Abi Akka

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Back to Hyd...life with a difference for Abi

And Monday morning we were repacking to go to Shunem to work out schedules for the Kurnool bible week commencing this Thursday. On the way Andy G stopped and bought kites for the kids.
We spent the afternoon making and flying the Kites. So much fun.
The Kite festival in India celebrates the end of the harvest and kites could be bought for a minimum of 3 rupee's!!
Monday night I called Maggie to check if she had asked her vice principal about me helping fill in a teaching aid position while one of the sisters (Vijee) goes on leave in Feb for a month.
Yesterday I bused in to Hyd to speak to her supervisor. When Sunitha arrived she began with ‘Maggie has told me you’re available to help out, can you start today?’ I was expecting a little bit of an interview, but within 5 mins after explaining that I don’t want to work there long term after the fill in, I was being introduced into a classroom with students from France, Malaysia, Norway, America, Spain. It was incredible.
So now, I’m 'employed' as a volunteer with the International School of Hyderabad from Wednesday next week, into March with a week’s break to Bangladesh where I have to go to renew my Indian Visa.
Last night I came home from work… in Hyderabad….and went to bible class…. As I would in Adelaide. I felt slightly exhilarated, I think teaching gives me that feeling!
Crazy. But the experience for me is going to be invaluable if I plan to get back to UNI sometime in the next year or so!
I’m going to make the most of learning words from so many different languages while I’m there…. It’s going to be an amazing experience.


Tomorrow is the start of the Kurnool bible week, so we're busy doing last minute prep today.

Bangalore

We arrived in Bangalore after the bible class and were picked up and taken back to the girls flat where we were treated to pancakes. It was really lovely to have some extra time to spend with the girls outside of KCY, because they are always so busy organizing during the weekend that they don’t get as much time to socialize.
We did stay up and watch Little Women to help Erina understand how well the Mandya girls fit the characters.

While we were in Bangalore we visited Mary and her family and also got to the new blind center, which is still being set up. Mike Hubbard had us all there on the laptops trying to help them speak to each other. IT lesson in sharing networks / drivesJ
Watching two of the blind Bartimaeus men walking home at night I felt an overwhelming gladness that I am blessed with great health. May Jesus return soon and bring an end to the suffering of all, especially those physically impaired.

Andy Galbraith led the talks at KCY on the prophet Micah. We looked at how the leaders weren’t taking their responsibility properly and the priest, prophet and king were all at fault. We looked at the justice a king was meant to measure out, and how Christ treated the people with this perfect justice through his life, and it made me think of how perfectly the whole world will be judged in the future under his righteous rule.
Linus once again gave a very thought provoking exhortation on righteousness from the Psalms. If we’ve set our direction, have we then remembered to work out where we are and how we can get here. If we’re looking at a map wanting to go somewhere, we’re not going to go anywhere unless we know where we are to travel from!! Important lessons.
We had a large group of visitors there. Jona and Bappy traveled by train from Hyd, and Hannah flew with Andy down so they could attend Tim and Sarah’s 50th & 60th joint parties.

Leaving Bangalore was exceptionally hard on the emotions as it was saying goodbye to not only the mandya girls and friends from Bangalore which I will GW see again this trip, but it was parting from Erina who has been my constant companion for the past 3 months. She arrives in Kolkata this morning, and could you please pray for her, as she has some new responsibilities in Kolkata while there are no fieldworkers in the area, and will find some of the duties difficult. Besides which, she has had a break from the difficulties and met some amazing sisters from down south, but I have no doubt she will find the lack of CYC in her area hard. I’m missing her already!

Kerala - named 'God's own country'

I took so many photo’s and have had to delete so many.
We were greeted at the station by a loving mother, Suzi Kannady, who then took us to her house and straight away she and her daughters were cooking French Toast. What a lovely welcome.
They were amazing. 2 of her daughters are living at home with their 2 sons, Sonia with Austin, and Sofia with Alfie, and they were just delightful people. A beautiful family.
Both of the girls were teachers and Sonia had a massive deadline to meet before Monday so she spent all her time at the dining room table valuing English papers, and asked us to join her. It was difficult work as the power was quite frequently off and we were working under dim lights… I’m hoping she made the deadline!
We were properly spoiled, they did use much curry in their food at all, every day we had French Toast, and boost drinks, and one day Suzi made us a cake. It was lovely to go there and spend time with Christadelphians who had been in the truth many years.
We arrived on a Friday and left on Monday morning to bus an hour further south to stay with another couple in the town of Angamuli, George and Annie.
Our stay with them was brief as we’d been told it was a lovely place to get out and be a tourist, so our only day we rose early and caught a bus down to Kochin.

Having read lonely planet, we eventually found a boat that would take us for a 3 hour ride through the backwaters and drop us off on an island to explore.
It was gorgeous. Peaceful. Beautiful. Restful. The blessings were poured out, and we mummured back our thankfulness.

As always on our Indian excursions, there is so much to do that lunch is left out, much to the dissapointment of any Indians traveling with us. There just wasn’t a suitable time or place! We did snack though!
We sauntered through the Dutch palace, which wasn’t really anything, proven by the 2rupee cost at the door and then made our way to the Jewish Synagogue was built in the 17th C.
Interesting, but still buildings… then we caught a cattle class boat across the river, for another 2 rupee’s each, not having seen the passenger boat.
We found a beach, named it ours, and waited for the sun to set over the Arabian Sea. Sure it was a sunset, but any water sunset in India is very precious, and this was truly special. Our God is an awesome God.

All too soon we were on a bus back and I think it was my freakiest (not fastest) bus ride in India thus far… Keralan drivers are atrocious. Two buses are always racing along the roads together and overtake at alarming rates. Poor Annie, after that she was like, can we catch a train for our next tripJ

We had a bit of a scrambled morning the next day as they had told us that the train stopped at their station, and then woke us at 8 saying we had to be left by half an hour to catch a bus to another station. We arrived the minute the train was meant to leave. Thankfully it was running late, and we had time to make our way up and over and to the right bogey number before it came racing by.

Tim had originally said that we would be traveling overnight, but it was booked for 12 hours during the day, and I’ll ever be grateful for that change. The scenery was spectacular the whole way along, and the sun setting between mountains and a river made for some very gorgeous shots. It was the my first train trip that I was awake for traveling through mountains and it was right near Dharmapuri that the man on the window realised that he wasn’t appreciating the view as much as his fellow passengers trying to see past him and gave up his seat which for us. We accepted gratefully. I could live on a train traveling in circles round and round that mountainous area. I’m not sure that I’d find a circular track though.

Christmas and New Years in Hyd

As Wes and Darryl were no longer with us, Dad trained down on their ticket and Mum, Erina & I traveled on Christmas Eve. We arrived at the compound 2 hours later than expected in the middle of the last minute bustle I raced for the shower and achieved a lovely burn from the hot water pipe which wasn’t really the best way to start the festivities.
I was amazed at how many foreigners were there!! Tim Uncle had prepared the meditation on Jesus being the light of the world, and us radiating that light out to others around us and it was really inspiring.
Then somehow we managed to fit all the visitors and the Shunem and Moinabad people onto transport and headed out to Shunem for the lunch.
Grandiosity of Grandiosities… Shunem was decked out for the king and queen. Floor tables had been set up and we all reclined at table and were served scrumptious chicken, curries, salads, and so many good things. It was a hot day so everyone retired to the shade in the afternoon to share presents etc. After traveling all night I found so many people overwhelming and retired to Cals room to rest! Everyone left quite quickly and by the time I surfaced again, there was really only the Abel’s and a couple of others left that were actually staying at Shunem. I found the next couple of days more peaceful and it was really nice to finally meet Colin & Val Edwards. They are such lovely people who organize the fundraising for Shunem in the UK. Most of the children went home on Christmas day, so we had fun spending time with the kids whose parents were too sick for them to return home.
Our family had organized a catchup with Frank, Dorothy and Lois Abel as we only had one day overlapping, and we decided to go to the craft fair together. The plan got out and we headed there with all the Shunem kids in tow. Lois and I spent the afternoon trying to find things that would be suitable for her wedding. The most amazing thing from that trip was the quickness in which Aunt Dorothy purchased her wedding outfit. I was completely shockedJ Her only desire was to please her husbands and daughter’s tastesJ
That night our family went out for dinner with the Abel’s, Tej and Chaitanic. We fared sumptuously on pasta and steak. Such flavours…. To be compared with amazingly expensive restaurants in the west. A rare treat.

I really enjoyed being around so much later this year as I’ve got to do so many extra things, including the Visak & Moinabad End of Year camps.
We helped Suzi & Maggie with the SS, and it was cool because most of the children were from Shunem or Moinabad and knew English well. Discussion group time was focused on first principles and on New years day we had 12 baptisms, which was lovely. A beautiful start to the year. Two of the newly baptized I’d taught in SS at the Vijayawada meetings, so it was very special for me to be there to see them start their new walk in Christ.
The classes were on ‘all creatures great & small’ and ‘marriage’. The first topic was dealing with how God is such an incredible creator, and how all things work just so. The second topic was amazing. The brother basically gave marriage-counseling classes. He came to a point in one of his talks ‘now courting is a beautiful thing’ at which point Tim Uncle interjected with ‘we have arranged marriages in India’ and Simon moved on with another topicJ
New Years Eve was another treat! We started by singing while waiting for the bonfire to be lit, and then Tim Uncle arranged another Song and Praise, meditations and hymns interwoven together in front of the campfire. We were praying for a blessing when the new year commenced all around us. Seemed the right thing to do, seek God first in the New Year before anything else. And then, there were the birthdays, and the cutting of cake, and the firecrackers and more singing, and some walking round the fire!!
It was really hard getting up the next morning in time for the bus to head back to Moinabad and help out with the baptism interviews, but it was a very moving occasion when we had 12 new family members by mid morning.
In the afternoon we restedJ and by evening we were ready to be partaking of a goodbye supper for Cals who was flying home the next day with Mum and Dad. Then a 2nd goodbye supper of pancakes and good things in the guestroom.
The 2nd was an early morning into Hyd with all our ‘luggages’ in the van. Mum, Cals & I treated ourselves in the morning and then had lunch with the crowd at Tim & Sarah’s. They finished their time in India with a massive dinner at the Tej Hotel with our group taking up about 6 tables.
It was my privilege to be staying at the Catholic compound that night and the gates were shutting at 9pm. I went to the airport to say goodbye to the fam and came back by 10, thankfully I arrived as another man did who had the key and let me in. They must lock them all away at night from the outside?? Weird.
Sadness was there! But in India there is never much time to be sad! The next day was a sleep in and then a mad rush to make sure we had bought food for the train, and packed the bags and then Erina, Annie Kortman and I were traveling the 28 hours to ‘God’s own country’ as they like to call it!!

Friday, January 11, 2008

Changing Plans

Our original plan was to train down to Srikakulam and spend a week there on our way to Hyderabad for end of year camp.
by this stage the group had changed shape again. Darryl had flown down to hyd, Wes to Bangladesh, and so we were down to Jona, Mum, Dad & me for this train trip. We were getting off in Srik, and jono was heading on further and getting down in Visak.
We arrived and called Babji in Visak when we couldn't find our translator at the station and found out that James uncle couldn't meet us cause he was in hospital, and had rather unfortunately forgotten to inform us.
So we had no translator and had been told the day before that all the Srikakulam ecclesia's were going to be attending the Visak end of year meetings. That suited me fine, because it's so much easier to catch up with everyone in one place and limits the amount of bus rides that you need to take between the villages (since then I've been on a bus in Kerala).
So we had one day visiting in Narsannapetta and Samuel translated Dad's talks in Urlam and Chennaporam.
We were much saddened by the news on arrival that one of the sisters from the Rallapadu ecclesia has died because she was so depressed, and they hadn't had any visitors for a long time, and also because the Narsannapeta ecclesia had begun building a massive ecclesial hall, and don't have the funds to finish it and are in considerable debt, even by western standards. Sister Zion was so happy to see us and it was so good to catch up with Samuel & Daniel.
We had a lovely meal with the family at the same place we always eat at, and ordered the same fried rice that we always order;-)

Sudershan Rao (sp?) and Zion couldn't attend Visak on the first day because they were busy with another conference, so we ended up taking Samuel & Daniel on to Visak by bus with us. It was really nice because we ended up taking them to the beach and had such a relaxing morning with them before the camp started.
Unfortunately, not all the ecclesia's from Srikakulam ended up going to visak, so we really only got to see some of the Rallapadu, Narsannapeta, Urlam, & Palakonda people.

Allen & Tara Laben were at Visak and it was lovely to spend time with them and a another guy from their cyc during the week. Allen & Jeff led the talks, and Tara and i helped out with the sunday school. They hadn't prepared anything when we arrived, so we had to sort something out quite quickly. Thankfully I had some pictures we could zerox and we just taught the lessons accordingly. Half way through the camp Santoshi arrived having just finished her exams and it was just amazing to be able to spend 2 days with her. It was also really nice when Erina arrived on the monday morning for them to meet and we all went to the beach together before parting ways. It was so lovely to work with Joythi & Sheela with the ss and very sad to say goodbye to them all when we left for Hyd! such beautiful girls.