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Published: April 30th 2009
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Outside the church entrance
Every morning we arrive at the church we are greeted with this scene. No one here thinks anwthing of it, its just a normal part of life. Some days it is picked up and other days it isnt. There are very few bins in India, all rubbish is just thrown out onto the street. Hi folks,
Everything is going really well for us here in India, we have settled into the bible college really well and we have met some really lovely people. Its great getting to know other Christians from a completely different culture. Here is an idea of our daily routine. Alarm goes off at 6:30am, we leave for class at 7:20am in an air conditioned (praise the lord) jeep. We arrive at the school (which is also the church) at 7:50am and we take 10 minutes of a quiet time before someone in the class leads worship for 10 of 15 minutes then another person will do the devotion for 10 to 15 minutes. Classes then start at 8:30am and the first lesson runs until 9:15am then we all go for breakfast. Myself and Bronagh usually don’t bother with breakfast as it’s usually japatti (a type of flat bread) and other kinds of stuff that we don’t really recognise. Kumar (the pastor we are staying with) keeps fruit etc in his office for us but we usually get some cereal in the morning before we leave the house. Class start again at 9:45am and run right through until 1:00pm. Within this
Church Enterance
This is thew alley way leading up to the church, the offices and church etc are upstairs. The shutters that you see here are all small sewing businesses. time there are another 4 lessons with a 5 minute break in between. Pastor Kumar and his wife Jessie have been doing most of the teaching so far on topics like, the overview of man, the overview of the Christian life, means of evangelism and hearing the voice of God. We have been really blessed with their teaching and also their hospitality as we are staying in their home. They both have been so kind to us and its because of them that we have settled in so well.
After dinner (on Mondays and Tuesdays) we then have a compulsory study time from 2:00pm until 3:15pm where we can work on some of the assignments that we have to do. On Wednesdays this time is used for cell groups. The whole class has been split up into 4 smaller groups where we can share about and pray for each other. On Thursday afternoons we play games and on Friday we have to clean the whole building from top to bottom. As I have been appointed leader of my group I had the privilege of cleaning the toilets! If I didn’t clean them first I couldn’t very well ask someone
else to do it.
We usually return home sometime between 4:00pm and 4:30pm and head up to our bedroom to either revise that days subject or keep working on our assignments. We are both struggling to write sermons, originally we had 20 to write but as the course we are doing is 10 weeks long as apposed to the normal 12 weeks this has been reduced to 15 sermons.
Myself and Bronagh took a scooter up the road the other night to go to a chemist as Bronagh had got bitten with mosquitoes and the bites had swollen up quite badly (she is ok now though). I have visited quite a few countries over the years but I have NEVER seen traffic as lethal as it is here in India. There are just absolutely no rules. It is the most dangerous system I have ever seen. The roads are constantly bunged with traffic and people just weave in and out wherever the see a space on the road. It was a white knuckle job the whole time we were out.
India is such a country of contrast, it has developed a lot from I first came in
The brain boxes.
This is our class. At the front in the middle is Pastor Kumar (red shirt and glasse) and His wife Jessie. Next to her is Pastor Daniel the dean of the course and next to him is Pastor Titus. All the others are students. No prizes for spotting me and Bronagh!!! 2002. There are a lot more decent cars on the road as industry has developed considerably especially within I.T. But no matter where you go you will always find people begging on the streets. Some are genuine and some are not. But for those who are genuine we have been challenged as to how we should react. Here we are in India going to Bible college and following God’s plan for our lives and then you come across homeless people everyday and you don’t know what to do. How do you help them all?….you cant, but you feel that you should. Every night there are people sleeping outside by the side of the road. While we were out on the scooter we stopped to get more credit on our mobile. It was evening time and sitting at the front of the shop on a concrete step was a man who was quite obviously homeless. He had no eyes and he was holding a white stick with a bell on it. He may have had leprosy. I noticed him reaching into his pocket and pulling out two tiny pieces of a biscuit. He wasn’t begging, he was just sitting there minding his own business and being ignored be society in general. Its not always a good idea to give them money because quite often they will buy drink with it so we went into a shop and bought him a 1 litre bottle of water and a packet of biscuits. It came to a total of 32 rupees which is 40p!!! I went over to him and touched him on the shoulder and handed him the bag. He couldn’t see us and he didn’t say anything he just hugged the bag. We walked away feeling sorry for him and a sense of compassion but also feeling helpless and useless.
The temperature over the last few days has been 38 degrees and the month of May is going to be hotter. It has been predicted that this year is going to be the hottest in the last 40 years!!! Thank goodness we have air conditioning in our room and the classroom.
Yesterday myself and Bronagh went for a meal at lunch time to a local hotel with pastor Kumar to meet up with another local pastor. That afternoon I started getting a rumble in my tummy….never a good sign!!! So I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the toilet and of course vomiting in the middle of the night. I didn’t go to class today as I am still not feeling well although I am improving, in saying that I have just been sick again there now. Bronagh went on to class but at 11:45am she bad to be brought home because of the same problem. We both have got food poisoning from the lunch yesterday. Bronagh is very pale and weak at the minute so we would really value your prayers. Jessie and Kumar got us some tablets etc and they are looking after us well, hopefully we will get it all out of our system in the next 24 hours.
Do keep in touch and again thanks to everyone for leaving your comments, its great to read them. Sorry if we cannot reply to everyone, the internet isn’t always connected and we can be pushed for time as well. Its encouraging to hear from you all and thanks to all who are keeping us in your prayers.
God Bless
Stephen
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Oliver
non-member comment
Feeling better
Hi Bronagh and Stephen just read your lastest entry and it would seem as if you are having to work really hard but are also enjoying it .. Hope you two feel better soon .. Take care, .. Oliver