Letters from my trip to India

Pictures from Kerala

2009-02-25T23:22:00.003+05:30

I apologize for not having proper pictures in yesterday's post. So to show that I am sorry, I have uploaded a nice collection of photos starting from when we left Delhi and continuing all the way up till yesterday.

The last few days we've really been "sight-seeing." Near where I am now there happen to be a lot of "mountainous" locations. Don't be deceived into thinking its like Mt. Everest or anything over here, but these high locations give a great view of the area.

They also have a dam and some reservoir areas where we also took some pictures.

I'm on a dial-up connection. Its a blessing and a handicap at the same time: handicap because its so slow but blessing because at least I have some connection to the world! So things move very slowly for me and I'm going to use that excuse to not put up each picture individually here. Instead I'll put the link to the album and you can view it at your leisure. =)

I even added captions to all the pictures... so check them out!

First Round of Kerala Pictures

Or if that doesn't work: Photo Album

Okay, Good night!!

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God Bless You!

Kerala!

2009-02-23T12:55:00.003+05:30

Well, so I've finally made it to Kerala!

The train rides were fantastic. Especially from Pune to Kerala, there were some very scenic points. And you know me, I took tons of pictures. Unfortunatly, unlike past posts which are full of photos, I dont think this one will have even ONE of my own photos. Maybe I'll temporarily hotlink some images from a friend's blog....

Been in Kerala for about a week now. I guess today marks exactly one week. Im at my mother's house right now. There was a wedding (Bindu aunty's sisters) in a place between where my dad's house is and where my mom's house is. So I figured I'd attend the wedding and come straight to my mom's place for a few days.

The wedding was nice. We got there a bit late, and so the church was already packed. We stood outside and by the windows for a little while. Finally I became bold enough to walk in and take a photo :-P ... and thats when one uncle (Joykutty uncle) saw me. He started waving to me to come inside and sit down. I was a bit hesitant from the door, especially because I didnt see any empty seats. But upon his insistance I went in. In front of all the people. And the cameras. It was difficult. So when I got to him, turned out the only empty seat was in the FIRST ROW. Yes, the FIRST ROW like even in front of where the bride's SISTER was sitting! Talk about embarrassing... Anyways, my blushes was partly saved. About a minute later they found a seat for me a few rows back (next to Blessonchachen's mom). Then things were okay. Steven and Sharon were seeing me for the first time in about 5 months, but it was great to see that they still remembered. Good times... good timess...

Like I said... pictures will have to come later!

Then I've been here at my mom's place and visiting our mom's side relatives for the last few days. Good stuff. We are going for some good ole sightseeing soon. There isnt much, especially because its semi-dry season... so all the dams and waterfalls and stuff are dry/drier than usual.

So here are some hotlinked =o photos from my friend's site. Be sure to visit his blog also : http://www.ppeapen.blogspot.com

sorry about the big size...

Thanks for reading and keep praying!!

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Rajasthan and more!

2009-02-04T23:09:00.005+05:30

Rajasthan (seat of the Rajas, aka kings :))

So last weekend I had one of my most enjoyable moments on this trip so far!

I took a train (Jan-Shathapti) to Kota, Rajasthan. It was a 7 hour ride, but who would've guessed. The "AC-Chair Car" was not too bad. Last time I took one of these "shathapti" trains, everything was free. Like food I mean, not ticket! So this time also I figured it would be free, I mean Shathapti is Shathapti, right? Wrong. Turns out that time I had gone on the Rajadani Shathapti, which is far superior to the Jan Shathapti. So anyway, long story short, the guy asked if I wanted lunch and I said to myself, "Sure, Im not feeling hungry at all (I had eaten at home) but if it's free, why not!?"

I ate some of the chapati and some dal, but it wasn't too great. Then everything was fine till I realized that unlike the first train, in this one people kept walking up and down the aisle yelling, "cool drinks, dood, frootiiiii" or "biscut chips biscut chips!" or "paaaaniiii, panipani paannniii" Haha. After hearing this I realized, yea they were charging for all this stuff. And surely enough, towards the end of the trip the guy came back to me and asked for 30 some rupees for the food. =)

Beside the fact that the train was 2 hours late, and that Bro. Renny, who was picking me up and with whom I was staying, had to wait at the station the whole time... the journey was not bad at all.

The people I was staying with turned out to completely blow my expectations out of the water, in a very very good way. In retrospect, I'm thinking I should have stayed longer. But unfortunately I couldn't. Saturday I spoke at the cottage meeting and Sunday again at the service.

Sitting on their terrace. This shot came out unusually well...

Eating Put! =) With banana (it was extra good because Renny bhaiya prepared the coconut by hand =) )

Taken while riding on a motorbike =P

After the cottage meeting... he came up RIGHT INTO MY FACE!!

At the park

Again at the park, above it says I'm in the hospital! =)

I saw this elephant and just HAD to take this picture haha!

Directing traffic... I was actually taller than the rim of that stand!

Being mischievous again. That statue was fenced in and about 5ft off the ground =)

Swwweeet looking shot. This is a reservoir of a dam.

Easily Distracted?

Nice bike!

Sunday night was our night out. We went to a park and then another park next to it...

We took a LOT of photos =) Then we finished the night off with some amazing Firdos food! If you ever go to Kota, go to Firdos. Buy the Mutton ... dish... with the B word after it. Its like the first one on the menu, I forgot the name though. It was amazingly awesome!

Then Monday morning 6am, took the train back to Delhi. This time the train was only 1 hour late, and I wasn't tricked into thinking the food for free. (I bought some food regardless... but that's because I was actually hungry this time) And thus ended my Rajasthan trip. There was so much more, but I just don't feel like writing it all down! Give me a break, its already 12:00 am here!

This is what the toilet in the train looked like, in case any of you were wondering:

Souvenir
Then there's that souvenir we've been working on for the past month or so. The one that would never save properly. The one where the files were like 400-500mb each. The one where if you brought the file from one computer to another (even the "proper" way) none of the fonts show up.... Yes... THAT souvenir is finally done and sent for printing!! THANK GOD. We celebrated with some KFC =] (Mind you, the KFC here tastes a little funny... kind of like the taste you get when you lick something off of aluminum foil. [don't look at me like that, you know you've licked things off of aluminum foil too!])

Now the meeting on the 6th of Feb (day after tomorrow) and I'm all set to go from here. Pune first, then Kerela! Yay!!

Wedding
Today I attended a wedding here in Delhi. The bride belonged to our church here. Married a guy from Maduri (near Agra)

The people (Bridegroom et. al. ) from Maduri were horribly late to their own wedding. But when they finally got here and we finally got started, everything went extremely well. Even afterwards (or during, for some of us) the food was awesome! I finally got to eat Gol Cupa (aka Pani Puri!) and noodles, and all these things. It was fantastic. Especially the Gol cupa, its mind boggling why it tastes so good! Only the sweet pani though, the chutney pani isnt so great.

My chow mien bowl was ripped!

Afterwards...

Next UP...
So my trip is somewhat winding down. On the 12th Ill leave from Delhi to Pune. It is about a 30 hr trip, but train, assuming the train will reach on time (which it wont). Then from Pune I'll go to Ernakulum, which is another 25-30 hr ride, with no delays.

All in all, those few days should be pretty intense! I like traveling on the train, so it will be fun.

So that finishes up another entry!

I know I forgot lots of stuff I should have added... but maybe I'll tell you those stories some other day!

Now I have to go because all these mosquitoes biting my ankles are starting to get annoying!

God Bless and Keep praying for all of us down here.

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God Bless You!

How Fast the Time Flies!

2009-01-25T20:42:00.005+05:30

My oh my, I cant believe that I have less than 20 days here in Delhi. Where did all the time go??

Since the last post, a LOT of things have happened, so I'll start with the least interesting things. =) Leave the best for last.

Chief Minister of Delhi
So some time last month we met with the Chief Minister of Delhi. For those of you who dont know, that is similar to the Governor of a state in the US. Here we are...

It was pretty cool, but for a person of so much power, she seemed to be pretty humble and down to Earth. Nice lady. She is also the first woman to hold this office for three consequtive terms in Delhi. Keep her in your prayers.

Muthoot
Some of you, (ok maybe just the malayalees reading), may have heard of Muthoot Finance Group. They are really fast growing banking company based from Kerela. My uncle and the top-most guy just happened to have been friends from before the company really shot up. By shot up I mean they have about 25 crore (250 million) customers in India. The guy is worth some 2000 Lakh Crores rupees... I dont even know how to write that... But someone said its close to 6 Billion dollars.

Souvenir
Next is the souvenir we are publishing here. It has pretty much taken up our entire life. We have no time for anything else. Shh, I should be working on that at this moment actually! eek. Its due to be printed and ready in 10 days. But the soft copy isnt even nearly finished. And they say it takes about 10 days to print......

If any of you want to post a advertisement or give us a compliment to put into the souvenir, please let me know asap. This is basically to raise money for the newspaper. The new format of the newspaper will cost nearly $2000 a month starting in February. And so this souvenir is just trying to get a little headstart on the funds. God will provide. If you would like to be his hands in this matter, please do let me know.

Deeper Christian Life Seminar

Yes, that picture was taken at the seminar, but it doesn't even begin to show how fun that week was. "That week" being last week (Jan 20- Jan24th). Aka- the week that never existed. Seriously, I remember going there on a Tuesday... next thing I know its already Saturday!! Where did the other days go?!??!

It was a fantastic seminar that really delved way past any other bible study I have attended. A man from Texas was the speaker, and the message he shared was just amazing. When I have more time (after February 6th), I will write about some of the life changing things I learned. Believe me, there will be a lot. =)

Some of our friends from Bihar and Jharkhand had also come for this seminar.

If you look on my facebook, you should find a picture of me with a thin guy in a white shirt in the album from when I came to Delhi in 2006. His name is Samuel Soren. We'll I kind of got a before-after picture. deko:

Now hes got a wife and a kid too. The kid is soo cool! His name is Joel =)

Clark
Last few weeks I also got the opportunity to meet with a guy from Alabama. His name is Clark Tucker. (find him on facebook?)
We got some time to spend together. Here we are at a mall near our house here, eating ice cream. yum.

Good times, good times =)

Sweet Yams

ok so maybe this blog didnt really come out in "least to most interesting order" I mean I have sweet yams last!

But yea, we bought it from the street... this hot sweet potato thing which was awesome!!

I dont know why, maybe I was just hungry... but those potatos were awesome.

Next Plans
Next I hope to go to Kota, Rajasthan. All the trains are booked full, but there is a way to pay a bit extra and get a seat, so I will be doing that. I'm thinking about taking the Friday train which will reach there around 7pm and then leave there on Monday morning around 6am.

Hope everything will work out.

Thanks for all your prayers, and God bless you all!!

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God Bless You!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2009-01-04T19:20:00.015+05:30

On my! Its almost been twenty some day since I've posted! Well a LOT of stuff has been going on. Warning you right now though, this post is going to have a LOT of pictures!

Christmas Meetings
So between the last post and now, I've been all of the following places for Christmas meetings (see last post for the Christmas meeting at the DeAddiction Center):

Mangolpuri

Badli

Baktavurpur

[That's me preaching there!... for like two mins...]

Kamal Park
(no photos =[)

Wazirabad

Hahaha at the end a drunk guy came onto the stage and started dancing.

Rohini

Sonepat, Haryana

These are also pictures of the kids at the orphanage at our Sonepat Church.

Samalkha, Haryana
[ :( no pictures of here either! ]

All the meetings went well. I had told you in the last post that I would be speaking at the Baktavurpur Meeting. The message itself was okay, unfortunately, somehow they ran out of time and out of my allotted 30 mins, I got a total of 7 mins! So that was a little messed up, but its forgivable.

The camp at Wazirabad was really cool. It was at a CRPF camp, I don't know exactly what that stands for letter by letter, but basically its Delhi's military RAPID ACTION FORCE. So if there is a big riot and police cant handle it or some terrorist attack somewhere, these are the guys who show up first. Almost 500 people from that camp attended the meeting. The Commanding Officer of the camp was also at the meeting. He was really impressed and told my uncle he had never before heard things like what my uncle had preached. Hmm, sound like a framiliar sentiment?

Most of these meetings had cake and tea at the end. Unfortunately, there seem to be no pictures of me eating any cake!! What a bummer.

Real Challenge Youth Camp
Next up was the Real Challenge youth camp in Sonepat, Haryana.

From 29Th to 31st, we had an awesome time. And that is an understatement!

We went by car from Delhi. Its about a hour, hour and half drive from here. So had to pack ourselves into this car. There were also a bunch of people and stuff coming with us, so it was pretty jammed up in there...

In total there about 150 kids from our different churches in Delhi and Haryana and a few from some of the other churches around here.

My friend Stanley from Kentucky was the main speaker. He is doing his masters at Asbury Theological Seminary (same school that Leslie went to!!). He has a great heart for India and so he visits all different places in India and Nepal and all around the world preaching the word of God. He's a very active speaker and so he engages his audiences very well. You'll see what I'm talking about through some of the photos of him preaching that are coming up.

Haha... 25% of his message is conveyed through his actions!

My Uncle preached two of the sessions and I also took two sessions.

During one of my sessions, these birds decided to come in and interrupt me haha.

This is Muskan (Muskan is the hindi word for smile...) shes one of the kids at the orphanage.

Shes pretending to be mad that I took her photo :)

And this is Daud, the only boy at the orphanage. Hes so naughty- all 5 girls combined wouldn't match him.

Washing dishes! =]

Hey where'd the kid under my right arm go?

These were taken at night after one of the days of camp when we were just chilling and having fun.

As we were eating breakfast one day, Stanley opened his hard boiled egg to find TWO yolks! Pretty rare find:

On the 3rd day of camp Stanley and I taught the group the song Mighty to Save. It was such a hit! Stanley came up with some actions on the spot for the Chorus and even now, almost a week later, people are still walking around singing and humming the song. Rarely does an English song have such a profound impact as this song did.

As I said, in total there were about 150 kids there. In past years only up to 110 kids have shown up, so this was a record. Problem was, though, up till a few months ago, the whole church hall was available for the camp. To make room for the orphanage, they divided the hall down the middle and made the left side the orphanage and kept the right side as the church. So basically, now more kids had to sit in half the space. At night the boys slept in the meeting hall, and the girls slept in a similar sized hall on the second floor.

As you can see, they like having their pictures taken.

You've probably seen a pastor praying for a little girl, but have you ever seen a little girl seriously praying for a pastor? This is Susmita, shes one of the girls at the Orphanage praying for Stanley because he was having stomach problems the whole week:

What actually happened was that she came to Stanley and asked him to pray for her because her head was hurting. Stanley told her that his stomach was hurting and asked if she would pray for him first. She did, she put her hand on his head and prayed for him! Then Stanley prayed for her and asked her if she felt better. She considered for a moment and truthfully answered that it hadn't gone away. So he prayed for her again and told her to report back after 10 minutes whether her pain had gone or not. And that's where the above picture took place. She came back and told him that her headache was all gone and asked him how he felt. He told her his stomach still hurt and so here she's praying for him again. None of this was staged, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time when this happened.

The meetings were awesome. God really changed some lives. As the days go by, more and more testimonies are coming to light of people who God seriously just touched during those 4 days. For example, there was one boy at the camp who had grown his hair our slightly and had a nice big stud in his left ear (ear-ring?- but not a ring...) to signify that he was a rebel. I had met him before the camp a few times and he came across as a decent guy but just one of those care-free ones. Well by the last day his life was really changed, he got up and gave a testimony, all crying and everything, about how God had really just brought to his conscience what he was doing with his life and made him realize that he wasn't going in the right direction. The testimony by itself is one thing, but if there was no change to prove it, then obviously it means nothing. Yesterday, however, his Pastor told me that he had come to church as a new person. He got rid of the ear-thing and cut his hair and in general had a noticeably new attitude. Hopefully God will help him to straighten out the mishaps in his life and help him continue on his new life.

The last day was awesome. They gave Stanley and Me these mementos for having preached in the camps. It looks pretty awesome:

At the end all the kids were mobbing us for autographs and numbers! It was pretty insane:

Some of them even wanted us to sign their bibles!

It was pretty sad when we were leaving...

Those are all the orphanage kids. From left: Daud, Maloti, Joba, Anchal, Susmita (tall), and Muskan (short). Anchal and Muskan are sisters from Uttaranchal and the rest are from West Bengal. The tall one in the middle is Stanley (obviously) and the one on the far right is my buddy Dilan.

Stanley was in Delhi for a few more days after the camp. But soon, he too left...

Its okay Stanley, we'll have more camps...

Watch Night Service
The next big event was the night of the last day of camp. It actually had nothing to do with the camp, except for the fact that we had to get back from Sonepat to Delhi before the watch night service started later that night.

For those of you who don't know, the Watch Night Service is usually held from 9/10 pm 2/3am starting on 31st Dec and ending on 1st Jan. The intent is to come together as a church and share what God has done for each person or family. Then usually the church will crossover into the new year worshiping God. It's a great event to really look back and ponder how good God is in our lives.

Needless to say, it usually also involves food. =) In my church in New Jersey, each family brings one dish and at the end (at like 2 in the morning) we all have fellowship together. Here in Delhi they had food first around 10pm and then meeting after that (coffee and cake mixed in :D )

In reversal of roles, my uncle got behind the table and was serving everyone :)

Taken during worship, everyone was having a great time!

Other Stuff
Even with all the meetings and stuff going on, we've been getting plenty of opportunities for fun.

Like the other day Stanley and Pastor Scott Martin and his family came over to our place.

The game? Try to throw that thing into the next person's mouth =P

ehh... close..

This one is just funny!

That was close...

Photo time, but of course SOMEONE looks at the wrong camera...

How about we just say that all of that was just an attempt to stay warm?

Temperature wise New York may be colder than Delhi, but in reality, we suffer more here because the outside temperate and the inside temperature are pretty much the same. In NY that's not the case, so its survivable. But here, we have to go around all bundled up all the time. Deko:

All normal daily "home" clothing =)

What's Next
To tell you the truth , I really have no idea what is next. We may just be traveling around Delhi visiting people for the upcoming newspaper celebration.

At some point between now and February 10 I will be visiting Kota, Rajasthan. But the dates and times for that still need to be settled.

Around January 20th a guy from Texas will be here taking class on "Deeper Christian Living." Its a 5 day program that our church here is organizing for about 100 people in a camp like fashion. Since the guy is American and will be speaking in English, this will be a very useful seminar for me. Above and beyond the usefulness of all other meetings, I mean.

Speaking of other meetings, I'm starting to be able to understand a lot Hindi now. I'm notice that I'm not completely lost when my uncle or other people are preaching in Hindi =D

Allllrighty! That's all for now. You are probably tired of reading anyways.

Just as I ask in every post, please continue to keep me in your prayers. Especially last few days I came under the difficulties of a cold and fever and such. Its not completely gone even yet, so please keep that in your prayers.

Even though I ask every week, its not just mere formality. Each day here in India is full of surprises. You may have heard about the bomb blasts in Gauhati, Assam. Its scary to think that I had been there, IN GAUHATI, just 3 weeks ago!!

Anything can happen anywhere in India in the blink of eye. Its only God's mercy and the fruit of your prayers that nothing bad has happened to us yet.

God Bless!

www.praisethealmighty.com is now up and running, if you are interested!!

If you have a thought or comment, I invite you to leave a comment on the site so other readers can also see it.

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God Bless You!

Christmas Season!

2008-12-19T12:04:00.006+05:30

So we've been back from Arunachal for about 10 days now. Not much has happened the last week. Now you should know by now that under normal circumstances that would be an understatement. But considering the last two months... not much has really happened the last week.

Newspaper
My uncle has a newspaper that he started back in 1999. Its a christian newspaper that reports on all the trouble and persecution that the church is going through. For the last ten years they (they being my uncle, aunt, and one or two people from the office) have successfully published every month, not even missing a single edition. Now that may not sound like a big deal, but when you factor in that their team comprised of about five people(with only about two of them actually knowing how to work the layout software and such), that they were doing the newspaper as a parallel ministry in addition to their other ministry which included evangelism, church planting, and ministry training school, AND that my uncle was frequently being invited to churches in other cities, states, and even countries to teach and preach there..... you can start to see that it was a pretty impressive feat. Oh did I mention that it was a 12 page newspaper?

It was God's grace and his grace alone that they have been able to reach this 10 year mark, because its almost humanly impossible alone. Anyways, to celebrate this occasion, they are holding a nice big "party"-gathering. Lots of the top political and Christian leaders in and around Delhi are invited and many have already confirmed. Basically we are trying to get the word out even more about this newspaper and to really establish it as a major presence.

From the 10 year mark, they are planning on expanding the newspaper. Right now its only 12 pages, black and white. From February it will be 24 pages with full color front and back pages. They are increasing the frequency of publication from monthly to bi-weekly (every two weeks... =P ). They are expanding the printing from 4000 copies now, to 10,000 copies! They are EVEN going to start an online edition. The online edition will start in January and is currently under construction. Bookmark it, the site will be http://www.praisethealmighty.com

It's going to an awesome source of news in the Christian world. You thought persecution of Christians in India and around the world was bad? You haven't seen ANYTHING yet.

Alcohol Recovery Center
Last week, in fact just yesterday, we held a Christmas meeting at an Alcohol Recovery Center near here in Delhi. The singing team brought down the house with Christmas songs and my uncle gave a nice message. It was a lot of fun. Most of the people at the center are between 25-45 years I'd say, but there were a few older and younger. While the center is called the Recovery Center, you wouldn't have thought so when they started dancing to the music at the end. All I will say is that they can really dance. They also had cake... yum.

Told you I questioned their sobriety...

Cake cutting...

haha "NO MORE NO MORE!!"

Our Office
So we have adopted a new policy here in the office. Everyday all the office staff (that would be like 5 people) come together at 9am and have a time of devotion. We take some time to worship through songs. We have begun a small devotional study of the letter of Apostle Paul to the Romans. So each day we read a chapter and discuss the chapter. Not really having done something like this before, and especially not with the book of Romans, I'm really getting a chance to study more of the Bible.

Its odd, from the past few times that I've spoken at the meetings, I've come away with a funny conclusion. Not exactly funny, but the fact that I seem to have a knack for preaching is evident. I don't know what it is exactly, but when I get up there God just gives me the words to speak and also this sort of adrenaline rush. It is all God's doing because people who talk to me regularly know that half the time my words just get all jumbled up when I'm talking fast and trying to get my ideas out. But God has helped me tremendously with my articulation. (Not really with day to day talking though, that's still the same. Sorry!)

But back to what I was saying, the problem is that I have a severe lack of knowledge of the Bible. I know some things, but it is not nearly enough if I'm to continue speaking. Obviously you can't teach what you don't know, and at the moment I don't even know what I don't know! So the only remedy is to just pick a book and start plowing through. We've only gotten to the 4th chapter of Romans and already so many things are coming to light.

For example, one question that comes up, when talking about believing on Jesus Christ as the only way for salvation, is, "What about all those hundreds of thousands of people who die everyday not ever having heard about Jesus? Surely God cant just damn them all to hell?" The answer to that is given right there in chapter 2.

14-16When outsiders who have never heard of God's law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God's law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God's yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences. Romans 2: 14-16 MSG

I pasted these verses from a version of the Bible called the Message version because it helps to really clarify and explain it. Basically it says that even people who have not received the laws of God will be judged by what is naturally right or wrong because God has built human beings with a conscience that tells them "Ok this is right, this isn't right." And on that day when everyone is judged by God, these people who have not heard the word of God will be judged according to whether they did what was right according to their natural instinct and conscience.

But of course this brings up the question as to why then do Christians have to go and tell others about the love of Jesus. There are two reasons for that. The first reason is because Jesus himself said, go into the world and tell people about me and so its a "command." But why this command? To what end or purpose is it there? In one word, the answer is peace.

People all over the world are suffering from a lack of peace. Now you may say, "well I'm happy with my life- everything is going well, its all good." But the issue arises when a problem comes into your life, as it is bound to do. No one lives a perfectly carefree life without any problems or worries. When problems come, we as people lose our grip on what we know and see and this leads to depression and all sorts of bad stuff. But Jesus came into this world to give you that peace to carry you through your difficult times. He not only opened the way for eternal life after death in this world, but He also send His Holy Spirit into the world so that you don't have to worry or be depressed. He is the ultimate comforter and no man or woman can comfort like he does. He made the way for life after death, and he also made a way for a happy peaceful life here on Earth. You will come to a point in your life where nothing humanly possible can offer peace or comfort. When you get to that point, two options naturally come up. One is the negative option that tells you to just quit, end it all, even end your life, that there is nothing worth living for and that there's no hope. But then there is always the other option, though it rarely occurs to people, and that option is eternal peace through Jesus Christ. If you don't believe me, hopefully one day you will remember these words and they may be of some use to you.

I don't actually know where all that came from, I wasn't actually planning on writing any thing like that. But see what you can learn from just a few verses? Its pretty powerful stuff.

So yea, we have devotions now. =)

Not much else. I told you about the Christmas meeting at the Alcohol Recovery Center. Christmas meetings are going to be held at all of our churches, so that comes to like 7 or 8 meetings the next few days. You may remember the photos from a school that we went to a few weeks back for Children's Day. We'll we are having a Christmas meeting there and my uncle asked me to Speak there. So that will be interesting. Please do keep that and all the other meetings in your prayers. While the meetings are titled Christmas Meetings, the purpose of these meetings like all other meetings is to tell the people about the Love, Peace, and the promise of eternal life with and through Jesus Christ. So please pray that God may touch some lives this Christmas season.

Aur sub tikhe abhi. Toda thund he, lekin jadha nehihe... acha climate he. Parumeshur hume bahoth ashish denge. Apka prarthana ke liye me danyawad detahum!

[Everything is okay now. Its a little cold, but not much, its just good climate. God has blessed us very much. I thank you all for your prayers!]

Thanks for reading! As a present... you can see the dancing I told you about at the beginning! Click on the video to see it even bigger.

and

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God Bless You!

Arunachal Pradesh!

2008-12-12T13:54:00.007+05:30

Praise God!

We got back from Arunachal a few days ago. I was intending to update the blog right away, but then I came down with a bit of a stomach virus last few days. By God's grace its pretty much all gone and I'm feeling splendid again. I just thank God that the first food poisoning that hit me occurred right while I was at home. It may have been pretty difficult if we weren't home... and especially so if a western toilet wasn't available! phew! You know, when we were in Bihar and Jharkhand I came to the conclusion that the Indian toilet wasn't all that bad. I mean you don't have to touch anything or risk getting germs all over you or anything. The only bad side is that your legs start to hurt after a while... which could be a big problem if you're sick. But other than that, its a pretty good deal! =P

So moving on from the toilets...

On the 5th (of Dec...) we took a flight from Delhi to Gauhati in the state of Assam. Security was pretty high at the Delhi Airport...

Yes, that's a police man on top of a truck with a machine gun...

The security was extra high that day because apparently earlier in the morning, around 1am, there was a report of a sound like that of gun fire near one of the gates. They say that it was probably a false alarm and that they didn't find any evidence. But because of that, things were pretty tense while we were at the airport.

Our flight was a bit late, but we did eventually reach Guwahati Airport in Assam. Assam is directly south of Arunachal, but to get from the airport to where were going, we needed to take a helicopter. The other option was a 10 hour drive over non-existent roads... so getting the helicopter was crucial. The problem was that if any of the politicians needed the helicopter, then it wouldn't be available to the public under normal circumstances. Even till the morning of our flight from Delhi our helicopter status was unknown because some minister had booked it for that day. But when we got to Guwahati, one of my uncle's relatives who works in that airport (in the air traffic control tower!) was able to book us the last three seats on the 8-seater helicopter.

My ticket:

You may notice that it says Johan Thomas. Simple mistake right? I mean Jones-- Johan ... they all almost sound the same. Except for the fact that my uncle sent a text-message to the people with all our names and stuff... so don't ask me how they managed to come up with Johan haha.

And it wasn't even just the helicopter ticket:

That's our inter-line pass... kind of like a visa, but this is just to go to another state; they make you take this when traveling to Arunachal and some other places. Weird, I know- Welcome to India. But anyway, so for the trip I was officially named Johan Thomas. =) Not a terribly bad name huh, what do you think?

Anyways, even though they messed up my name, thank God for that helicopter, because after having seen the mountains and stuff we flew over, I cant even begin to think of how gruesome that ride would have been in a car. The helicopter ride was pretty nice, lots of scenic views.

This is a picture of the pilots:

meeeee:

The trip was so scenic and interesting in fact that my uncle ...

dozed right off to sleep. :)

Levitating and hovering and stuff itself wasn't very frightening, but you cant help but be a little worried when you see the pilot looking at a map and then looking around out the window...

But with map or not, we finally got there:

Arunachal Pradesh is a pretty nice place. When taking the whole of India into perspective, it is really one place which stands out. It reminded me a lot of Kerela. Lots of green, fresh air, mountainside roads, and awesome views. Even better than Kerela, there was very little traffic and no crazy speeding transport buses! There were still malayalees though. You cant ever get away from malayalee people =)

They apparently don't like Bangladeshi people... The sign says:

"BANGLADESHIS GO BACK"
Illegal immigration of Bangladeshis
is restricted(?) in Arunachal Pradesh

Support AAPSU

"Operation Clean Drive"
"Save Arunachal Pradesh"

So definitely some strong feelings being expressed there...

From speaking with malayalee people there, we got mixed impressions of the native people of Arunachal. The setup there is with various tribes. The different tribes have different cultures and languages. The government has recognized about 25 of the tribes as having unique languages, but there are still many that the government hasn't yet recognized. From what we heard about the people, they are very good people. When they set their heart and mind on something, they are very loyal to whatever that may be. They are very civilized, but much of this "civilization" has come only within the last 20-30 years. As such, they are prone to turning back to their old ways. By old ways I mean their sword welding ways. Many of the people who have not come to Christianity (and even some that have come!) always walk around with a 1-3ft long machete. If problems come up, they are not in the least bit hesitant to unsheathe the blade and take a swing. In a quick moment, the tribal nature springs right back up.

But for all the tribal brutality that is in them, there is an equally great amount of civility and loyalty. We being the chief guests from Delhi, we were treated almost royally. They served us water, tea, almonds, cashews, and all sorts of things right during the meeting! Being someone who stops chewing whatever I'm eating if someone begins to pray, seeing all this food in front of us during the meeting was pretty ... interesting.

The ladies have an interesting cultural dress code there. Basically, they wear the same thing that old south indian men wear: the lungi! They call it a gailee and it looks way better, but in effect its just the same thing!

Those are two groups doing action songs during the meeting.

I guess they don't really have a cultural top because most of them were just wearing t-shirts or other western-style tops.

They gave us these really cool looking vests. Each tribe makes different patterns so its easy to identify where the vest came from. This is me wearing mine.

I just have a tie because everyone here dresses up nice and fancy. Remember? I said they were civilized! =)

The meeting organizers put us up at a really nice hotel. Nothing flashy or fancy, but they had running hot water and a hot shower which is definitely a luxury in India. They also had really nice soap =P. You can probably guess that I took long relaxing HOT showers.

This was our hotel room:

The meeting that we were attending was actually an early 2-day Christmas Celebration meeting. And so they were serving food after most of the sessions. In Arunachal, and some other parts of India, there is this animal called a Mithun. Apparently it's like some sort of buffalo/cow that is on steroids. It's not ACTUALLY on steroids, but if you saw one, that's what you'd think. It is said to have the purest meat in the world. It is "domesticated" but it lives in the wild. Surprisingly, the owner of the mithun will know exactly where it is at all time of the year even though it is free to wander around on its own. It follows the same routes, supposedly, through the forests. Anyway, its a prized animal, and for this meeting, they got one.

I literally mean they GOT one.

Now I'm a decently brave soul when it comes to food items. I mean I can eat pork with no problems, and I'm unfazed even after hearing the diet the pigs in India consume (word to the wise, unless you are pretty strong-willed, don't go asking about a pig's diet if you plan on eating pork from India). So when they served this mithun, I was fine. First piece I tasted was liver... liver tastes same in everything. I don't really like liver, but I figured ok, next piece will be better. Unfortunately the next one was also liver =[. My uncle was bold enough to ask our hosts what they had served us, and it was only then we learned that they had just served us the stomach and intestine parts. If you feel like regurgitating whatever is in your stomach, you can imagine how we felt.

We were sitting in their traditional kitchen/eating place. Their houses are pretty much completely built from bamboo. The thing in the middle is a large stove and a place to dry/smoke meat.

A better view of the stove.

As culturally enriching as it was, I think we all liked our hotel meals slightly better.

Soon it was time for us to go back. Once again we barely got seats on the helicopter. This is the plane, and those people walking ahead of us are very important people.... (They went to the VIP lounge at the helipad :))

My uncle getting in =)

To be sure that we didn't miss the helicopter, we got on the first flight in the morning. That brought us back to Guahati by 9am. Our flight to Delhi wasn't till 3pm, so we had plenty of time to kill.

by sleeping...

and listening to something...

It was a very tiring day...

But in the end, everything worked out and so all was good.

I know today's post seems a bit choppy, but there have been complaints that my posts are too long, and since I have so much to say, I tried to jump through all the topics. I still probably missed a nice bit!

Whats next?
Now that the Christmas Season is here, there will be a bunch of Christmas meetings around at all our churches. There will be one more youth camp here in Haryana.

One of the evangelists working with my uncle, who graduated from this program, is going to be getting married soon. Most likely the wedding will occur in West Bengal or Jharkhand, so we may get to go there one more time. Pray that all the plannings will work out smoothly for them.

As for going to Kerela, I may leave for Kerela right after that wedding. Otherwise the absolute latest will be February 7th- which ever comes first.

Anyway thanks for reading and keep praying for us here!

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God Bless You!

Jharkhand and Bihar, Take 2

2008-12-03T17:31:00.000+05:30

Praise God!

How great our God is! Just fills me with awe and praise when I think about all the great things He is doing.

Last week we were in Jharkhand and Bihar so I'll start with Jharkhand:

Sahibganj, Jharkhand
We took a flight from Delhi to Kolkata (or Calcutta for some of you). The flight wasn't too bad, but they pretty much charge for everything. Okay everything except the bathroom... but I guess that's included in the ticket.

Me sitting Delhi Airport with a disposable mug of coffee in my hand:

Then from Subash Netaji Chandra Bose airport (in Kolkata) we took a taxi through Kolkata city to the train station. Wow I thought driving in Delhi and Kerela was crazy, this was just INSANE. Granted we were there at rush-hour time, but the sheer amount of controlled chaos was just ... exhilarating, (in a scares-you-to-death kind of way.) Driving to Howrah (pronounced HowDah, yea all the r's are said as D's) train Station we had to drive over the Howrah bridge. Its apparently a suspension bridge, but its purple. Literally the entire bridge is purple! It looked like some ride from Six Flags...

I googled it and apparently its illuminated to looked super purple... but no difference... It still looked pretty nice:

Then we took the train from the train station (duh) to Sahibganj, Jharkhand.

Us standing at Howrah station waiting for the train:

My uncle and aunt for the top berths:

Me in my side top berth:

Sahibganj, Jharkhand saw their first Youth Camp in its history. 24th, 25th, and 26th were days that changed the course of Christian evangelism in that city.

History
About three months ago, a few of the bible school graduates here in Delhi (graduates from my uncle's ministry here) decided they wanted to go back to their homelands and start a work there. So led by Pastor Samuel Soren, a team of 5 started the Sahibganj, Jharkhand branch church of Sacred Assemblies Fellowship (my uncle's organization). They have been working there for the past 3 months and are doing pretty well. They decided they wanted to hold a youth camp in that area so people could learn more about what was going on.

The team with my uncle:

The Camp
The 3 days were pretty awesome. My uncle from here (obviously) and my uncle from NY were the main speakers, Brother Martin Clarence, from Kolkata took one session and I also took one session =). Each day more and more people attended. For many it was the first time they were hearing the word of God like this, or even at all. Lots of lives were changed and people were healed and everything. It was just great.

Coincidentally (or not...) at the same time as our camp, the local college was having student body elections. It just so happened to turn out that the group of students who had attended the camp, their party won the elections. So they were all super happy. But in general there was a big desire to hear more and continue with what started in those 3 days.

Us at the Sahibganj Church/House for Nasta (breakfast =P )

My uncle from NY and me at our hotel room:

My uncle preaching (and me singing in the back =) )

People at the meeting:

My aunt taking one of the group discussions:

My uncle and his group:

The hall where the meetings were taking place:

Me pretending to play the drums:

The worship team teaching an action song:

And the crowd:

Me Preaching and Pastor Prem Marandi Translating:

The people are looking at each other because I told them to pair up and start praying for each other:

My Aunty with a baby:

Another shot of the music team... and this time with me trying my hand at drums:

Katihar, Bihar
Then after the three days at Jharkhand, we crossed the Ganges River over into Bihar. We took the first ferry in the morning and it was PRETTY COLD. But being from NJ, I braved the cold with just a small jacket. B). Actually what happened was that we didn't know it would be that cold, and I actually just got stuck in that skinny little jacket. It was okay, I'm still alive. =)

Me on the ferry at the crack of dawn:

At that same time, the rest of them were freezing:

He's fine though: =)

But check out this marvelous shot I got:

The beauty of the creation of God!

In Katihar they were having the youth camp during the day and then a public meeting at night.

They expected a lot of people and so they arranged a tent in the field outside the hall:

heheh a goof-up:

Anyhow...

The camp was great. A lot of people came and they too were wondering about what they were hearing. Many people asked us if this was what Christianity was really about. They had been told lies or have had misconceptions their entire lives and they were just so curious and all the more ready to accept the word of God.

My uncle speaking at the camp:

Then at night tons of people came, mostly just to see what was going on. But here again so many people were wondering if this was what Christianity was really about. They were wondering whether what we were speaking and preaching was actually the stuff from the bible. They couldn't believe that it was from the bible because of all the misconceptions that they have had.

Here at the Public Meeting we are praying for and blessing two officials who attended:

My uncle preaching in the night meeting:

Me preaching in the camp and Pastor Sushil translating:

My uncle from Delhi preaching during the camp:

My aunt playing "Raja kaytha" (the equivalent of Simon says...):

"Kadeojaye!" Aww that kid lost, Raja didn't say "Kadeojaye":

Before the night meeting:

My uncle speaking at the night meeting:

On the last night of the meetings, after the service the people started doing a tribal dance, and of course, pulled us in also:

The meetings were a great blessing and here too lots of people were healed and Blessed. The name of the festival- Bless Bihar, was made a reality as Bihar was truly blessed.

In Katihar most of the days we went to the restaurant near our hotel for food. One day we tried the soup and fell in love with it.

After a long day of preaching and teaching, enjoying some soup:

MMMMMMM YUM, Tandoor Chicken: (I think this was our Thanksgiving night as well)

In Bihar, goats sit inside, people sit outside. Bihar is a land where animals have put humans in their place:

On Sunday our train was at 4:25 from Katihar Station. It was late, of course, by like an hour... so we took pictures while we waited:

Ah finally on the train. Now for a traditional picture with the soup stick:

I made it tradition that all first time soup stick eaters should get their picture taken. You may remember my first soup stick (or not, since I never uploaded it before):

My aunt eating Ice cream (yum) and I think my uncle just bumped his head uh oh!:

They gave me a broken paddle.. erm I mean Stick:

and I ate with it too... not even realizing it...

And then, since it was time to go to sleep, I decided to put my bedsheets up. I had the top top top berth, so I told my aunt to hold my ice cream while I made the sheets. Yea well, as I was making the sheets, she got distracted and put down my ice cream and completely forgot about it. Me, occupied by my bed making, also forgot about the ice cream for a bit. When I suddenly remembered, my aunt was already under her blanket ready to sleep! It was so funny, she suddenly jumped and frantically started searching for the cup of ice cream. She finally found it under her blanket. Thankfully it didn't spill, but the sheets for a little wet. And even though we found the cup, she still couldn't find the little stick! So we decided to just forget about it and figured we'd find it in the morning... I couldn't eat the ice cream anyways, it had blanket fibers in it =P =( It was good ice cream too.... But anyways, so we just went to sleep. Less than five minutes later, though... this is the scene I see and hear:

"I FOUND IT I FOUND IT":

It was one awesome trip.

In other news in India, you all probably heard about the Mumbai terrorist attack before we did. In the middle of camp and preparing for our messages, no one took time to watch any TV. So we were effectively disconnected from the outside world. My uncle called my aunt in NY and that's when we heard about the attacks and about other stuff going on in the world.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, India is on the brink of a social revolution and desperately needs your prayers. Prayers asking God that there will be peace in this land and that corruption and poverty will be cut down.

You can also see the album on Google Photos, but its pretty much all the same photos as here

Next Plans
Tomorrow morning at 5am we will leave for Arunachal Pradesh. We will fly to Guwahati and from there take a Helicopter into Arunachal Pradesh.

We have been told to expect much checking and that sort of business, so pray that all goes well. There will be 3 days on meetings in AP and then we will fly back on the 8th.

My uncle from NY has been suffering from the food here, so pray that he will feel better. I've been told the food in AP is quite different from the rest of India so, that MAY become a problem.

So keep praying for us, and God Bless

Final Note
One lassst thing: I wrote before that I had been healed of my asthma and now its been tested. Train, Hotel, Plane.... I'm really truly actually CURED!! Praiseeeee GOD!

If have a thought or comment, I invite you to leave a comment on the site so other readers can also see it.

If you haven't already, you can also choose to receive my updates via email, or RSS feed. Both those options are available on the left side.

God Bless You!

Thief, Operation Mobilization, and so much more!

2008-11-20T13:49:00.000+05:30

So the last few days have probably been the longest stretch we have spent in Delhi so far. I'd have thought that this time at home would be uneventful and perhaps even boring. Boy was I wrong...

[The links to the various albums can be found all the way at the bottom.]

Thief!
So I'll start with the thief incident. So one fine dandy day, a few days ago, we were all minding our business and doing our work when this random kid decided he wanted to steal a bicycle. There was a bicycle sitting in the corridor on the second floor of our house, which belonged to one of our brothers. So this kid comes up to the second floor and using these special pliers, starts to break the chain on the bicycle. Since there is construction going on presently in our building, one of the workers noticed him breaking the chain and asked him what he was doing. The kid made some excuse, but obviously they realized he was trying to steal the bike. The worker quickly knocked on the doors to tell us that the bike was being stolen.

Now anyone with even a tiny bit of common sense would have taken that opportunity to bolt. But what does our friend do? Yea, he finishes prying the chain open and tries to run away with the bike in his hand!! Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind? Well anyway by this time a small crowd had been gathering around our house and so they chased him down and gave him a few good ones. My uncle and the guys in the office went down and quickly saved him from that mob and brought him up to the office.

I don't know about other parts, but in this area, stealing is a big offense, especially because in the last few months some 12 bikes were stolen. The mob would have probably beat the life out of that kid if he had been left to them. The almost funny thing is that once they start hitting him, pretty everyone that walks down that road past him would stop to give him one. Hey who wouldn't pass up an opportunity to hit a guy for free.

Even after they sat him down in the office, one of the workers from the construction project walked in and whacked him on the back with a piece of wood! Unfortunately, my uncle put out his hand so as to protect the kid from getting hit and ended up getting half the whack on his hand! It was very intense.

The kid was probably somewhere between 18 and 21 and of Nepali origin. He claimed that his father and mother were both dead and that he was here alone. He was a drug user and they found a syringe and some drugs on him. All up and down his arms the marks from the syringe were clearly visible. This is the state of an unacceptably high number of people in India at the moment. They grow up in an environment with no guidance or care and so they resort to gangs, crime, and drugs. It's such a sad thing if you think about it because the way they are is almost from no fault of their own. They resorted to this because there was no other means for their survival. And once they get with the wrong group of people, drugs and crime are pretty much inevitable. And is there an escape from this endless cycle? Pretty much the only end to the cycle comes with Death. Occasionally this cycle can also end if their environment is changed. If they are taken out of their endless routine by some family or some organization, and they are given a new life. But this rarely happens because most people are too scared to just take a random thief off the street and because most don't have the resources to support another person even if they wanted to take him in.

Well my uncle decided that we'd let him stay at the Bible school and if he clears up, well that's one life that's saved. Really the only other alternative was to call the police on him... or worse- hand him over to the people.... They other students at the Center (that's what the call the Bible school here) were happy to take him in. They gave him some new clothes and he washed up and had some food. For the next two days that kid probably got the most love, care, and food that he had ever received in his life.

Then came Saturday. A baptism service was planned for Saturday since almost 22 people from this church were prepared to be baptized. In the morning, one of our student/Pastor (also a Nepali, and also the official driver...) went to the church where the baptism was set to take place to make sure that everything was ready. He brought the kid along with him. The kid's name, by the way, is Churamoni (the moni part is said like "money"), which also happens to be the name of our pastor/student/driver. He was a funny coincidence. So anyway, the two of them get to the venue and our pastor went to get the key to open the place. In the two seconds of his absence, our friend Churamoni made a run for it. Our pastor didn't even get to see which way he ran away. And so ended the story of bicycle thief.

While it is pretty sad that he ran away, it was probably to be expected. Drug users will obviously get cravings for the drugs they are addicted to and maybe the craving got the best of this kid. One thing is for sure however, he will never forget the reception that he got here with us. He came to steal a bicycle and instead got some hot meals, warm bed, new clothes, and hot showers. (ok maybe the shower's weren't hot... or even showers for that matter... but you get the idea).

Because of the love that was shown to him, there is a very good chance that he will come to this faith, will leave his present life, and become a child of God. The seeds of salvation have been planted in his life, and at some point or other he is going to be sitting somewhere baffled at what happened these last three days. He's going to be so confused that he'll have to do something to find peace with himself and will try to find the answer. If he comes here, well he probably knows he'll find the doors open.

Just say a small prayer for him wont you? That God will touch his heart and change his life.

Operation Mobilization
So next on the list of eventful things is meeting the founder of Operation Mobilization. Prior to now, I had not really heard much about this group... but I don't see how I didn't! They are one of the largest missions groups in India at the moment and they have work in some 110 other countries. They send teams to certain locations. The team works with the church at that location and helps to spread the gospel by holding meetings and distributing tracts to all the neighboring areas. They also have work in church planting and community programs such as HIV/AIDS awareness, Child Abuse awareness and counseling and the same for Abuse against Women. If you want to learn more about them, read the wikipedia page on them

They are such a successful organization that they have some 2 or 3 large ships! They take students onto the ships and train them in the various aspects of ministry. The ship visits various places all over the world and at each spot, the people on board get off and spread the Gospel and give tracts and bibles. Pretty cool.

So anyway, the founder of this organization, George Verwer, had been banned from India for the past 40 years. There was some issue where the store room where items they brought into India to distribute to the people was raided. Someone reported Verwer and his people as smugglers and so they were kicked out and banned from India. But that hasn't stopped the work from spreading like wildfire throughout India. They have stations and bookstores and lots of things all over the place. Well now he finally is able to come here and so they had a meeting in Delhi. It was pretty cool to meet him. Its interesting how simple of man he is. One would think someone responsible for a ministry so large would be very uptight and dignified... but this man was just the opposite. Great Stuff.

Janak Puri
I also visited Sonu uncle's parents house in Janak Puri last weekend. Coincidence or what, the same weekend I was at Uncle and Aunty's house here in Delhi, back in America the Saturday meeting was at Sonu uncle's house. :)

In Janak Puri (which is a part of Delhi), they have their market on Saturday. All along the roads people set up shop for all sorts of things. One road was all clothes and gifts and other items like that. On another road was all food items (or maybe it was just one very long road... I don't know...). We just walked through the clothes road. There were SO MANY PEOPLE there that its a wonder I came out of there with my wallet, camera, and phone all still in my possession. I'm starting to get a feel for what a Billion People looks like....

So as we're going through the market I spot this thing called a Custard Apple. Some people call it a Sitafal, and in Malayalam they say Ahthekya (pronounced: AH-th-A-kya). See here we're buying it:

The green thing in the background, that's it...

It's this awesome tasting round little fruit. It's got seeds inside with each seed covered with a white fleshy material. Its soft, sweet, and tastes amazing! They should really bring that stuff to America. Even while it tasted amazing, I was told that in Kerela the fruit has even more flesh around the seeds. So I cant wait for some of the real stuff now =D.

A video of me eating some (click to watch it):

Other Photos:

I also tried this thing called a Singada. They SAY its the root of the Lotus plant (as in the Lotus flower)... but I've been told that's just a myth. Its a fruit (ahem) that grows underwater. I figured I'd try it.

It wasn't all that great. It had no taste at all... It tasted like eating raw Yuca, (tapioca, or kappa കപ്പ for you malayalees). Not amazing, but hey, if anyone ever asks me if I've eaten Singada now I can say, "Why yes, yes I have...."

This is me holding an orange at the market:

Philip Yancey
Some of you may have heard of the Christian writer Philip Yancey. He has written some quite fantastic books including "The Jesus I Never Knew," and "What's So Amazing About Grace." Wikipedia says that over 14 million copies of his books have been sold, so hes a pretty popular author.

This week he is making a tour of India spending time in various cities including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, and others. I had the opportunity to hear him speak in Delhi and get some of his books also. Very nice person and very powerful message. He spoke about Justice and Reconciliation. Bottom line of what he said: considering the war on Christians and Christianity in India, the church does not have time for Justice neither does it need to look for Justice from the law. Instead we should be in a mode of reconciliation. He spoke about how it is easy to forgive, sympathize, and reconcile with those being oppressed, but that it was just as important to forgive and reconcile with the oppressor. Great message and one that the church in India needs to fully embrace. Our fight on this earth is NOT against flesh and blood, the bible says. That means we aren't here to fight with other people. But rather our "struggle" is with the forces of evil and the rulers of the darkness of this age, which, again, is not the physical rulers, but the Spiritual rulers/evil forces.

Delhi Minority Commissioner
Last week I also had the opportunity to meet a Delhi Minority Commissioner, a Mr. Arnold James. From what I've been told, he holds a lot of power- about as much power as a minister (Part of the Legislative Body) here. Since my uncle and him have been friends for many years, he has almost full access to him. He also has a nice business card (two of which he gave me to :D ).

There are Minority Commissioners for all parties considered minorities in Delhi, one for the Christians, one for the Muslims, etc... and this guy is the commissioner for the Christians. Whenever there is a big problem coming against us, we can call him and he can usually do something about. So thank God for him!

Children's Day
Last week I also had the opportunity to visit a school here in Delhi. In India they have a day called "Children's Day" where they "honor" children. Nice idea :)

So we got the opportunity to go to the school, as a team, and sing some songs and put on a skit for the students. My uncle also gave a small message. The fact that it was a totally Hindu school was of a slight bit of concern... but spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ is never going to be easy. By God's grace that event went very well and it was a very good experience.

My Asthma
So some of you may remember from my last post that I had written about the meeting in Hatras, UP. At the end I had added some pictures and one picture especially about a man who had gotten healed. Well as it turned out he wasn't the only one who had gotten healed that night. My uncle later told me that there was a whole healing movement that night. By God's grace I too was healed of my asthma! Yep, I've been asthma free ever since that meeting. Its fantastic because even I was starting to get worried at having to take my inhaler every single day and sometimes even multiple times a day.

Each and every day I am taught more and more about the power of prayer. And I'm not talking about being taught in a class, but rather in a much more practical real-life way by the movement and works of the Spirit of God. I thank God and all of you again for all of your continued prayers.

Prayer for Bihar and Jharkhand

Next on the list is a prayer request. This weekend we are leaving for meetings in Bihar and Jharkhand. From the 24th to 26th will be youth camp in Sahibganj, Jharkhand and then from 27th to 30th will be Youth Camp and Crusade in Katihar, Bihar. The name of the crusade is "Bless Bihar" and we are expecting from 10-15,000 people. The plan is to have the camp during the day and then the crusade in the evening.

Already problems have started to come with first the Police making trouble in Sahibganj and now CHRISTIAN GROUPS in Bihar making problems for us. The first problem has been settled by people above the police, but the second issue is still at hand.

We had called a meeting to discuss and organize the whole crusade and camp and everything. We had invited all the people in Katihar, but most didn't show. So we formed a committee with the people who were present. Now, people who hadn't originally shown up are complaining about the people appointed to the committee. Go Figure.

Anyway, keep those meetings in your prayers so that everything goes smoothly. We will be flying out from Delhi to Kolkata (Calcutta) on Sunday and from there by train we will be traveling the remaining distance. Keep us also in your prayers that when we are traveling and all we'll be safe and happy.

So thanks again for all of your prayers. Its the only thing that's keeping me going here.

If have a thought or comment, I invite you to leave a comment on the site so other readers can also see it.

If you haven't already, you can also choose to receive my updates via email, or RSS feed. Both those options are available on the left side.

God Bless You!

Albums:
Day with Philip Yancey

The School in Delhi

Medical Camps and Hatras, Uttar Pradesh

2008-11-11T10:01:00.000+05:30

] EDIT [
Just some quick corrections to the original post:

1. The police woman who came was not the "SI" (sub inspector) but rather she was the full deal, an Inspector.

2. The recent aggression started in Kandamal, not Karnal. Karnal is a place in Haryana (nearby here, which is why I accidently mixed those up)

Sorry for the mistakes!
] /EDIT [

The last few days have just been awesome!

Medical Camp:

I'll start with the Medical Camp on the 6th of November. The camp is sponsored and staffed mainly by a team from a church in America. They have about 10-12 people from PA and a woman from California with them. Most of them are doctors or nurses, but there is even restaurant owner and a librarian among them. I have to say, they are one very dedicated group of people. They buy most of the medicines from India itself, but bring things like multivitamins from the US. Each day they set up camp in different location and run it from 9 - 5. Basically, the doctors assess the patients, then the makeshift pharmacy gives the patient the medicines the doctors had prescribed, and then the patients are prayed for.

So anyway, the day that I went, things went smoothly. There was lots of people wanting medicines and there were some pretty serious cases. Like one man had TB and wounds all over his body. But since he had a very low protein diet, his wounds were just not healing. Now mind you I'm talking about the wounds on his arms and legs. Then came the worst part- a bedsore on his behind that was just... wow, a hole, I guess you can say? I would say a fist would easily fit into that wound. I helped the doctor who was going to bandage up the guy. I have to say that was a very ... interesting experience. I have a picture of the guy (the wound) but its VERY graphic and disturbing. You can see it here if you really have to see.

But so we cleaned out the wound with Iodine and then filled the cavity with some petroleum-something pads and just covered it up. Unfortunately in cases like this, I was told, the bandaging was a temporary solution. If they family didn't do the same thing everyday till the wound healed, he would return right back to this state. They sent that man home with a huge bag full of bandaging materials.

Some pictures:

Convention in Hatras, UP:

Next up is the 3 day convention in Hatras, UP. The story of the family doing the work of God there is pretty touching. So the work in Hatras has been going on for about 3 years. The pastor there was at one time working in Saudi Arabia. But God called them for full time ministry and so he left all the comforts of his life and came to this (God-forsaken...) place. He barely knew the language and he had two young children. They are now 8 years and about 10 years old, so you can imagine how much trouble the family must have gone through when they first got there.

The meetings were great. With the sound system, they arranged two very large speakers on the roof on addition to the rest of the sound system. This way, the entire colony was able to receive the word of God. Ever since the Orissa and such problems, people all over India are scared about attending such meetings so this was a good way to get the word out. We had gone as a team, as our people would be leading the praise and worship. So we had a guitarist/lead singer, pianist, bass player, and support singer. The support and lead singers switched roles for alternate meetings. The meetings were a great blessing and one person received a miraculous healing too!

Some pictures:

The pastor and Family:

The man who was healed. He was brought to the meeting unable to walk and now look at him after:

The worship team (and me) from left: Piano, Bass, Guitar/Lead, Guitar/Lead:

Second Medical Camp:

So then on Monday we drove back from Hatras and on the way back we stopped at the Medical Camp again. This was in a different place than the first one. So we got there around lunch time and already problems were brewing. Apparently a woman had come and gotten medicines. And as they do for everyone, they prayed for her too. Well a bit later her husband came asking why they prayed for his wife. Turns out this guy was an RSS member. I'm not sure exactly what RSS stands for, but its definitely not something good like Real Simple Syndicate =P. Anyway, they are a radical Hindu organization very much opposed to Christians and pretty much all other religions. They are responsible for a lot of aggression towards Christians and they wouldn't think twice about hitting and killing. So basically this guy wanted to get rid of us. First he complained about them praying for his wife. Then they started saying that the organizers didn't tell the people in their colony about the Camp. They even went as far as making up terrible lies saying that we said "Ram was dead and Jesus is alive." Now mind you, while we have a different set of beliefs, we too value our lives. No one in their right mind would say anything that would in the least sense be offensive. So for these guys to be making up lies like this is ridiculous.

Thankfully my uncle has some good connections. So he called some people up and soon the police and some of the higher ranked police people came. I don't know what all the letters are that they use to refer to the police, but the ~~"SI"~~ "Inspector" came... All I know is that she is a very high ranking officer. Thankfully she came in good time because about the same time she got there, the big shots of the RSS organization also got there. Things could have really gotten out of hand because that guy (the leader) had the nerve to say (right to the face of the police officers) that a "...~~Karnal~~ Kandamal is going to start here..." if we didn't get out of there. For those of you who don't know, ~~Karnal~~ Kandamal is the place in Orissa where all the recent aggression towards Christians took place. The SI was a very strict woman and told him to shut up immediately.

Not looking for any trouble though, we immediately packed up and got out of there. By God's grace no one got hurt, but this was definitely a close call. The area is a red-zone now for the pastors and others ministry workers there so please keep them in your prayers. The situation in India is such that one of these radicals could break into a person's house, kill everyone there, and it all would just go unattended and unnoticed. So please pray for their security and safety.

Some pictures I took there:

(click the picture to view the album with some more from there)

As of now, the next event on the calendar is the open-air meetings and youth camps in Katihar, Bihar and Sahibjang, Jharkhand. That leaves about 2 weeks in Delhi. Good time to catch a small break from all the traveling =].

Not much other news. I caught a little cold in Nepal and its still lingering so I figured I'd start on an antibiotics dose, even though I know it wont help me in the least. Otherwise all is well.

I know I didn't write this in the previous posts, but I have been getting the chance to drive occasionally. They are scared, and very reluctant to let me. And I don't want to force the issue. But the fact still remains that if I go to Kerela without enough experience to be on the road, it could end up being a very long two months...

So keep praying for me. Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharhkand, Punjab, and Nepal (and other places traveled through) already down and a few more to go, and it's only your prayers that are keeping me going.

Thanks and God Bless

THE ENTIRE ALBUM of pictures from all three events can be seen here:

7, 8, 9: Medical Camp 1, Hatras UP convention, Medical Camp 2

Nepal!

2008-11-02T14:00:00.000+05:30

So the amazing trip continues with yet another fabulous journey. New opportunities keep popping up day after day! So last week we were in Nepal in a place called Tikapur. Its in western Nepal (a cookie for the first person to send me a map with Tikapur circled :-P )

We had gone there because my uncle and another missionary from the US, who resides in Delhi, were invited to speak at an AG Youth Camp. Unfortunately, he couldn't come, so that left just my uncle to speak at the entire meeting (4 days, 3-4 sessions each...). Because the other missionary couldn't come, my aunt and my uncle's nephew (who is staying with us now... I've mentioned him before) also decided to come on the trip. Anyways, so we left last Sunday after the second session of worship service. After traveling for about 8 hours on some terrible roads and amidst horrible traffic... we reached a place called Bareilly in the state of Utter Pradesh. Originally the plan had been to just drive straight to the camp in Nepal, but luckily we decided to break some where in between. The pastor that we stayed with in Bareilly we were meeting for the first time. My uncle just randomly called some of his friends and asked if they knew anyone who lived in Bareilly and luckily this pastor came up. We reached their house around 11:30 and they received us very well. We left Bareilly around 6:30 the next morning and drove another 9 or 10 hours to reach Tikapur. This time the roads weren't terribly bad, but we picked up some extra passengers, and well... long story short... the driving part was not all that great. This was taken around 7 in the morning as we were leaving Bareilly.

Driving into Nepal is a whole different experience than driving in India. There are a few National Highways which run from one end to the other end of Nepal and which are pretty much the only roads in that country. The Highways themselves are not too bad, with only the occasional pothole. The big difference was the checking every few kilometers. Guards with big guns would stop us and check our papers. They inquired about where we were from, where we were going, what we were carrying in the suitcases... everything. In Nepal currently the Maoists are in power. They have been doing the country some good in terms of infrastructure, civility, and some social development. But the country is still very VERY far behind in everything else. One thing you notice is that once you get off the highways, cars and trucks are almost nonexistent while even motorcycles are somewhat rare. Though, everyone has a bike. It is by far the most common mode of transportation... save for maybe the bull-carts. Nepal is so far back, in fact, that India has been for some years investing in them to raise them up. India has helped them so much that now anyone coming to India can also freely enter into Nepal... no visas or anything required.

This is the Sarda River... the border between India and Nepal

Skipping ahead to the camp, we got there around 6 pm, even though the meeting was supposed to start at 4pm. They were treating us with a lot of respect. They even sang us a song welcoming us to Nepal and the camp. It was really cool. The hall was filled with people and they had benches outside for the overflowing crowd. There were about 300-350 attendees.

The organizers arranged for us to stay at a hotel nearby. Construction was still going on for most of the building, but it was still a nice facility. Unfortunately for me, I started developing some sort of chest infection which, coupled with the dust,etc from the construction, caused my asthma to flame up the moment I got into the room. Sleeping on the bed was the worst part, the first night I barely got any sleep. Even taking the inhaler was not doing any good!! It was pretty terrible. Second night also same thing happened. The third day my chest infection was getting worse, with coughing and congestion and all. So that night I took a couple Advils before going to sleep. That really did the trick, and I slept pretty soundly that night.

Me in the room... fighting off evil spirits! =]

The second day's first session was given to me. Can you imagine speaking in front of 300 people? How about speaking for an hour in front of 300 people. Or how about speaking for such an extended period for the first time in your life, in front of 300 people, after getting little to no sleep? :-) In happy to say that it went relatively well. I spoke on the topic of a Purpose Driven Life using the life of Joseph as my key topic. It went well enough that my uncle told me to take the second session of the 3rd day also. That went even better, and I spoke on the Cost of Following Jesus. It is God's grace (and I know that at least some of you prayed for me following my last post) that I managed to pull through. Here is a clip of me speaking... don't laugh! The person next to me is Pastor Joel. He's translating right into Nepali for the people.

The day sessions were fine, and even the power outages didn't affect the meeting much. In night sessions, however, which were from 4:30-6:30, the power outages caused a problem, especially during the altar-call. On the third day to get some light into the hall, we pulled up our SUV in front of the hall and turned on the headlights in highbeam mode. The light streamed through the door and the windows and ... it was better than nothing...

Eating dinner after the meeting was still a harsh experience. It was pitch black as we were eating, the only light coming from a few candles. Being someone who needs a lot of light when eating... this was a bit difficult... but we managed.

Me just tired and taking a nap:

The spirit of God was being poured out in that camp. So many people were filled with the Holy Spirit. Lots of people decided to take water baptism. Many demons were cast out and in the Mission Call, almost 30 of 40 young people submitted their lives to full time ministry. It was such a spectacular camp. The last day was awesome, this is a video of part of the worship.

The drive back to Delhi was just as intense as the drive to Nepal. Instead of breaking it up into two sections though, we decided to drive it straight. We left Tikapur around 6am on Friday morning and after hours and hours of driving, we finally reached Delhi 11:30pm on Friday night.

I should be in Delhi and the vicinity the next few days. Today (Sunday Nov* 2) I got to visit a local slum. I have to say, the conditions are pretty extreme there... and there are a ton of people. We went to a small classroom session where a kid who lives in that slum itself is teaching younger kids stories from the bible like a mini-Sunday school. Today there were about 30 students. Keep that small ministry in your prayers that God will allow it to grow and that it may become a deliverance in the lives of the people of the slum.

The next big trip is to Hatras, Utter Pradesh for a 3 day convention. That is next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Keep that meeting in your prayers.

My little chest infection//cold is dwindling down, but it still there a bit, so please keep me in your prayers also.

Thanks for reading and God Bless!

Some pictures:

My aunt and I at the hotel

Me sitting in a small Nepali house:

A bridge that was washed away by flooding in the area... notice the amount of water remaining... (barely any)

Home sweet home... Chandigarh

2008-10-25T20:53:00.000+05:30

So last week I took a train (all by myself =]) from Delhi to Chandigarh. That was one fabulous train ride... it was like a plane ride, minus all the safety demonstrations and the take-off, landing difficulties.

I was there from last Friday to Thursday (day before yesterday). I got to visit some of the old places still in my memory. Most vivid in my memory is my old house and so I got someone to bring me there.

I have to say, it looks much smaller than what I remember from 11 years ago. It might have something to do with the fact that I was about half as tall as I am now the last time I saw the place. The house is also vacant, and apparently has been for some time now, and so there is grass growing through the driveway, some of the windows are broken, and the backyard is a terrible mess of overgrown plants and weeds.

It was a sad sight. The most depressing part was that I remembered a Jasmine plant right in front of the house, but it was not there anymore.

I also got a unique chance to visit my old school. St. Anne's Convent School. Ah... the memories. The fields I used to play in were now in utter dismay because construction is going on for a new auditorium. I was able to catch some sweet sights. Like this stage in this picture. There are two tunnel-like hollow spots beneath the stage, in which I have eaten lunch many times.

The church there is also very dear to me. This church started when my sister was born. Its extra special because the first 2 or 3 years the service was held at our house. The pastor and certain people there were very close to me as I was growing up, so there is definitely a lot of connections. The Sunday that I was there, Pastor insisted that I speak. Not terribly horrible for my first attempt, and I somehow squeezed out a 20 minute message, including translation.... and testimony...

Moving on...

I stayed there for another four days. Some people visited me... They all knew me, but alas I knew none of them. Its weird how I have forgotten EVERYTHING...

One day we went to visit a place called the Rose Garden. Unfortunately, it is not the season for roses, and so we saw very few of them. The best part was getting there though. We took the bus and unfortunately, the cord link connecting the accelerator pedal to the engine snapped. Under normal circumstances, that would be the end of the ride... but not today! The driver went to the back, opened up a compartment and began fishing out the snapped cable. He then brought the end he just fished out to the front and gave it a nice tug. VROOOM!!! the engine revved... and thus the remainder of the trip the driver PULLED ON THE CABLE to accelerate in place of pressing the pedal. I thought it was fantastic and ingenious.

=) (thats the back of the bus, you can kind-of see the cable...)

I'm back in Delhi now. Its 9:30pm on Saturday night. Tomorrow around 4 pm we are leaving for Nepal! I'm set to be driving for part of the time, so keep that in your prayers. They are also asking me to take 4 sessions at the youth camp in Nepal. So... please please PLEASE keep that in your prayers too.

Good Night and God Bless!

Bihar, Jarkhand, and lots of Water!

2008-10-16T18:03:00.000+05:30

AH... Bihar.

That was one fantastic trip. We took a Rajadani train from Delhi which brought us to Katihar Bihar in about 20 hours. The train was pretty nice... there were 6 beds in each compartment and my uncle and I got the lower berths on opposite sides. #33 and #36 =]

Then there was a family with a young kid in our same section, so then I switched to their middle berth and she slept with the kid on my lower berth.

All in all the food and general comfort of the trip can be rated as excellent! They even gave us ice cream =]

YUM

Then we got to Katihar, Bihar...I was pretty tired so all I noticed were small huts and such on the side of the road. I fell asleep in the van (Omni =]) ride to Purnea, Bihar. Next thing I know we are in front of a cement building. Luckily for me, the first actual building I see in Bihar (other than the station!) was the home we would be staying at. I think God had pity on me and blessed me with very comfortable accommodations. There's no other way of explaining it. The family hosting us was a malayalee family too, so that was a double bonus.

The whole reason we were in Purnea, Bihar was for a three day convention. The church there was holding the meeting in a school. They had brought in a lot of people from flood affected parts on buses and they arranged for the people to stay in the classrooms.

Those people. WOW. I have never seen people so sad... I guess is a way to explain it. They never NEVER smiled.

Years and years of poverty and repression and the whole deal with losing just everything in the flood might have something to do with it.

It was like this for the the first 3 or 4 meetings. Only after 3 meetings of telling jokes and trying to get them to laugh did they finally start loosening up a bit. Seeing them smile finally was such a heartwarming experience. It was fantastic!

We heard a testimony of a man, his wife, and their two kids who were all stuck on the roof of their house for 18 days during the main Bihar flood. They didnt have any food or anything and they boiled the flood water for themselves and thier kids. The most touching part of the testimony was the fact that even as they were barely getting by, people were dying right before their eyes.

That is the family with one of their children

I cant even begin to imagine what it must be like for people who lived through the flood. In an instant EVERYTHING they owned and knew was gone. Just gone... washed away... How can people cope with the trauma of realizing that even their families,very the people they ate food with the night before, are all gone...

It's really heart wrenching.

I also got the chance to visit a flood victim's relief camp run by New India Evangelical Team in Purnea Bihar.

It was stunning. When we got there it was milk time and they let me pour milk for the first few kids.

After Purnea we drove back to Katihar. My uncle's ministry has a church in Katihar and we met up with the pastor there. In the evening, we went to speak at a village which was located in the middle of a flood affected region. So we first took an auto from the hotel we were staying at (Rs. 250 a night = 6 dollars!) to the edge of the water. Then we took a boat (which was filling with water, by the way) to the other side of the flooded area. Then we walked through some fields till we got to more water. At this point, we had to roll up our pants and walk through the water!! The water came up to about the middle of my thighs! =D

The meeting at the village was good and we prayed for everyone who wanted to be prayed for. It was a great blessing for everyone.

The next day we took an auto to the Ganges River. It was pretty neat standing by something so famous. We took a ferry across the Ganges from Bihar to the state of Jarkhand. The ride made me feel a little qweezy. Not because I was sea-sick or anything but because people on the other boat were DRINKING THE WATER FROM THE RIVER!!!

Quite Sickening.

After we reached Jarkhand, we rested for a bit. That evening around 3:30 we left to go to another village.

Normally the missionaries in Jarkhand would take a train and then walk the remaining 4KM to the village. To eliminate the walking, they decided to hire a taxi (a big auto rickshaw =P ). So we left around 3:30... got there like 6. Yes 2 and a half hours in a little rickshaw. Cramped together and bounced up and down every which way possible. Oh and we also had to give money to the mafia controlling that area so that we could pass through... go figure...

Anyways we got there, but there was not the village. We had to walk about another Kilometer to reach the village. The villagers hadn't known that we were coming and so the entire time we were there, they were worried about how they would give us food and treat us well. They have a special welcoming greeting where they come before you and you have to either lift your hand to bless them or bow your head to receive blessing from them.

Ofcourse I didn't know that and looked a little dumbfounded when the first guy came in front of me and stood there. I was like: 8-O... "what now...." But the people with me told me what to do and everything worked out well.

The people there didn't even speak Hindi so we translated the message into their language, Santhali. It was the first time they were hearing the gospel and about Jesus Christ. Just goes to show that there are still people in touch with the civilized world that haven't heard about Jesus. The meeting was a blessing and a few people brought their sick to be prayed for as well as some mothers who brought their children to be prayed for.

Then was the worst part of the entire trip. The ride back from the village. The auto driver was in some rush to get home so he was going pretty fast. Mind you, the roads are nothing like America. In fact a better comparison would to the roads you see in the World War movies after the area has been ravaged by bombs. Just holes and ruts. And the driver going like 40 miles an hr did not help. All 9 of us adults + 1 baby were subjected to this horrendous treatment. It was so bad that one of the missionaries who came with us could barely get up because this whole body hurt. I gave him a few Aleeve pills. =) Hopefully he is okay by now.

Then our train from Jarkhand back to Delhi was at 6 in the morning. When we checked the status of our tickets the night before, the site showed that we were still on the wait list for our seats. In fact we were #1 and #2. Anyway, the day of we went there and the station told us we were still not confirmed. We got on the train and figured we would do something after we got on it. And that was what we did. They didn't have any seats in the 3tier coach we had reserved our tickets for, so we had to pay some extra money to upgrade to the 2 tier coach. By God's grace things worked out and we got good seats.

The ride to Delhi was pretty uneventful, and that is probably a good thing.

So whats next?

Tomorrow morning (its 6:30pm October 16, 2008) at 7 I'm taking a train to Chandigarh. I will be there till next Thursday, I'm anticipating. Will be visiting my old church and pastor and friends.

I'll arrive back in Delhi on Thursday hopefully, then Friday and Saturday are days of rest because on Sunday... WE ARE LEAVING FOR NEPAL!! =]

This trip is really coming together to be one awesome trip all over India!

Thanks for all your prayer. I know it is your prayers and God's grace on me that has kept me safe and secure so far for all bad things.

Keep praying and God Bless!

ps: Just to show that I am doing well:

Post Agra, Pre Bihar Post

2008-10-06T16:27:00.000+05:30

So its been about six days since I've arrived and things are going great.

The meetings in Agra went well and the suicide/murder issue was taken care off. Turns out the guy was in the Air Force, so they took his body to do post-mortem and stuff and they indeed found poison. Please keep that family and the church in your prayers.

Anyway, like I said in the previous post, we visited the Taj Mahal, so here are some pictures from there:

=] I can believe horses and donkeys... and even cows... but camels in Agra? lol

On the way there, we had also stopped at a McDonalds... would you believe the sign I saw there...

And our sleeping arrangements there... this is in the church hall, by the way:

Last two days we had gone to Samalkha in the state of Haryana. The church there was celebrating their 4th anniversary. By God's grace and the tireless work of the pastors in this ministry, in just 4 years the church has grown to over 250 members. All the believers and even the pastor of the church are converts. Please keep that church in your prayers.

Here are some pictures taken around the time of these meetings:

People at the meeting:

I also have a picture of an oil-changer's dream vehicle...

Look at the position of that filter!!

... anyways on with the blog...

There was another suicide/murder incident yesterday (Oct 5) this time involving a bible school student. He had joined the school recently even without the permission of his father and step-mother (who, it turns out, aren't very interested in him anyways). Apparently on Sunday morning when the rest of the students went to church, he said he wasn't feeling well and stayed in bed. When everyone returned they found him hanging from the ceiling fan. Fortunately for the bible school, the police found a suicide note claiming that no one was responsible for his death except himself. Unfortunately, however, the police are apparently making up stories saying the school had not been feeding the kid for the past few days which forced him to commit suicide. It is, obviously, just a ploy to get some money from the school. The school is located in Nagpur near Delhi (or so I hear...). Please PLEASE keep that school and the rest of the students and faculty in your prayers.

As you probably already know, the tension is still high here in India. Many cities are imposing curfews and "shoot on sight" orders. The violence is getting out of hand and doesn't seem to be any sign of relief. The national government is worried about the international opinion and is trying to work to fix its image. This just means that the protests and wide... well somewhat-wide coverage of these issues is working.

There will be some meetings here in Delhi the next few days. On the 9th we will leave for Bihar by train. The ride is almost 24-26hrs. :) Sounds like a long trip? Well the return trip to Delhi will be about 36 hours!!

So far my stay here has been great. I thought the food on the plane was pretty good, I had no idea what was in store for me here. From the roti and subzi the family in Agra mass produced (yes mass produced, there were 7 of us hungry hungry people =P, plus some of the guys from there also) to the meals from the different places we visit... its just amazingly tasty. Also, I don't know if this is a overall thing, but after the Samalkha church anniversary, I thought it was interesting that they were going around with the kheer first! And I don't think its because the rest of the food wasn't ready either... but anyways, dessert first is like a dream come true hahha.

I've met a lot of the guys from the training center and stuff here. It was a good thing that I went straight to Agra with some of these guys, I got a chance to really get to know them so there isn't that awkwardness anymore. One of the guys speaks English well and another can get by. The second one, Samuel, is really quiet and my uncle was surprised when I told him that he could speak English. But forget English... this kid Samuel is a musical genius. He learned guitar and piano ON HIS OWN and when he plays... its just mesmerizing to hear him play... I'll definitely be hanging around him, hopefully I can pick up a thing or two.

The only bit that still annoys me a little are the wet and not-so-pleasant bathrooms. I don't think I need to go into detail about that, but I'm getting used to it... The other thing is the dust everywhere. I've been getting asthma attacks frequently and I'm pretty sure its because of the dust.

Other than those two things, everything is A-OKAY thanks to God's grace and mercy. By this I know that people have been praying for me. Thanks!! and God Bless you=]

Please keep praying for me and the ministry here, the people I'm traveling with and the whole bit.

Thanks and God Bless You!

First days + Agra trip

2008-10-02T09:32:00.000+05:30

So I'm finally here. Its the second day already...I can't believe.

We are in Agra right now... I arrived in Delhi around 11:30 pm... and we left for Agra around 3:30 am. We will be in Agra for today and tomorrow and then return to Delhi. Everything here has been behath acha :)

There is/was a problem with one of the members of this church committing suicide yesterday but there hasn't been any major problems directly attached to that. Also yesterday as we were returning from Agra we were stopped by the police two times. Thankfully there was not much problem.

So there are definetly a lot of forces working against us so please remember to keep us in your prayers

I will update in more detail once I have access to a regular screen and a fullsized keyboard... unlike this iPhone that I'm on

God bless you :)

Ps: I'll add pictures when I get back to Delhi

More Stops!

2008-09-22T10:52:00.000+05:30

Its been quite a while since I last updated =) I Promise I'll try to be more frequent when I finally have things to write about.

In addition to the stops in the last post, a few more events have been added to the itinerary, notably a few more meetings in Bihar. Interestingly, I will get the chance to "sail" (yea... rite) across the Ganges river!! That should be an interesting experience, if for nothing else, just the fact that its the ever famous Ganges!

Before I get into that, I just want to mention something else. The last few days and weeks my Uncle (Pastor M. K. Babu, whom I will be traveling with) and his team have been ministering and doing flood relief work in Bihar. You can see the flier that they have put together. Please do support them in any way that you can.

The updated program list is as follows, with the additions in bold:

October 1-3: Convention at AG church Agra, UP
October 4-5: Special Meeting at Samalkha, Haryana- Church Anniversary
October 8: Meeting in Samalkha, Haryana
October 10-12: Convention at Purnia, Bihar
October 14: Sahibganj, Jharkhand (trip across the Ganges!)
October 27 to November 1: Crusade at Katihar, Bihar. (clarification: this is somewhat like an open air concert, not like the English Crusades :-P)
November 3 to 6: Medical Camp at Faridabad, Haryana
November 7 to 9: Convention at AG church Hatras, UP
November 23 to 27: Youth Camp, Sahibganj, Jharkhand
November 28 to December 2: Youth Camp, Katihar, Bihar
December 4 to 25: Christmas meetings in Haryana and Delhi
December 17 to 21: Youth Camp at Delhi
December 26 to 31: Youth Camp at Haryana
January 2 to 15: Prayer drive from Delhi to Kerala

I have also updated the Google Map I created for my trip. Since there are multiple programs in places like Bihar, only one marker can be seen as they are pretty much all on top of each other! So if you click the link for the Google Maps, on the left side panel you can scroll through all the programs and click on individual programs to get a zoomed in view on the map.

View Map through Google Maps

You may notice the different color markers, basically this is the scheme:

Yellow: Convention
Green: Crusade
Purple: Youth Camps
Light Blue/Teal: Misc. Meetings
Blue: Stops along Prayer Drive to Kerela
Red Circle (with heartbeat line): Medical Camp

Also, at the time of publishing, there is exactly 8 days till departure =]

Keep me in your prayers! and God Bless You!

Remember! You can easily follow this blog by either subscribing to the RSS feed or (if that doesn't make any sense to you...) you can just subscribe to get my posts via email. You can do either by looking over at the left hand column of this page. :-)

The Plan + About Me

2008-09-01T01:57:00.000+05:30

Hey everyone,

I guess I'll start this off with a personal introduction. My name is Jones and I'm 18 years old. Instead of starting college, like most kids my age, I decided to take a year off to visit different parts of India. It all started as just a joke, but one thing led to another and now here I am just weeks away from starting my journey.

Even though I knew I wanted to go to India for a few months before college and work and stuff started, I didn't know exactly how things would work out. Since I have an uncle in Delhi who has been doing mission work all over northern parts of India, I figured that was the way to go. As it turned out, he had been planning a slew of mission trips, youth camps, crusades, conventions, and medical camps during the September to January time frame, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I deferred college for a whole year so it doesn't make sense for me to just go for three months and come back and sit here for the remaining seven months. The first part of the trip, the North India part, should be over by January 15.

The following is a list of programs as of now. This list will probably change as we get closer to the dates due to various reasons.

October 1-3: Convention at AG church Agra, UP
October 27 to November 1: Crusade (clarification: this is somewhat like an open air concert, not like the English Crusades :-P) Katihar, Bihar.
November 3 to 6: Medical Camp at Faridabad, Haryana
November 7 to 9: Convention at AG church Hatras, UP
November 23 to 27: Youth Camp, Sahibganj, Jharkhand
November 28 to December 2: Youth Camp, Katihar, Bihar
December 4 to 25: Christmas meetings in Haryana and Delhi
December 17 to 21: Youth Camp at Delhi
December 26 to 31: Youth Camp at Haryana
January 2 to 15: Prayer drive from Delhi to Kerala

This is the planned route for the prayer drive from Delhi to Kerala:

Delhi
Jaipur (Rajasthan)
Ajmer (Rajasthan)
Ahmedabad (Gujrat)
Baroda (Gujrat)
Bombay (Maharastra)
Panaji (Goa)
Bangalore (Karnataka)
Pondichery
Coimbatore (Tamilnadu)
Cochin (Kerala)

I made this map on Google maps... and this is the link if you would like to see the actual GoogleMap. I had some trouble linking it directly onto this page, so just click the link to see the whole page.

You may have noticed that there aren't many programs in October. Don't worry, there is going to be a workers meeting very soon and there they will come up with more programs for October.

After the prayer drive to Kerala, I will be staying back while my uncle and the rest of them return to Delhi. This will be the second part of the trip. From mid-January to March 24th, I will be staying primarily with family. Depending on how things work out, I will be in Trivandrum for a few days or weeks with some family-friends at some point before I return to the US as well.

When my uncle was speaking at my church a few weeks ago he said like this, "Jones is going to be travelling to over 15 different states which have 15 different kinds of foods- everything from steamed and boiled foods to..." various animals. I wont directly quote his last few words :-). Anyways, this trip is going to be pretty intensive in many different ways. The last thing I would want is to get sick or get food poisoning or worse. If you have heard about the on-goings in places like Orissa and Bihar, you will know that the times are getting tough in India.

Even through all this, I ask you to keep me in your prayers that God will keep his protection on me at all times and that I may go and enjoy my time there and come back safe.

I'm going to be trying my best to keep this blog updated with news and the things I get involved with while I'm in India. You can easily follow this blog by either subscribing to the RSS feed or (if that doesn't make any sense to you...) you can just subscribe to get my posts via email. You can do either by looking over at the left hand column of this page. :-)

God Bless You!

Updates

2008-08-22T22:41:00.000+05:30

I thought I'd put up an update on here so that the blog doesn't look empty while I'm still here in the US.

I had told most people that my trip probably wouldn't start till early October. After consulting with my uncle however, it seems that I may leave as early as mid September. Its not a huge difference, but I don't want anyone to feel that I lied to them. :-)

I still don't exactly know how often I will be able to update the blog. From what I hear, we will be lucky if the places we go to have electricity. My uncle does have an iPhone, so I can probably update from that once in a while when we're on the road. All other updating will have to wait till I have some form of connection to the Internet. I will also be adding a twitter feed to this blog so that I can quickly update my status by sending text-messages... again, whenever we have service (though with the way tech in India is going, we'll probably have cell service more often than electricity :P).

I'll will post an update later outlining the entire trip with dates and events as soon as possible!

Hey!

2008-08-21T21:21:00.000+05:30

Hey I'm just trying out a few blogs before settling into one.

Thanks!

]edit[

I think I've sufficiently settled in. =]