Commencement of Bible Week
The 2006 Erina Photo, that sister is seriously amazing
Abi, Deepali & her daughter
Brother and Sister Bera
The Contai ecclesia, with their 12 newly baptised members
The complete Monday family
Mumuta & Rajaput
Deepali Das, one of the 24 new brothers and sisters in Christ
The bon's (sisters in Bengali)
The contact women, Ruth, Mum & Jewel.
The anniversary Cake - and it tasted GOOOOD
Thanks for coming Sarah and Ruth.Was fab to work with you both
The sunday school darlingsI'm going to try and do this quickly. And maybe I'll be through soon! Sunday morning: Memorial @ Nirmal's. 3 Taxi's...everywhere for this group, not the easiest thing. Met up with our two translators for the week: Uttam & Jewel. Both gave a prayer for the bread / wine. Both amazing... felt thankful for such knowledgeable brethren as we began our work preparing for bw. Nirmal and Wife and Rebecca were all very hospitable. It was good to see them again. Jewel and Uttam took us out for lunch and that day we met up with David Morgan(UK, living in Bangalore), Kam Sandhu (UK) & Ken Easson (Canada). Evening was spent once again at Flury's - making the most of arriving in Kol early.
Meet & Greet - the Kolk BW groupMonday afternoon we arrived at Seva Kendra.
The days that followed are still a blur. Bible week days seem to go very slowly for the first couple, and then after that the week speeds by.
The sisters all took a ss lesson, and a craft with the kids, and also shared out the women's contact classes and sisters classes between us.
The afternoons and any other spare time that we could use translators we worked at giving 35 baptism interviews.
As usual it was a very emotional time. Some women were ready and some were not. It was an incredible experience working with those who did know the gospel and could answer any questions with scriptual depth, but at the same time with some applicants it was so hard to say, sorry, you know some of the bible basics, but you don't know the promises and you really don't have a hope, because you don't know about the kingdom, so we encourage you to continue learning, and please come back after some time and request another baptism interview.
Looking back, it's the time spent with the contact women, and the baptisms that made the bible week for me. Even though i haven't learnt any Bengali yet, I felt the friendships develop and shed a tear or 50 as they left at the end of the week. Some of them are really poor, and one of the ladies came to say goodbye to me and as she did asked if we had any spare Saree's for her, or clothes for her children. It broke my heart, because I wouldn't question her honesty, I'd watched her the whole week and she was a kindred spirit. I gave, trying to be discreet, but she was the only lady who could swallow her pride and ask for help with clothing. It was just a really hard situation, as I wasn't sure when she asked how many others were going to come to me, and I only had one Saree that I could give away, so I'm going to post direct to her now that I'm home. Think that will be an easier option.
So we now have 24 new brothers and sisters in Kolkata. Please pray for them. It seems like there aren't many shepherds in the area at all. And a lot of the people who were at the bible week last year didn't return this year.
They are crying out for longterm mission workers (we DO need a similiar setup to Bangladesh with mission workers there round the year) so please if you can, think about it.
Erina was there, sacrificing all her spare time to do the baptism interviews, although we made sure that both her and Rebecca got to a class for themselves each day.
Kamelish was there, same as usual...
Chips was missing unfortunately, he was busy doing some study somewhere.
Arothi was there, no snakebites this year, although we did have a couple of stiff nervous seizure things (not sure what we call them)
and a mini stroke and some pride hurt.. but we're hoping that forgiveness and pardons will be given.
So continue to pray for all these people, and the work done all around the world.
Aparna was also there, and her husband who is now baptised came halfway through the week as well which was grand.
Sunday School program was on Joseph and Sudeshna played an amazing Pharaoh...feel sorry for whoever she marries if Christ remains away....she's fab at giving orders :-)
Enough for now
That's Kolkata at a glance / skim.
Oh, but I forgot to mention that we did buy a cake. We bought it from Flury's. To celebrate the first week anniversary of Sara and Ruth to India, but it was celebrated a day late... due to unforseen baptism interviews cropping up. In it's first life it was a Diwali cake. But at the shop I scraped off the words happy diwali and got them to write on the cake 'congrats Ruth and Sarah' 'Shine as lights', thought it was an appropriate biblical slant to the festival season! Plus, the cake was in the shape of a lamp.
The days that followed are still a blur. Bible week days seem to go very slowly for the first couple, and then after that the week speeds by.
The sisters all took a ss lesson, and a craft with the kids, and also shared out the women's contact classes and sisters classes between us.
The afternoons and any other spare time that we could use translators we worked at giving 35 baptism interviews.
As usual it was a very emotional time. Some women were ready and some were not. It was an incredible experience working with those who did know the gospel and could answer any questions with scriptual depth, but at the same time with some applicants it was so hard to say, sorry, you know some of the bible basics, but you don't know the promises and you really don't have a hope, because you don't know about the kingdom, so we encourage you to continue learning, and please come back after some time and request another baptism interview.
Looking back, it's the time spent with the contact women, and the baptisms that made the bible week for me. Even though i haven't learnt any Bengali yet, I felt the friendships develop and shed a tear or 50 as they left at the end of the week. Some of them are really poor, and one of the ladies came to say goodbye to me and as she did asked if we had any spare Saree's for her, or clothes for her children. It broke my heart, because I wouldn't question her honesty, I'd watched her the whole week and she was a kindred spirit. I gave, trying to be discreet, but she was the only lady who could swallow her pride and ask for help with clothing. It was just a really hard situation, as I wasn't sure when she asked how many others were going to come to me, and I only had one Saree that I could give away, so I'm going to post direct to her now that I'm home. Think that will be an easier option.
So we now have 24 new brothers and sisters in Kolkata. Please pray for them. It seems like there aren't many shepherds in the area at all. And a lot of the people who were at the bible week last year didn't return this year.
They are crying out for longterm mission workers (we DO need a similiar setup to Bangladesh with mission workers there round the year) so please if you can, think about it.
Erina was there, sacrificing all her spare time to do the baptism interviews, although we made sure that both her and Rebecca got to a class for themselves each day.
Kamelish was there, same as usual...
Chips was missing unfortunately, he was busy doing some study somewhere.
Arothi was there, no snakebites this year, although we did have a couple of stiff nervous seizure things (not sure what we call them)
and a mini stroke and some pride hurt.. but we're hoping that forgiveness and pardons will be given.
So continue to pray for all these people, and the work done all around the world.
Aparna was also there, and her husband who is now baptised came halfway through the week as well which was grand.
Sunday School program was on Joseph and Sudeshna played an amazing Pharaoh...feel sorry for whoever she marries if Christ remains away....she's fab at giving orders :-)
Enough for now
That's Kolkata at a glance / skim.
Oh, but I forgot to mention that we did buy a cake. We bought it from Flury's. To celebrate the first week anniversary of Sara and Ruth to India, but it was celebrated a day late... due to unforseen baptism interviews cropping up. In it's first life it was a Diwali cake. But at the shop I scraped off the words happy diwali and got them to write on the cake 'congrats Ruth and Sarah' 'Shine as lights', thought it was an appropriate biblical slant to the festival season! Plus, the cake was in the shape of a lamp.
posted by Abi Akka @ 1:57 PM
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