Tara

NOTE:  This Sunday, February the 26th, Matt, Carlie, Larry, and I will be hosting a soup lunch after the regular service at New Hope.  We'll start serving at about 12:00 and each give presentations about the mission trip as well as be available for questions.  You don't have to be a member of New Hope to attend and I hope to see you there.

I wanted to take time to get a little more in depth about one of my team mates.

Tara wore traditional Indian garb for this mission.

Tara is a sweet young college student from California.  She’s studying to be a physical therapist and will no doubt be a good one.  I joked once that she is the softest rock I have ever met.  Her voice is very soft and she is fairly quiet, but she is incredibly resilient and steadfast.

In what is her first mission of this spring, she worked as our pharmacist.  She actually worked more hours than most of the team as after the clinic was over and we were back in our rooms to rest, she had to restock the pharmacy for the next days outing.  Each of us would see perhaps a total of 350 people in the course of the mission.  She would meet each and every of the 2053 that we ministered to.

I said that this was her first mission of the spring.  She is actually spending three months in a couple of continents doing mission and service work.  We left her in Delhi on Sunday where she will wait five days until her next mission in India, this time in the Punjab region ministering to Afghan refugees.  Of course, not one to sit around waiting for the next mission, she spent the five days in Delhi between e3 assignments by volunteering at a rescue mission for street girls in Delhi.

Tara (shown with Carlie) served as our chief pharmacist.

Her journey will then take her to Kathmandu to work at a rehabilitation center.  This is actually part of her schooling so in addition to ministry she will be working on her studies while she is there.  From there she will go to Nigeria to visit and help a friend who is a missionary there.  Then it’s a short stop in London before returning home.

She has been a delight to get to know.  From hearing her on the phone I first had the impression of a wide-eyed and naïve schoolgirl with a lot to learn about life.  Instead, I met a courageous young lady with a deep commitment to following God and an incredible desire to serve others.  I know for a fact that I wasn’t anywhere near that put together when I was twenty years old.  Sometimes I’m not sure I am now at more than double that age.

Updates And A Bit More Randomness

Yesterday we all recieved the final data from our four days of clinics.  A basic rundown is as follows:

Patients Seen:  2057
Gospel Presentations: 1414
Professions of Faith:   482

Tom and Charles giving a pep talk to some of the young men
who will follow up with 221 "seekers" and the 482 people who professed
faith in Jesus Christ after hearing the gospel during our mission.

There were a total of 221 people that we determined were "Seekers."  Those are folks who expressed a strong interest.  These people, as well as all the people that made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, will be followed up with by believers in their area.

Munna, shown here with Charles.  We were able to visit him
once in the hospital before we left Tezpur.  His diagnosis isn't
completely known at this point.

We also recieved an update on Munna, the young man whose knee we believed was infected and who our team arranged to have placed in a hospital.  It turns out that there is the possibility that it could be cancer.  A biopsy has been taken and we are awaiting results.  The fees for phase one of his treatment have been taken care of.  We'll find out more about additional costs once we know the diagnosis.  To read about the story of how God put Munna in our path, you can click here: Munna

And a bit of randomness I meant to include in my last post.  If you read my post called Echolocation, then you have a description of the hazards of travel on Indian roads and the use of sonar while driving.  The whole experience of traveling on Indian roadways caused us to chuckle at this sign in front of our hotel in Tezpur.

Right.  Like parking is the dangerous part of traveling in India.

Randomness

Here are some random thoughts and images from our trip.  They’re in no particular order and there isn’t really a rhyme or reason to this post.



The front entrance of the classiest hotel in Tezpur is at the red
signs you see in the upper right corner.  Nice trash heap, eh?



We stayed in what is considered the classiest hotel in Tezpur.  The rooms were clean and serviceable, but the American equivalent would be a lower class Super 8.  The staff was excellent and their attention to service is amazing.  Still, it is interesting what surrounds the hotel.  A trash heaps is just 15 yards from the front entrance and on the same corner there is a rickshaw stand where people use the wall of the hotel as a restroom.

The typical Indian cookshack.

When we were in the field the team ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a few bananas for lunch.  Our translators and the Nationals we worked with had their own food.  On the day that we set up two clinics, we stopped midway between the clinics for our translators to have their lunch.  I was able to get some pictures inside the average kitchen of the rural farmhouse.  It was fascinating to watch all of these people prepare food over a wood fire using the unique earth and brick “stovetop” and I couldn’t believe the cooks were able to stand the smoke of the fires.

A view from the roof of the hotel.

Traffic circles abound in India.  One of my favorite pastimes was to go to the roof of the hotel and watch the traffic and street people of Tezpur.  A policeman stands at the kiosk in the center of the circle and tries to bring order to the chaos.  The variety of vehicles used in India is amazing.  Everything from trucks to handcarts to motorcycles and three-wheeled taxi’s go through the town.  Cattle and goats roam the streets freely.  Eventually you get used to the constant racket of horns, voices, and engines.



The crowds in the markets are
overwhelming to most Westerners



There are markets everywhere.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s hard to drive more than a quarter of a mile without seeing some shack or another selling something.  We would be in the middle of nowhere and there would stand a shack selling chips, candy, and cel. phone service.  Other places would have a collection of these shacks and open-air markets for produce and other foods.  It wasn’t uncommon to see a half-butchered hog on top of a table by the roadside.  Walk up, tell them what cut you want, and the butcher knife will accommodate.



I can't imagine the daily grind,
pain, and monotony of sorting
and piling stones by hand.



We passed through a road construction site on our travels.  In America we’re used to seeing heavy equipment everywhere, hauling gravel, cleaning areas in preparation for overlay, and leveling roadbeds.  In India there is no shortage of manual labor.  This image of a woman sorting stones is a great reminder of how hard life is for most Indians.  I can’t imagine the toil of squatting for hours, sorting stones and placing them just so, in order that the roadbed has the correct slope.  It has to be grueling.  No unions, evidently.

On our last day we were able to explore a little bit more of Tezpur.  This included a trip to a Lutheran church site near the river.  It was a beautiful spot with a great view.  Just behind the church there are ruins from an ancient Hindu temple.  Shown in this picture is our main Indian partner, Charles Golla.  He's explaining to us that the image carved in stone here is of a god ripping apart a child.  Mark and I decided that when the earthquake destroyed the temple, God was basically saying "That's enough of that."

God Sightings 3: The Team

I’ve been writing about various God Sightings on this trip.  God Sightings are those times when you see God at work through circumstance, people, or events.  These things happen every day and with every one of us.  Most of us, myself included, don’t notice them nearly as often as they happen.  Sometimes we don’t notice them until years later.  These are a few of the less noticeable God Sightings that happened within the members of the team.

Carly being a good girl and writing in
her journal at Guwaharti Airport.

The first day or two were great struggles for Matt and Carly.  There was a huge culture shock, the food didn’t agree with them, and other issues.  Add to this an event on the home front that was difficult for his wife, and Matt was pretty shook up.  As luck would have it, Matt was teamed up with Mark as a roommate.  Well, I say luck.  It was actually a God thing.  Mark is an excellent counselor, a great shoulder to lean on, and a rock of a friend when you’re in need.  By the time we actually hit the mission field, Matt and Carly were unstoppable and a huge encouragement to the rest of the team.  It was clear that no matter the difficulties, God was going to use the Waitley family in India.  It was also clear that God had put Mark and Matt together as roommates because Mark was the man Matt would need during those difficult first days.

Doc endorses the french fries at the hotel. 
Matt and Carly lived off fries and the seemingly
endless supply of rice krispy treats they brought from home.

I am the team member that is most prone to health issues.  Due to a medication I’m on, I basically have no immune system.  I also have to watch my diet a bit in order to avoid cramping and ahem, other issues, to put it politely.  Now whether this is a God thing or simply luck of the draw, I don’t know.  But I was one of only three team members that didn’t have any health or digestive issues the entire ten days.  Luck?  Well maybe.  But I know that my health was a major part of my wife’s prayers for me. It always seems that I’m “luckier” when prayer is involved.



Dr. Aneel, our eye doctor.  Because of language barriers he
doesn't talk much, but when he does it counts....big time!



Matt, Larry, and I had been talking about a few things we would like to accomplish when we get home.  In my “luck of the draw” bible readings (the ones where I just open to a random passage to see what God has for me that day), I came upon a passage in scripture that I felt was really applicable to the situation.  I went across the hall to Matt’s room and read it to him.  Matt said, “That’s from II Timothy, Chapter 2.  I’ve been reading it because Aneel (our eye doctor) came to me this morning and said he felt God leading him to tell me to study the second chapter of II Timothy.”  Some would call it coincidence.  Others would call it freaky.  We call it a God Thing.



Charles, Larry, Mark and Carly take a break. 
My journey with Mark is remarkeable to me.
I'm always glad God knows his plans for me.



As I said, sometimes we don’t really notice God Sightings until years after they happen.  On our last full day in India I couldn’t help but look back at my history with Mark.  My relationship with Mark started about twenty years ago.  I was a confirmed agnostic and single at the time.  It was my habit in those days to go to Hoke’s for coffee and breakfast several times a week.  One morning Mark showed up by his lonesome and, knowing me only in passing from my job at the music store, asked if he could join me for breakfast.  That simple cup of coffee led to a friendship that has spanned two decades, his leading me to Christ, my membership in the Berean Church (now New Hope) and now, a mission trip to India.  It’s been awe inspiring for me to see God’s hand in what was, at the time, a seemingly chance meeting over a cup of coffee.

Note:  I’m actually writing this from the comforts of home.  Most of the team arrived home safely on Sunday the 12^th.  Tom stayed behind for a few more days to finish up work on this mission and to do some detail work for his next trip.  Tara stayed behind and here future travels this spring and summer includes another mission in India, some time in Nepal, and a trip to Africa.  Joel and George stayed behind for a trip to Calcutta where Joel will visit the orphanage he was adopted from when he was just six month old.

Following are some various “God Sightings” from the mission trip.  They aren’t necessarily in any given order and there are many more than I can chronicle here.



Matt leads the children in a prayer of salvation.



One morning we arrived at the school we were to set up our clinic in only to find the classrooms locked up.  There were school children hanging around.  Technically, they had the day off from school, but they came to see what was going on.  Matt saw the kids, about 40 of them ranging in age from around five to ten years old, grabbed Hemanta and said, “Let’s get warmed up on these kids!”  Matt then proceeded to share the gospel with the kids, using a giant Evangecube.  He led them all in prayer when he was done and they all prayed to receive Jesus Christ.  Matt and the kids then proceeded to play Simon Say’s and In-Out.  To watch Matt with the kids of India is a truly beautiful thing.

Matt continued to interact with the kids, playing In-Out with them. 
Matt was a kid magnet no matter where we went.

On the second day I had a man of about 50 accept Christ.  I think he was about 50 but it’s hard to tell age here.  Life is so difficult and back breaking for them that there are many times that you think you are talking to someone in their 60’s and later you find out that they are only 40.  It’s the miles, not the years.  Anyway, we finished prayer and as we shook hands and parted ways he kept repeating, over and over in broken English, “I am filled with joy, I am filled with joy.”  I can hear his voice as clearly now as I did that day.

George sharing the gospel in the home
of our bus driver's extended family.

On our last day in the field we were invited to our bus driver’s family home for tea.  This is a great honor and they were incredibly hospitable, something we Americans can learn from.  God put us in the home of these Hindu’s, and George shared the Gospel with them using the giant Evangecube.  George was able to do it in such a way that it was non-offensive to our hosts.  We may never know how many of the extended family actually accepted Christ, but they all prayed as George led the Sinner’s prayer.  The opportunity to plant seeds in this way is the whole reason to come to India.



People registering for the clinic at
our final site for this trip.

We worked with a large number of translators during our four days in the field.  Sometimes you might have the same translator all day, but usually you would work with three or four different translators.  On our final day I worked with four different translators, including a young man of about 20 years old.  He is a nurse at the Baptist hospital in Tezpur.  We were sharing the gospel with another young man of about the same age and at the end of the presentation the young man spoke to my translator for several minutes.  My translator relayed to me, “He knows about Jesus and would like to follow him, but he is afraid of his family.”  The two young men talked for a few more minutes.  They then both got out their cel. phones and traded information and my translator said “I will help him.  If his family kicks him out, he will live with me.  He wants to pray now to receive Jesus.”  We prayed together and then my translator and the new believer went off and visited privately for about 20 minutes.  That I happened to have a translator willing to open his home to a complete stranger and that, as it turned out, these two would live and work in areas where this would be geographically feasible, was definitely a God thing and touched me very deeply.

Location, location, location.

We have now ended our fourth and final day in the mission field.  I’m hoping to add final totals in a future post, but I can tell you that 2053 people that were ministered to both physically and spiritually.  I know that we had several hundred professions of faith and all of the people received a clear presentation of the gospel. 

I’ve given you a basic day-by-day schedule and I’ve written about the impact the first day had on me.  Rather than give you a rundown of each day, I thought I would highlight some of the many “God-sightings” that occurred on this trip.  This will take several posts as there were many, many God-sightings.  This first one will take this entire post and it is about God putting us where He needs us to be.

The courtyard of our second impromptu location.

Our second day’s clinic didn’t have much of a crowd.  By about noon there were no other people waiting to see the doctor.  We had seen about 250 people by that time.  One of the Nationals (mission jargon for in-country believers that provide support) said that he knew of another place we could set up our clinic.  It was at the home of a Hindu who, although quite poor, is a bit of a leader in his village.  He is what e3 Partners calls a Person Of Peace: someone who may or may not be a Christian, but is influential in their community and friendly to Christians.

Doc, Charles, and Tom returning from a hike across the rice fields to see the boy.

After a bit of a drive that included having to make a lengthy detour because of a questionable bridge, we arrived at the home of this person.  We were able to set up the clinic using his courtyard, one bedroom, and his back yard.  People soon showed up in droves as the word got out and we served another couple of hundred people.  At the end of the clinic someone Doctor Lynn (hereafter referred to as “Doc”) with news about a boy that was bedridden about two kilometers away.  Doc, Charles, and Tom hiked across the rice fields and when they arrived at the home they found a delightful young man who had gotten surgery on his knee following an accident.  The knee had become infected and unless the boy got to a hospital within a day or two, Doc was sure that he would loose the leg.  Doc did the best he could and left the family with some heavy-duty antibiotics and advice to get the boy to a hospital as soon as possible.

The next morning Charles woke from his bed with one thought on his mind: Get the boy to the hospital.  He prayed that somehow we could make it happen by the end of the day.

After our clinic today Doc left the rest of the team to go back to Tezpur early so he could meet with a surgeon at the main hospital there.  Doc was able to arrange for the boy to be admitted and treated.  The hospital agreed that the only cost would be that of medications.

It amazes me to think about the fact that we were where God needed us at the time God needed us.  Take a look at all the “ifs” that could have gotten in the way and resulted in this young man loosing his leg.

IF ten American’s had not felt a calling to India and

IF that calling hadn’t included a clinic at that particular spot in India and

IF we would have had a large crowd for our only scheduled clinic of the day and

IF someone wouldn’t have told us about another possible location for a clinic and

IF our team leaders would not have been flexible enough to change our plans and

IF there wasn’t a Person of Peace in the village that was willing to host us and

IF there wasn’t an alternate route to the village that bypassed the rickety bridge and

IF someone hadn’t come to the makeshift clinic to tell Doc about the boy and

IF Doc and the other’s hadn’t been willing to hike several kilometers in rice fields and

IF Charles hadn’t woke up the next morning with nothing but that boy on his mind and

IF Doc would have been delayed not gotten back to Tezpur in time talk to a surgeon and

IF the hospital couldn’t admit him and agree to waive much of the fee…..

That boy would have lost his leg and possibly his life.

There are a lot of skeptics that would call all of this coincidence.  I used to be one.  I remember my friend Mark and I having this discussion once and he said, “It may all be coincidence, but I find that coincidences sure happen a lot more often if I pray about it and get God involved.”

It feels awfully good to be in a place that God wants you to be when He wants you to be there.  I need to try it more often.

 

Mechanics

It came to me this afternoon as we were rocking around on a rough country road in between clinic locations that I haven’t talked much about the mechanics of the trip we’re on.  Sorry about that.  This is a trip that is taking place as much in my soul as it is in the country of India and my writing has reflected that.  So, with my apologies for it’s tardiness, here is a bit of the day-in day-out of the mission.

Breakfast and a devotional start the day.

e3 Partners is a church planting focused mission group.  As such, all of their missions have church planting as the goal for the trip.  At its root, church planting is about evangelism and e3 uses a variety of methods to assist in the task of evangelizing.  One of those methods is to provide free medical clinics.  In India one of the appeals of a free medical clinic is that poverty is so prevalent that most people can’t afford the 10 rupee (about $0.20) fee of the regular hospital.  Yeah.  I know.  They don’t have twenty cents.  The pharmacy is an added bonus as in addition to the cost of drugs, there simply aren’t many real pharmacies in this part of the world.

Setting up the exam, pharmacy, and counseling areas.

We are traveling with a physician loaded with a fairly large pharmacy to treat common ailments in India, and also an optometrist with prescription drugs for eye treatments and a large arsenal of reading glasses.  In addition to these two men we have seven lay people including myself.  Providing logistical, organizational, and overseeing the mission is a full-time leader from e3 and our in-country partner.  We partner with local churches and believers that provide interpreting, crowd control, and registration services

The day’s schedule runs something like this:

6:00am: Out of bed to start the day.  Shower, read, personal devotion, etc.  I like to get up even earlier and go for a short stroll while I think and pray.

7:00am: Meet for breakfast and a short I Am Second devotional.

8:00am: We load up the bus for our drive to the day’s location, generally 40-60 minutes away.

9:00am: We arrive on location and set up areas for the medical, optical, and pharmacy stations.  A registration area is also set up.  Counseling areas are set up so that one team member and their interpreter can visit with the patients in groups of one to six or seven once they’ve received their medications.

11:30-1:00pm: We split up our lunch breaks so that there are always counseling stations available to patients.  Lunch consists of PB&J sandwiches, a juice box, and a banana or two.

2:00 to 4:00pm: The clinic closes, counseling is wrapped up, and goodbyes are said to our hosts and interpreters.  Sometimes the same interpreter will work with us the following day, sometimes not.  It depends on the distance from their home and their schedule at their real job.

4:00-5:00pm: The trip back to the hotel.  Generally a much quieter bus ride as we’re all pretty worn out, physically and spiritually.

5:00-7:00pm:  This is free time.  Take a nap or a shower, catch up on email or whatever.  I spend some of this time preparing to write to you.

7:00pm: Dinner.  We gather and tell our thoughts from the day.

8:00pm: An official summary of the day including a count on professions of faith, people ministered to, and other details.  Generally we’ll close with another I Am Second devotional.

8:30pm:  You’re off.  Sleep, read, whatever.  I’ve been using some of that time to simply digest the day and perhaps do a little writing.

Tara and Carly handling the pharmacy.

There are other many little details that I’m leaving out such as stops at roadside stands to pick up bananas or water, making pb and j sandwiches for our lunches before we head out, and the daily search for something suitable for American girls to use as a restroom.  Heck, American guys for that matter.  (Peeing is fine, but have you ever squatted in the mud to take a dump?  It’s not fun trying to keep your balance and your pants out of the mess.  You can thank me later for the visual image that just brought up.)

Each day is different in it’s own way.  Above is a typical day, one that we would put on paper as a schedule.  In India there really is no such a thing as a schedule.  Do a google search for “India Standard Time” and you will find lots of references to this fact.

The core of the mission: Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We were told that our team would be sharing the gospel with about 300 people per day.  That has not been the case.  The first day we shared with about that number.  The second day we presented the gospel message to almost 450.  Today the crowd was nearly 700.  Each person that comes through the clinic is ministered to spiritually and hears a clear presentation of the gospel and is asked for a response.  I don’t have the exact figures yet, but we seem to be hitting about 40% of those that hear the gospel are making a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. 

It is amazing and humbling to think about and I thank you for being a part of this mission to bring Christ to what is spiritually a very, very dark land.

Joy

Today was the first day of our actual field mission.  We gathered around a breakfast much the same as the prior day but with the addition of a chickpea and tomato curry and boomba bread.  Before we actually dig into breakfast we have a short I Am Second devotional.  A great way to start the day.  Spirits were high as we were all filled with anticipation and a strong desire to actually get on with the work we came so far to do.

Our bus arrived and we loaded up.  It was about a 50-minute drive to the mission site and it took us out of the bustling cities and into farmland.  There are always people on the road and even out in the middle of nowhere there will be roadside stalls offering fresh produce, cellular phones, welding repair, or any other number of odd products and services.  I don’t believe you can drive more than two minutes without seeing some small shack of a commercial nature.

The courtyard at the school on our first field day.

On the outskirts of a small village we come to our destination, a public school complex of about four buildings, all of them open-air and only a couple with more than a dirt floor.  Our “nationals” were already waiting for us.  In missionary jargon “nationals” are those local believers that you partner with.  These include translators, lay people, and others that provide help and services for the mission.  In addition to the nationals, several of the school children were waiting for us as well.  Technically they had the day off from school so that we could use their classrooms, but they couldn’t resist coming to see the big production.

A small crowd was waiting to visit our clinic when we arrived.

People were already waiting for our clinic to open so we set about the business or organizing the medical stations and the sharing stations.  Exam areas were set-up as was a dispensary for the glasses and for the medications.  As we set up it became clear that this was education at it’s most fundamental level.  There were no desks, but rather a collection of crude wooden benches of various heights.  The floor is not paved at all and instead offers an uneven surface of very hard-packed earth.  No whiteboard, no projectors, no bulletin boards.  Not even a chalkboard was to be found.

This is a tribal area of India and Christianity has had some success here.  Tribal people are generally considered so low that they do not even have a caste.  In Indian society they are the lowest of the low.  They aren’t received by anyone in Indian society and so they are very receptive to the message that God loves them.  Taking all this into account, it was not too surprising that a lot of the people we ministered to today were already Christians, mainly Baptist with a few Catholic’s thrown in.  The remainder of the people we encountered were Hindu or professed no real religion.

While sharing with fellow Christians wasn’t exactly what I had expected, it was no less fulfilling.  To walk the streets of India is, to me, an image of hell.  The vast majority of the people you meet on the street do not smile at you as you pass.  I’m not sure they smile at all.  There is almost no spontaneous joy to be found.  Misery, toil, and filth are overwhelmingly present.  There is not even the sniff of hope in the air.  It is difficult to describe the despair and darkness that is so present here.  It is how Satan would have us live.  This overwhelming oppression of the spirit is why the time interacting with Indian Christians is so revealing.

Three beautiful Assamese believers.  Unfortunately I caught them between smiles.

As a whole, the Christians we met were simple people.  Most could not read or could read very little.  Their possessions are not much more than what they have on their backs and some cooking utensils at their home.  The very basic occupation of simply surviving is their career path.  But their warmth of spirit and contagious joy is in such contrast to everyone else that you see and interact with on the streets of India.  These people smile readily and their smiles are so genuine and warm. They share with you and are completely open with their faith.  We pray together and I’m moved several times to the point of holding back tears brought on by the beauty of their spirit and it’s incredible light in this place of so much darkness.  It is an amazing reminder of something we tend to forget in Americanized faith:  the simple joy of salvation and the knowledge that God loves us.  It is, as Philippians 4:7 states “…….the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding……….” 

I am like most people.  I fill my mind with things like wondering whether my first meal on American soil will be bacon and eggs or a steak.  I concern myself with whether the wi-fi will be up at the hotel.  I’m kind of digging this little laptop that was loaned to me for the trip and think I should consider buying one.  Or maybe an iPad.  I would like to spend the money to fix up my pick-up to something near the condition it was 170,000 miles ago.  I'd like to spend some more time riding my motorcycle.

But these types of thoughts that are common to most of us remind me of how selfish and ungrateful I am.  I have so many blessings, more than I can ever think to count.  And sitting before me, time after time, are these very poor, mistreated Christians with no opportunity before them on this earth and with great concern as to whether they will have a meal today.  And they pour out a joy in God that fills the room entire room and my heart.  It is enough for them.  It should be enough for me.

My Indian friends have so much to teach me.

Communion

 

It’s Sunday here in India and a mixed day for us here.  In the morning our team will split up to go to area church services.  This afternoon is a bit of personal time until around 4:00pm when we’ll all get together for some additional training before heading to the field tomorrow to set up our first medical clinic.

Rickshaw cabbies await the morning's business over sweet tea.

Larry and I were up early and after depleting the instant coffee available to us, decided to go out for a stroll.  Mark joined us and we had a nice visit about the state of our team and the struggles some members are having.  It was very early and the street was just coming alive.  Merchants at the various small huts along the roadside were sweeping their dirt sidewalks with bundles of grass.  Cabbies squatted near trash fires lit near the stalls for their rickshaws, warming their hands in the 50-degree chill.  The street never really gets quiet here.  There is always a horn honking somewhere and the voice of a bus worker notifying the neighborhood that the bus will be leaving soon.

At dawn and dusk street people burn trash to ward off the cold.

We returned back to the hotel and had a good breakfast.  Stir-fried vegetables, potato and pea curry, an odd but very good dough-like substance that reminds me a lot of Cream Of Wheat with all the moisture squeezed out and some sugar added.  The only thing they don’t seem to understand here is coffee in the American/European sense.  Everywhere seems to have one of those fake cappuccino machines that we see at convenience stores in the states.  It produces a substance that is exactly unlike coffee with hot milk.

Tezpur's Baptist Hospital complex.

Our group split up into two in order to attend local church services.  My group went to the local Baptist church.  This church is located about three blocks from our hotel in the middle of a Baptist hospital complex.  Once on the complex we took a wrong turn and ended up wandering the halls a bit.  Yes, it is a hospital, but no, it is nothing like the states.  This is field medicine.  A lot of beds in a shared ward, open air windows to let the flies in and out, and families visiting and bringing the food for their loved ones.  I'm sure that it is the best of care that can be had in this area of India, but it is still very primitive by our standards.

As is almost always the case when out of country visitors are present, one of the visitors is asked to give the message.  Being the Pastor in our group, Mark was tapped early.  With decades of experience, Mark always has a message or two he can prepare in a moments notice so he gladly accepted.  He was asked while we were having breakfast so he spent a little bit of time reviewing a scripture or two and putting the message together in his head.

When we arrived at the church we were warmly welcomed and ushered to our seats.  It’s a very familiar looking and plainly adorned chapel that would be at home in most small towns in the states.  Seating is segregated by sex: women on the left and men on the right.  We had two young ladies in our group and the hosts were very accommodating, allowing our ladies to stay with us.  We were taken to the front pew.

The Pastor of this church, a distinguished looking Indian man with graying hair and beard, came and introduced his self before the service.  At first he keyed in on me, commenting on and appreciating the fine layer of gray that adorns my goatee.   He assumed I was the Pastor but I immediately directed him to Mark.  Again, he had an appreciation for grey facial hair, this time the ones on Marks chin.  He asked Mark what he planned to speak on.  Mark replied that he was going to give a message on unity and told the Pastor what verses he was using. 

The Pastor nodded and smiled as Mark explained his plan.  Then he said, “You will preach on the last supper, yes?”  With only minutes to go until the service started, Mark could only agree.  No doubt Mark was remembering the many times he told us to be very flexible during the trip.  He now had about five minutes in between songs and offerings in order to plan a 40-minute sermon that would translate well into the Hindi culture.

There was plenty of music, most of it accapela and most of it old Baptist hymns.  The richness of the voices raised in simple song was incredible.  There was a special music group of young ladies that sang a more traditional Indian worship song.  I was sneaky enough to bring my pocket stereo recorder and I wish I knew how to post an MP3 here.  It is beautiful and so filled with spirit and such a contrast the complete cacophony of noise that is Indian traffic.

The simple chapel at Baptist Hospital in Tezpur.

Mark took the stage and even though a few of his Western humor jokes didn’t come evidently come across well, he pulled off a nice message for communion Sunday.  It was a very special experience to share communion with brothers and sisters from halfway around the world.  Our cultures are completely different, our language barrier is extreme to say the least, and I am sure we are just as much of an oddity to them as they are to us.  But we share one common bond through Christ.  To me it is simply incredible that complete strangers with such vast differences can both look at a cup of wine and a piece of bread and communicate the greatest truth in the world.  Not only is it communion with God, but a communion that is universal among believers, no matter the divide that is between us in an earthly sense.

Tonight is more training and a rundown on the schedule for our first day in the actual mission field.  It seems like it has been a long time coming and we are all anxious to let the work begin.

Echolocation

 We left Delhi the next day and flew to Guwahati.  The flight was unremarkable.  It was timely and the service from the government funded Indigo Air was exceptional for a small airline.

Mark keeping watch of our luggage.

Guwahati airport is more like a third-world airport should be.  There is cracked plaster, water damage, quite a surprising number of army guards carrying semi-automatic weapons, and a wide array of traditional and contemporary dress.  After some (you guessed it) food, we waited for our transport to arrive.  There isn’t a lot to do in this airport.  No wi-fi, no Starbucks, no…..well, not a lot of anything.  Traditional tea booths and a shop selling yards and yards of the traditional silk fabric used here for dresses.  Lovely stuff.

A clear view of the road is not really needed for driving in India.

Our transport arrived.  It is what we would call either a large van or a small bus.  It’s kind of the Indian equivalent of an airport shuttle.  As you can see, on this one the luggage is on the roof and held in place by rope and faith.  You may also be able to see that keeping a clean line of sight through the windshield is optional.  In fact, it’s absolutely fine to tape any flora or fauna that you happen to be worshipping today right in the line of sight.  That way you can concentrate on that instead of the task of driving.  But that’s OK.  Driving is not done by sight.  It is done by sonar.  I’ll get back to that later.

The road is crowded with everything from full size trucks to bicycles to three-wheeled taxi’s to common passenger cars and carts pulled by hand or water buffalo.  Add to this a few thousand pedestrians, many with large parcels of straw or bamboo tied to their back, along with a few mystics and gurus panhandling, and you get an idea of the crowding on India’s roads.  The lanes are reversed here so you drive on the left side of the road. 

Mostly.  Actually, what you do is drive on the left until you feel like you can go faster than whatever is in front of you.  Then you begin weaving back and forth while honking your horn constantly.  This is where sonar comes in.  Relying on that same technology that bats and submarines do, the driver listens for an echo to his horn and if he hears none, he swerves fully into the oncoming lane and guns the motor.  At the last possible minute, when he hears an echo from an oncoming vehicle, he swerves back into the left hand lane, narrowly avoiding the vehicle he just passed.  A narrow miss is still a miss, nonetheless.

The drivers view.  Note the writing on the back of the truck.

Well, maybe that isn’t exactly how it works, but it is certainly the impression one gets.  It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  After a while there becomes a sort of rhythm to it.  You begin to notice that it is like a large dance floor at a fine West Texas country-western bar frequented by gifted two-steppers.  They swirl around their girls and scoot their boots and it all becomes a glorious bit of coordinated chaos with not one unintended touch of someone else’s partner.  The Indian traffic madness is like that only with less beer and even more polyester.

Finally it turns dark enough that it seems the driver really is operating by sonar.  There is no way to see the bicycles and water buffalo who, it seems, are not equipped with reflectors for some reason.  Oh well.  The dark makes it easier not to panic.

We finally arrive in Tezpur.  The hotel is nice and dinner is in about 30 minutes.  The greatest relief is that we are now actually where we need to be to do the mission.  These recent posts may have been interesting and all, but they are too much of a travelogue and not what I was sent here to do.  I’m really looking forward to getting to interact with the people of this country and share with them.  I believe they have a lot to teach me.

Tomorrow is Sunday here and we’ll be attending church services with local believers an doing some additional training for the medical mission of the coming week.

Monotony

Travel, travel, travel.  Huge amounts of boredom interrupted by very, very small bits of interesting stuff and culminated by a good meal, odd rooms, and stuffy noses.

We were able to meet Joel at DIA.  His college buddies drove him all through the night to meet with use at 4:00am to do the security and check in dance for the first leg of our flight, Denver to Chicago.  Joel has a neat story and I’ll get to it on another day.

The flight to Chicago was smooth and faultless.  At Chicago we first spent a good portion of our nearly six hour layover getting to know one another, talking about the mission schedule, and doing an I Am Second study.  With less than about 40 minutes to spare, Tara’s plane landed from California and she joined the team.  Tara is a 20 year old who is doing more travel and mission work before her 21^st birthday than most of us will do in a lifetime.  More on her later.

Th in-flight update screen.  Depressing.

Monotony.  There is not other word to describe a nearly 15 hour flight across the frozen waste of the northern hemisphere.  There is an old saying that it’s the journey, not the destination, that makes the trip memorable.  In many cases that is true.  In the case of spending more than half a day cramped in a droning tube of smell and bad food several thousand feet above the earth……The destination will certainly win out.

After what seemed like an eternity, our plane landed in Delhi.  It’s a thoroughly modern airport, something that probably shouldn’t have disappointed me but oddly enough did.

The good part was that after we picked up bags from the carousel and checked ourselves through customs, Charles Golla was waiting for us with cabs.  Charles is our main person in India.  He is the sort of man that the second he smiles at you and offers you his hand, you know you are going to like him.  You can tell that he has a heart as big as the continent he calls home. 

After our first exposure to the madness that is called “traffic” in India, we arrive at our hotel for the night.  Charles checked us in, two to a room and we all went upstairs to drop off our bags and agreed to meet in the lobby in 15 minutes to exchange currency and go to dinner.  Larry and I got teamed up together, which is just fine by me.  We’ve traveled together before and get on well.  But……….we don’t get on so well that we feel comfortable sharing what seemed to be a wide twin size bed.  That bed, along with walls a lovely shade of lilac and one of the most unique bathrooms I have ever encountered, are what we found in our room.

The single bed in the room too small.

We figured we’d sort it out later.  Right now it’s time to get down to the lobby and switch currency.  We’re switching not only an average of $200.00 in personal funds for each team member, but also enough to cover the entire teams hotels, vehicles, meals, etc.  In all, several thousands of U.S. Dollars are exchanged for several tens of thousands of rupees.  The rate is 48 rupees to the dollar and I feel like a prince when I get a sizeable stack of 500 rupee bills in exchange for my short stack of four $50.00 bills.  The whole transaction takes place in the lobby of the hotel and for some reason I keep thinking that one of the Soprano’s is going to come around the corner at any moment.  It’s all up-front and above-board, of course, but there is something odd about counting out all that currency anywhere other than a bank.

A buffet dinner was set up in the hotel restaurant for us.  I’m in tall cotton.  Good curries, great breads.  Peasant food at it’s absolute best.  This may be the first time in my life that I’ve had a completely meatless meal and been very satisfied.  I think that it is possible that Matt and Carly will drop several pounds.  Spicy foods are not Matt’s favorite and the lack of his own product (beef) is a disappointment to him.  Perhaps we’ll get him trained before the trip is out.

We mentioned the shared beds and our gracious host, Charles, spoke to the hotel management.  They hadn’t really considered two 200 pound Americans in a room about the size of a large American bathroom.  But all was made well in the end and most of us were moved to rooms with two beds in them. 

There is one small spot in the lobby where the internet connection actually works with one tiny bar of signal strength.  Needless to say, that is not where I am updating the blog.  I was able to check my email and give my wife a little comfort by letting her know I had made is safely to Dehli.  I also let her know how to make popcorn and encouraged her to take Eric up on his offer to help around the house, particularly with shoveling the estimated ten inches of snow that was due to come at any time.  Eric, you can thank me later.

Tomorrow……more travel.  This time to our final destination, Tezpur.