn't really seem to understand the concept at all. Oh well, I don't think it did them any harm!! Maybe if it's done again, they'll get it?

Sunday morning Tej gave a beautiful exhort on the topic of mercy, which linked really well to what we'd been looking at the whole weekend on Love. After lunch everybody left.

The Shunem children were in the process of changing schools back then, so as Sarah and I were about to leave we spied the dining hall filled with books, and plastic, and scissors and children very diligently plastic covering their text books and exercise books for the start of school the next day. It was so nice to see them all busy working together. The elder ones covering the younger ones books.

Visakhapnatnam

Santoshi was faithfully there at 6am to meet the tired travellers and help them back to the mission compound.
It was so lovely to see Babji and Esther, Eliesha, & Swarthi again.
We rested and then took the young kids to the beach. I found it hard that although they'd nearly had a whole summer holidays to visit it, they hadn't been once since we took them back in November last year.
So fun. We made sandcastle's and played sticks on the beach, with of course a huge crowd of Indian onlookers watching. The girls got completely wet and started swimming, and after a while a lady told Santoshi that she would look after our bag if we would take care of her daughter swimming. It was blind trust, but it was too hot. We did have her daughter as ransom if she ran away with the bag!!!

There was a prayer meeting that night and we headed to LV Nagar (or am I confused? was it ST colony?) Anyways, it wasn't far from Sheela's house along the main road down from the compound. We sang some Telegu songs, and then picked up some of the verses from the talk that was given.
I took Jen and Jess to Ashray and they fell in love with it straight away, or maybe it was just the A/C?

We visited Sheela, met up with Gideon and Suma, and then had a birthday party for Prasad's one year old. The girls then left via train to spend time in Kolkata with Mum and Dad. Gideon was so good as to join us at the station and drove me home on his bike.

Another visit to Sheela, and then I was taken by Santoshi to her house. Her family was so so hospitable, I felt like a queen, and totally undeserving. We spent afternoon with her grandparents and had a great discussion on the bible readings through 2 different languages. Then watched the sun go down from the rooftop on the mountain. A glorious sight. All the little children living in the flats below came up on the rooftop to stare at this white lady. They were so so cute.

We spent the night with the 3 of us girls on the double bed, and the others started out sleeping on the rooftop. It started to rain, so by the middle of the night there were about 8 people sleeping in a space that would be no bigger than the kitchen area at my house. Everything that could be done to make me comfortable was done. Including making sure there was a chicken curry to be followed by the juiciest mangoes ever for dinner.

At 6 the next morning (after everyone had been up for hours) I was woken up and politely told that we should get going down the mountain. Morning times are not the best times for me...I turned over and started to go back to sleep when I realised they were serious and that I should start the waking up process!!
We were back at the compound by 7, where I could get some real rest. I find sleeping in a bed with 2 other girls doesn't leave much space for you to just sleep. Rest, yes, sleep, no.

Saturday night I said goodbye and caught the overnight train back to Hyd, to arrive in time for breakfast and the memorial meeting.

I was due for a trip to Visak and it was really lovely catching up with some very special people up there. It makes me realise how very lucky I am and how unthankful I can often be by taking so many blessings for granted.

Ps - if you're reading this and you know Sheela, the exciting news is that she is expecting a baby in December. Please pray for her health and safe delivery.

Shunem visit

It's amazing how many more people stare at the group when you have 2 gorgeous girls with you!! On one occasion the guys wanted to shake the girls hands and then wouldn't let them go. That morning at the train station I received the comment 'Madam, you are Indianised' and I think it's because of this that I don't recieve the same levels of interest when I walk down the Hyderabad streets. It makes a big difference how much attention you receive as to whether you wear western clothes or Shalwar suits.

Anyways, Jess had 4 days in Hyd, so we headed out to show her Shunem. Unfortunately most of the children were still at their parents on holiday, but about 12 kids were back, so it still wasn't dull. I've been to India 5 times and it wasn't until this year that I finally decided to go to Golconda Fort 10 minutes from Shunem and take the girls. We left from Shunem, and as Justin hadn't seen it yet, he joined the party. It was just as well. By the time we left it was quite late, and we had to rush to get back in time for the children's prayers but it got dark while we were still on the top of the fort!
Thankfully Justin saved the day with his torch and led us out....cause my amazing sense of direction was as always no existant!
Jess, Jen & I were lucky and we were able to share the guestroom for the one night we were out there.
We had some with the kids and gave them a treat of mangoes for brekky which they loved. Mangoes are cheap for us, but buying them in quantities of 60 or more stretches the budget too much.

Bussing back after lunch we had time to pick up our luggage have the travel prayer from Tim uncle and then we were on our way. Training to Visak.
Because the tickets were booked so late we were all booked in A/C but Jen and Jess were in 2nd class as there was only 2 seats there, and I managed to strike lucky and got 1st class. I've never travelled in such style before, and I felt very underdressed compared to the elaborate business suits, and sparkling sari's clothed people that I was travelling with.
I definitely prefer travelling standard sleeping class. Although the heat sends you insane in summer, it's so hard to sleep.

Jen & Jess hit India!!

Friday morning I arrived, and Friday morning Jen and Jess arrived into the new Shamsabad airport. I met them after some time with Indian strands of Jasmine for their hair. I'd caught the government bus (11rups) out and it stopped about 10 mins from the airport and everyone got off, and I was like WHAT is going on? The some man explained that the driver was having a dinner break for 10 mins. I couldn't believe it. Is this a bus service or what? My bad cause I should've left a little earlier, but as it was, another man motioned to a bus stopping ahead of us and said airport. I jumped off the bus, and ran across, in the meantime dropping the bag of Jasmine and had to race back for it and only JUST made that bus!!! Then somehow I thought it was ridiculous they were asking for me to pay again, and showed them my tickets purchased from the last bus, motioned that the bus driver was eating rice and loved their goodnatured response.

It was good to see Jen after such a long time. She left back in November last year. Having Jess in India was a thousand laughs a minute, and I heard all the stories from their week in Singapore just on the way home from the airport. We got into the free A/C airport bus and what is playing? The Titanic theme song, well of course, why not? But reasonably random!

Back at the flat I received excess chocolate from friends in Australia thinking of me which was cool. Saturday we shopped till we dropped and then went out to IndiJo's in South City with Cathy Morgan (Oz) for a special welcome to India dinner.
See facebook for photo's!!

Sunday clad in new Punjabi's the girls rocked up at the Hyderabad to hear Jon Hewitt exhort. It's always so much easier for us to spiritually stimulated when we have someone speak that speaks English as their first language. It was strange not to have Sarah around though. I felt like I'd lost a sister somewhere!

Back at the compound Tim and Sarah put on lunch (as usual) for everyone and we got lucky enough to see their Maldive trip photo's before partaking of a roast lunch. Tim had to go to the Maldive's to get a new passport.

Monday morning I booked tickets for us girls to head to Visak the following day, and in the afternoon we took Jess out to Shunem.

Extra couple of days

I've already written a bit about our jaunt down south, a little break for Sarah and I after 5 weeks of Bible activities.
We'd booked our tickets previously, but unfortunately I made a mistake about the date and when we went back to book, we had to book for Saturday night so we missed out on the final Memorial at the bible week.

The train was at quite a funny time, and we had no option but to leave the camp in the evening, and stay on the platform most of the night otherwise we would've had no way of getting to the station. I've always thought it would be interesting to camp out on a station, many Indians do it, but I've always had trains at sensible times before. That night was my camp out on a station. And the train ended up coming 2 hours late. Yes, really. Sarah read her book, while I found a nice clean marble slab as a seat and setup to sleep there for the night. It wasn't the most comfortable bed I've had, but at least it was off the ground, and I got kunchem sleep.

By 5pm the following day Sarah and I were embarking off the train at the southern most point of India. It was incredible (and I've already written briefly about it (sorry this is all a bit out of order) just to feel the sea breeze, and to go down to the beach. After the sun set we went onto the beach and just watched as the full moon rose higher in the sky. The breeze was incredible after the humid Kerala days. I could've stayed there all night, but Sarah still wasn't well. She found out after she finally visited a Dr in arriving back in Hyd that she'd had pharagitis (sp?) the whole time.
We got up the next morning to see the sunrise over the ocean where the 3 sea's meet and I could say it was beautiful, but the amount of people there absolutely destroyed it for me. Apparently, as we found out later, it is quite a spot for Indians to come for a pilgrimage and to worship their sun god. So that was quite dissapointing. I did manage to be of some use giving my water bottle to some lady who had fainted away in the crowd. There were more than a thousand members there.

From Kanyakumari Sarah and I trained and bussed further north along the west coast and stopped when we arrived in Alappuza. There are so many different spellings of this name I hardly know which one to take on board. It also used to be called Allaphey, which makes it even more confusing.
As we got out we were met by a man looking for foreign tourists, and he did his thing and took us to his houseboat on the backwaters and effectively sold us one night.
By that stage I think if it had been a dingy hovel we wouldn't have cared, we just wanted somewhere to stop and rest and leave our luggage. But it wasn't. We celebrated my 6 month anniversary of being in India on the 7th month and had a lovely night on the houseboat. The sunset was amazing. I think sun setting over any stretch of water is absolutely beautiful, and this one was really special for us both.

From there we headed to Cochin and succombed to seeing some different Indian dance..I forget what it was called, but i won't need to do that again. Strangeness of strangenesses. It was bizarre seeing so many white people. The only white people we see in Hyderabad are at big shopping complexes and we go to those once every 3 months, so it was random bumping into so many people. You felt like asking them 'which country you from'?

That night we had a gorgeous ferry ride back from Cochin for 5 rups across to Ernakulam with the light of the moon streaming down over the water and making the evening feel very magical!

Lonely planet being the best guide book led us to the cleanest guest house we'd stayed in for a long time, and we felt quite thankful for the clean sheets and relatively clean bathroom. Travelling can really tire you out!! Especially if you're trying to travel and see at the same time.
But there was no way Sarah was going to go to bed without first having a coffee at that coffee shop (cafe coffeeday) that we'd seen somewhere on the bus on the way into Ernakulam!!!
We found it, and it was worth it. They were playing the final match in the IPL (or is it ILP, I forget, in the Education Department the later acronym stands for Individual Learning Plan, so I get confused!!) on the widescreen there, and several people had come to sit in the cosy seats just to see it. I think the Rajastani's won, but I can't quite remember...it didn't matter to me, just amused me as it was such a big thing for the Indians.

The next day we met up with Justin at the train station and headed on to Bangalore.
A day in Bangalore, leaving Sarah to catch up with a friend, Justin and I headed on to Hyderabad. Arriving home, it was nice to be greeted with no water. It's the standard story. Our well / water storage area leaks. So you've got to use the water quickly when it come and do your washing the same day etc. It's just hard when you get to the last day and you're just hanging out for the evening to hear the water being pumped in.

Kerela Bible Week

Kerala Bible Week was quite a difficult week for me. The day before it started Sarah came down with something that kept her in bed until the last day, and so I was caught between looking after her and attending the English studies, and helping out once again with the Sunday School drama.

The language barrier was a big problem there as some of the young men knew English, but there were only about 10 Keralan young people there, and the 3 girls were very shy or didn't know any English. It was a great relief to have the Moinabad crowd there to spend time with. The CYC activities were run by Carole from Moinabad, and he gave an extra class in the evenings and the first couple of nights I attended didn't attempt to get the young people to mix with any games at all.

Overall the studies were good, and again we had a lovely location, and it was a nice week. My problem was that we'd already had a month of busi-ness already, so our energy levels had nearly reached rock bottom!!

The Sister's class was a highlight for me. Sarah Aunty did the class on women who believed in Jesus and she had us all in groups with a charade to present to the main group. This was great cause it loosened everyone up, and we had a lot of fun trying to communicate our idea's through to each other without words. It made a lot of sense when we couldn't understand each other's languages. It was special to sit around with a group of women who were from another state that I hadn't spent much time in and know that it was only through our hope that we'd even met each other.

Back to God's own country

From Sister Roja's we took a K.S.R.T.C bus (government owned) in a south westerly direction to arrive at Thrissur at the Kannady household at the time of the evening prayers.
I had loved the time I was able to spend with that family in January, and found an opportunity to visit them again before the Kerala BW began. In their household it is common practise to sing some hymns and do a bible reading just prior to eating dinner every night. Actually, I believe it might be a Kerelan tradition, but it's one that I really enjoy taking part of.
Again, they embraced us with their arms open wide as part of their family, and we were looked after as Kings and Queens with Mango fish curries, etc.

While I was there, I took part in some common beauty treatments such as washing your hair with a mixture of henna leaves, egg white, and lime leaves. You just have to be careful as you rinse, because the henna colour stains anything it touches. Also I had a face mask put on made up from left over dosa mixture. It stank, but left my skin feeling very soft:-)

It was lovely to spend time with Austin, & Alfie, and their mothers, Sonia & Sofia. Bro Tom was in his normal form and talked to Justin about who we should be baptised into the minute we walked in the door. Poor Sarah was feeling rather sick at this point and went off to lie down. It was so nice for Justin to spend time with the little boys. They really treasured his friendship, and the whole next week Alfie would go to him and sit with him. Was really cute to watch!!

Brother Tom unfortunately couldn't travel to the Bible week with us on Wednesday afternoon as he has a recurring foot problem which leaves him basically crippled every now and again.

From Bangalore

Sunday morning we attended the Bangalore meeting, which was an amazing talk by brother Jeremy Morgan on the book of Malachi..going by memory here, I THINK that was the topic.

Linus asked the young people to stay behind afterwards (in the place of SS) and we had a discussion group very similiar to that at the Bible week on finding partners, and arrangements, and where to live after marriage. Quite a few of the young people are quite western in their idea's, but they all think that not taking care of your parents in their old age by living with them is a sin. The discussion got very heated and at one point it was discussed that we as westerners 'abandon' our parents by leaving them in a nursing home. We did set the matter straight by explaining that we do everything we can for them till they reach an age where they need more assistance than we can provide and we put them in a home and then visit them regularly. I think they had the idea in mind that we put our parents / grandparents in nursing homes and leave them there to expire without visiting them.

Following the discussion group we all got in auto's and the young people were all generously shouted to a pizza hut lunch by some loving Uk men.

From Bangalore Justin, Sarah & I had been asked to visit a sister on our way down to Kerala to do some baptism interviews.
We passed through Mysore and got slogged bigtime as tourists before getting on a bus to Coimbatore and lived through the scariest bus ride of my life. Since then I have read a newspaper clipping of a bus that overturned on the road through the mountains killing 7 people and injuring many more. However, we escaped with accident, but not without incident. There was a total of 3 times coming down the mountain (and it seemed like we drove through those mountains down to the downship all night) where the driver swung out too far over the s bend and had to reverse back up and then correct his aim.
Oh, and I can't forget the time when we were coming around one corner and there were 2 lorrys parked on the left hand side of the road on the mountain and there was a steep cliff on the right hand side. So our bus driver decides to overtake. We started ok but at one point we ended up with a wheel off the cliff and the bus wasn't going forwards. The driver to correct himself just slammed his accelerator down and I just kept praying. By the time we got around the corner my whole body was shaking. Wasn't such a fun trip. But by God's grace we arrived in Coimbatore safely the next morning.

We headed out to the sister's house and arrived there to discover that there were 3 men there. After some discussion once the chai had been brought round we figured out that the men wanting baptism interviews hadn't yet arrived and these people were just there to discuss their 'doubts'. Doubts is the word everyone uses over here for questions. If there is anything they don't understand...call it a 'doubt'.

Sarah and Justin set to work setting their doubts straight. One was a SDA who was really just wanting to check what the differences there were between the religions and fire some sabbath day questions. The other had a problem with the soul not being immortal.
To my pleasure I ended up with the happy task of teaching a family of 3, Mother, Son and Daughter about our hope of Jesus returning, and tried to weave as many doctrines in as possible. It was an amazing morning, for me at least. I think the other two felt more harrassed than anything else by the time we were ready to leave.
Sis Roja did serve us lunch before we left, and what a tasty lunch it was. I think everywhere we go now the common comment has become 'I haven't tasted anything like this in the whole of India'!!! But the reason is, we're constantly trying food from different states, and all states have their own way of cooking delicious items.
One of the items introduced to go with the rice for lunch was 'paper water'. I sat there laughing for some time...and then we figured out she was meaning 'pepper water'. Whatever it was, it was incredible.

A treat

Brothers David Morgan and Jeremy Brown arrived into India to help out with the studies at the Bible week and it was there idea at the end of the week to give us a treat. We were taken to a posh hotel and given the opportunity to use their massive swimming pool the day the bible week ended. I hadn't realised how much I missed swimming.

In Australia, the summer means time at the beach, and our family, or just us girls would head down to the beach several times a beach after work. In India, when it gets hot, there is nothing to do!!! You can try and hide in a cool place, but if the current goes out, then it becomes quite unbearable.

So it was just amazing having time to spend swimming again after so long. Besides which, the meals that the restaurant served up where unbelievable. I had a BLT with a difference, and I don't think I'd eaten bacon since I arrived in India!!

Dinner was put on by Sarah Vogel and Susan Daniels at the Daniels house. My cravings for a roast chicken were gratified in every way, the dinner was splendid. I can't forget to mention the scrumptious apple crumble and mangoes and icecream that we had for dessert. Sarah and I slept at the Daniel's house that night and we felt very thankful and 'warmed and filled'.

Bangalore Bible Week

Was an absolutely incredible week. Every other Bible week I've attended in India, I've been responsible to teach SS during all the main sessions. For this bible week they divided the sessions up and I was alloted to do drama every afternoon with a brother from the UK.

I couldn't believe the topic that was chosen when I was first informed, but after doing some personal study for the drama I'm really glad to have looked at it. We looked at the 7 names of God, one name a day and knew more about our Father at the end of the week by learning through stories what His names mean.

We chose to do the drama of Lazarus with the older SS group, and I learnt so much about that story looking at the emotions of Mary, Martha and Christ, and how strong their faith was, but how Christ still had so much to teach them. The teenagers performed really well on the drama night and added a lot of volume to the group songs. 'Everywhere I look I can see God's presence, everywhere I look I can see God's power' is a song that Sarah Aunty and I both hum around the compound. So true. Everything around us shows that we have a God and that He created it all.

Most of the young people (14+) being able to speak English made a huge difference to the communication we were able to have as foreigners, and having been to Bangalore 3 times already this trip I felt really close to the young people especially.

I think it was also the fact that I was able to listen to the studies that made it more enjoyable for me. It was such a privilege to be able to sit and learn from Tim Uncle's studies on Isaiah and to join in on the morning 2nd session discussion groups on practical life issues. To understand that things like whether to live with your parents or not when you are married & should Christadelphians do dowries / arranged marriages are still difficult issues for the young people growing up in Bangalore and for their parents to deal with. There was also a discussion on finances which I found very helpful.

The weather was quite hot until about 5pm each day, but the venue was fantastic with loads of tree's for shade so it didn't impact us too much. The only real difficult thing was to sleep when the current stopped during the night.

Overall, it was a joy to have the opportunity of such amazing fellowship with a group of people that I have been able to get closer and closer to everytime I visit.