May 2007

This was originally written in May 2007

Hello from India!

I finally got an Internet connection today so I'm writing a general newsletter to all who might be interested in my trip. My plane was late coming in from Frankfurt, but I arrived here safely after a long and tiring flight. Pastor Kumar and his family met me at the airport and after a twenty minute trip we arrived at the church about 2AM. Many people live in the building, but they gave me my own room with a private bathroom and shower. I have to turn the heater on to get the water hot and I learned the hard way that I should have an extra bucket of clean water on hand just in case the water gets turned off unexpectedly!

Everyone here has been very kind to me. The younger ones call me "Auntie" (which is a sign of respect in India), and the older ones call me "Sister". The children are very well behaved and obedient. If anyone thinks I might need help, or a drink, or something else they jump up to get it, or an adult will ask one of the children to get it for me. I feel like an honored guest, but I keep telling them to treat me just as they would anyone else. Everyone is always busy. Pastor Kumar is speaking in other towns a lot and Salome entertains visiting pastors and guests. She also counsels people and prays for them and studies to prepare for her weekly ladies teaching. The girls and children who live here are always hard at work with cleaning, cooking, doing the laundry, Bible study or personal prayer.

May is their month of prayer to seek the Lord and this is the fourth year in a row that they have done this. Many are on a 21 day juice fast also, and a lot of them are skinny to begin with! Their stamina in amazing and they tire me out, but I'm so happy to be here. The daily schedule is:

5-6:30 AM morning prayer, 10-2 AM afternoon service, 7 to 9 or 9:30 PM evening service

(That means almost eight hours of church a day for a month!)

One morning last week they introduced me to the people of the church and asked me to speak so I said how glad I was to be there and that I just wanted to learn from them and to show them love. On Sunday they have an English speaking service. This past Sunday, Pastor Kumar's son Samuel led the English worship and I recognized most of the songs. There was about a ten minute time where everywhere was praising the Lord and praying in tongues. It was like a roar of worship. I got introduced after that and gave my testimony. After the service, there was a baptism at the house next door. A previously Hindu woman gave a confession of faith and was baptized by Kumar.

The services are mostly in Tamil, with a mixture of Kannada (kahn-ah’-dah), Telugu (tel-oo’-goo) , English and tongues thrown in. I don't know what is going on unless I can get with another English speaking person to translate for me. Although I can't understand much, I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit here. Different people will stand up as they feel led to praise the Lord, pray, or start singing a song. There is so much love, joy, peace and unity here! The services go on for hours with loud praises, prayer and shouting. It's like a pep rally for the Lord. They also pray and intercede for those who are lost in Hinduism, their country, their government, other churches, etc. For example, one will get up and say, "Let's pray for the youth, that they will stay strong in the Lord.", and then they all start praying individually out loud for several minutes and then they stop and pray for something else. They don't ever seem to get tired of praying and praising the Lord. At times, the presence of God is very strong--whether in or out of the services and I feel privileged to be here.

There is no air conditioning in the building and the temperature varies from 75 degrees at night to 95 degrees during the day. Since they are in town and there is a Hindu family next door, they are required to shut the windows on that side so there is no cross breeze through the sanctuary. There are fans, but several times during a service this week the power went off and then they turned on the generators for the lights and sound system. There wasn't enough extra power to run the fans, but even in the heat and darkness, they kept praising the Lord. Many of these people have been fasting and getting up at 5 or 6 AM, coming to the four hour mid-day service and then to the evening service also. There are a lot of children and if they are old enough, they usually participate in the service or go to "Sunday school", which could be any day of the week. If they are small and tired, they just fall asleep on their mother's lap or on the floor without crying.

I love the Indian food. They eat with their fingers, which is fun. They keep offering me a fork or spoon and I keep refusing it because I want to eat like they do. The first dinner here we had dosas (flat rice pancakes), spicy scrambled eggs and coconut paste. You take a piece of dosa and fold it over, then use it to pinch up some eggs and coconut. I also had some mango juice made from "mango smash" (which is a concentrate) and tasted some "banana juice" which was a banana milkshake.

Salome, the pastor's wife and her sister Hosanna took me shopping to get four cotton salwar kameez . They are dresses with a long slit on the sides and baggy pants underneath. A matching scarf is draped over their shoulders and the scarf is used to cover their heads when they pray. I also bought some workbooks to help me learn Tamil and Hindi (the national language) while I'm here.

I've been taking many pictures and hope to get them up on my website soon. I've also been working on getting a cell phone so I will have a number for people to call me here. Many times the e-mail will not get through and that might be because of a government filter, so I have used a quotation mark to replace vowels in words that might be noticed. I hope that will help, but I won't really know that each one of you has received my letter unless you respond to it.

Keep me in your prayers.

I send my love to you all,
Bonnie