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© 2005 Kenneth A. Grimm

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India Mission Report:  August 2004 - March 2005

Ministry Journeys

[1]

Christian School in North India

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[2]

Vijayawada via Hyderabad, South India

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[3]

Hyderabad and Secunderabad, South India

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[4]

Rayalasima via Chennai, South India

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[5]

Karnal and Ludwa, Haryana, North India

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[6]

Beas and Amritsar, Punjab, North India

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[7]

Vijayawada and vicinity, South India

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[8] 

Hyderabad and Kodada, South India

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[9]

Conclusion of North India ministry

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[10]

Relocation to Vijayawada, South India

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[12]

Conclusion of Hyderabad ministry

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[13]

Pastors Seminar, Vijayawada, South India

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[14]

Nepal via West Bengal and Bihar

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[15]

Orphanage in Tuni, South India


[16]

Tsunami Damage Assessment

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[17]

Tsunami Relief Planning for HHI

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[18]

Tsunami Relief Work with HHI

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[19]

Pastors Seminar, Guntur District


[20]

Depart India via Delhi

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Christian School in North India
       This is a report on my trip to India for seven months in 2004 and 2005. I left Baltimore on the afternoon of August 17th 2004, and after 24 hours in airports and airplanes, I arrived in New Delhi on August 18th just before midnight. [a2]   The school administrator, Swapan Das, [a3] was there to meet me, and we spent the rest of the night [a4] traveling by car to Naggal, where I would be living. [a5]  We arrived at dawn, [a6] at the apartment I would be sharing with Swapan. [a7] The landlord's daughter greeted us with hot tea. [a8]  {EMAIL}
       Naggal, [a9] where I lived, [a10] and Alipur, where the school is, [a11] are about a kilometer apart, on opposite sides of the highway [a12] from Barwalla to Chandigarh.  Both villages are in the Barwalla sub-district [a13] of the Panchkula District of Haryana State, India.   {EMAIL}
       From this base, [b1] I was sent to various ministries associated with the school, [b2] primarily in Haryana and Punjab states. [b4]  When not traveling for this ministry, I conducted the daily devotional for the school staff, and preached (usually in the church which meets on campus) [b5] every Sunday.  Although the school is located near Chandigarh, in northwest India,  the first trip I was asked to take was to South India   {EMAIL}

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Vijayawada via Hyderabad, South India
      Officially, there is no such place as "South India". [c1]   However, virtually everyone in India who lives south of the Narmada River concludes their mailing address "South India" rather than "India". [c2]  It is a very different place. [c3] So when I took the 40-hour journey to Secunderabad, it was like journeying to another country. [c4] (Hyderabad and Secunderabad are twin cities, so I will be using both names almost interchangeably.)  There were three purposes for this visit.  The first was to investigate the possibility of routing a shipping container for the school coming from the USA through South India. [c5] The second was to meet an participate in a short-term medical mission there. [c6] The third purpose my host had in sending me to South India was to keep a promise he had made when we first met that he would help me re-connect with the family of my late translator, Elisha M. Peter, [c7] if they were still in Vijayawada.
       This trip was my first experience with "Sleeper Class" travel on Indian Railways. [d1]  On previous trips I had always traveled "First Class", [d2] which is the old un-airconditioned four-to-a-compartment sleeper, with a latchable door on each compartment.  But now Sleeper Class is on almost all trains, the old First Class has almost disappeared, and I did not want to travel "First Class AC" or any of the other airconditioned classes.   The compartments are made to sleep eight, with no doors; the passage just comes right through, with three bunks on each partition and two on the other side of the aisle.  This is a reserved class, so theoretically exactly eight persons will occupy each compartment. [d4]  But this is India; I have seen as many as fourteen adults and six children in one compartment.  I soon came to love traveling this way; by the end of seven months I had logged over 20,000 kilometers, almost all of it in Sleeper Class.
       But the first trip was not so enjoyable; [e1] the young man assigned to accompany me did not understand how to book a ticket and did not listen to the ticket clerk's advice, so when our first train arrived in Delhi, it was not in the same station that our second train would depart from.  So we had to negotiate a auto-rickshaw ride across New Delhi in pouring rain in rush-hour. [e2]  Then I got sick, so I spent the next 24 hours huddled in my berth bundled up in blankets in 90 degree heat.  The second night I slept better and then at dawn we arrived in Secunderabad.
       My hosts in Hyderabad live in the Ramnagar section of Secunderabad, just on the edge of the "Ramnagar slum", one of the larger and older barrios in Hyderabad. [f2]  Hyderabad is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.  When I first passed through Hyderabad in 1983, the twin city metropolitan area had a population of just under one million.  Now the population exceeds nine million. [f4]  It is expected that it will soon become one of the largest cities in the world.
       The evening of the day I arrived, I was taken to visit a Christian gathering called "Prayer House Ministries" meeting in the Hyderabad YWCA. [g1]  It is a non-denominational weekly prayer and praise meeting for new Christians.  There were about two hundred people present, almost all of them recent converts from Islam or Hinduism. [g2]  I was asked to speak, so I gave a message from the book of Isaiah.  The translator there was very good, and my message was well received.
       The next morning, which was Saturday, my host took me on a train to Vijayawada, in order to search for Grace Janaki, [h1] the widow of Elisha M. Peter, and her children. [h2]  I had no address for them; I only had my memory of some landmarks in their neighborhood.  Even if they had moved, I hoped I could find a neighbor who would know where they were.  I knew that although their house had been in Badavapeta, there is no main road to take me there, so I would have to start my search in Labipeta. [h3]  As soon as we started to go through town, I knew the search was going to be difficult.  Everything seemed to have changed.  Neighborhoods I remembered as poor and very Indian were now rich and Western.  When we got to M. G. Road (Mahatma Ghandi Road) in Labipeta, I could find none of the landmarks I was counting on.  There were so many huge new buildings. [h4]  I could not find the Catholic school with its soccer fields nor the little old leaky watertower which were my main landmarks.  Even the Hotel Khandari was gone, although one building under reconstruction might have been that hotel.  When we went into the side streets behind the Khandari, it was hopeless. [h5]   I could recognize nothing for sure.  Some things looked a little familiar, but most of what I saw was new construction where the little homes of people like Elisha had been bulldozed.
       Finally I almost gave up.  I was overheated, I was still sick, I was exhausted and depressed.  Ten years had passed, everything had changed, everyone I knew must be gone.  But my host would not give up. [i0]   He hired a pedal-rickshaw for us, and he started asking people to direct us to churches where he could ask the preacher if he had know Elisha M. Peter.  As I rode, I remembered another landmark, the gohagudi (cave temple) near the church. [i1]  After our last fruitless visit to a neighborhood church, the surroundings looked familiar.  I asked if there were any gohagudis nearby. [i2]   The first one we were shown was not the one I was looking for but I recognized it so I knew we were close.  Then at the next one I knew it was the one I wanted. [i3]  Many times on past trips I had climbed to the top of this rock to photograph the city and I had always tried to see Elisha's house from the top, but it was always hidden behind a tree.  I climbed to the top and looked around.  Much had changed, but then I saw one roof I recognized. [i4]  I memorized the tallest building near it and the pattern of streets, then returned to the rickshaw.
       In a few minutes we were at that landmark.  We began asking everyone we met "Do you remember Elisha M. Peter?".  The third person we asked did remember him, and gave directions;  a hundred feet up the street, turn left on a narrow alley, another hundred feet, and I knew where I was, fifty feet from the house.  As we approached the front gate, a woman came out who I did not recognize. [j1] I began to be disappointed, but as my guide spoke to her she said "I am Anita." then turning to me she said "Sundaram!".  Within minutes the word had gone up and down the street "Sundaram is back!".
       It was a real shock to see Rajkumar.  He is a complete invalid now as a result of a motorcycle accident.  He spent three years in a coma, and had only awakened three months before I arrived.  But he has very serious brain damage.  At the time of his accident he was three days away from his college graduation; he had already been accepted to law school. [k2]
       Then Elisha's widow, Grace Janaki came in, [l1] and we met the neighbors who help care for Rajkumar.  Later Vijay Samrat arrived, so all the family was there except for Sarada Devi, who was visiting relatives in Visakhapatnam. [l2]  We exchanged addresses and phone numbers, and visited for several hours.  I promised to return soon, then it was time to go.  We boarded the train at around midnight, and arrived in Secunderabad at dawn.
       The following Tuesday, Vijay Samrat and Sarada Devi came and visited us in Hyderabad. [m2]  {EMAIL}

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Hyderabad and Secunderabad, South India
       During that week I got to know in Ramnagar a lot better, and I came to love the neighborhood. [n1]  It is about four twisted blocks from a busy market, but the corner where I was staying was quiet.  The streets were only partly paved, and most of the neighbors had to come to the pump on the corner for water. [n2]  Most of the people passing by seemed friendly.  There are a few Christian families, but most of the area is evenly split between Muslims and Hindus.  My host showed me the apartment they were fixing up, it was the old part of the house and I found it quite charming.  They immediately offered it to me as a place to begin a permanent ministry.
       My hosts there run an independent ministry in the slums of Hyderabad and the surrounding area. [o1]  (The second day I was there they asked me if their ministry could become part of the "Church of Christ".  But they wanted organizational affiliation, not a change of doctrine.  I wonder how many other Indian "preachers converted" see it the same way?)  That week we visited many of their house-churches and prayer-houses, giving short devotionals and praying for families in their homes. [o3]
       Visiting homes of unbelievers and praying for them their is a very effective evangelism tool in India. [p1]  Everyone wants their home blessed, but the Hindu and Muslim leaders expect to get money for blessing a house.  So Christians who bless homes for free are welcome in many Hindu and Muslim households. [p2]  After a number of visits, substantive discussion of faith in Christ Jesus can begin. [p3]
       On Sunday, 5 September 2004, we visited the Hyderabad Mennonite Brethren Church.  When they found out I am an ordained preacher, they ask me to speak briefly.  I was not expecting that.  I looked at my daily Bible reading for the day, and it was Isaiah 14, all about the fall of Babylon and Assyria. [q0]  But in the midst of it is verse 27 "For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him?"  So I preached for about ten minutes on that verse, applying it to God's individual purpose in each of our lives, [q1] and my message was very well received.    It was Communion Sunday morning, which they hold only twice a year, and I spoke from the pulpit, which is a great honor.  There were several hundred people there that morning. [q2]
       Before coming to India this time, I had prayed about what to preach.  God made it clear to me that I was to start by preaching from Isaiah. [r1]  So for the first sixty-six days in India, each day was a new chapter in Isaiah, and whatever speaking I was asked to do was based on a passage from that chapter. [r2]  Many times it seemed at first that there was nothing in a chapter which was relevant to that day's audience, but always the Holy Spirit showed how there was a timely message for that group hidden in the chapter. [r3]  Frequently the relevance was in a New Testament passage that quoted one verse out of the Isaiah chapter of the day. [r4]

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Rayalasima via Chennai, South India
       I was planning to travel to Chennai that night to participate in a medical mission there, but there were no tickets available, so on Tuesday night I left for Chennai (Madras) by train, arriving Wednesday morning. [s1]  Unfortunately, no-one told the people I was coming what train I would be on, so when I arrived at Chennai Central Station, no-one was there to pick me up.  So there was much panic and confusion for a few hours.  I made phone calls and formulated a backup plan (take the next train to Vijayawada) but all the while God was saying "wait". [s2]   So I waited, and after four hours of sitting in the concourse, a young man showed up and said "Are you Mr. Grimm?"  so everything worked out as far as getting where I needed to go.
       By that time it was too late to join the team in the field that day, so I sat around the house (a very nice house in an up-scale neighborhood) waiting. [t1]
       The next day we left early to conduct a "medical camp" in Rayalisima, the southern region of Andhra Pradesh. [u1]  I was able to spend several hours with a very bright young preacher there, encouraging him, helping him with some scriptural hard places, and helping him put current problems in context through a better understanding of church history.
       Early the next morning after that I boarded the train for a forty-nine hour journey to Chandigarh. [v1]  Passing through the countryside, I was able to see why Hyderabad is growing so fast.  On previous trips, the most notable thing about India was that no matter where you were, there were people. [v2]  Every small field had someone performing some agricultural task at all times, it seemed.  Now you can look over vast tracts of large fields of crops and frequently you will see no-one. [v3]  The tractor has replaced the bullock team for plowing, the truck has replaced the bullock cart for transport, and the diesel pump has replaced the foot-wheel.  Each one of these replacements put up to fifty men out of work.       The rate of agricultural unemployment is staggering.  The displaced workers must, eventually (for they resist as long as they can) relocate to the city.  And Hyderabad is in the very center of this. [v5] 

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Karnal and Ludwa, Haryana, North India
       On arriving at Chandigarh, [w1] I was picked-up and brought to my room in Naggal.  I was given an hour to shower, shave and pack for five days in the field.  Three hours later (this is India) I was on my way with Ikbal to his village twenty-five kilometers south of Karnal City, in Karnal District, Haryana State.  No running water.  No latrine, only the rice fields to fertilize.  No door on my room.  The water-buffalo tried to get in bed with me one night. [w3]  Really.  Treated a five-year-old boy for acute malaria, successfully.  Taught a daily children's Bible-story hour. [w5]  Visited homes, prayed for homes, disputed (gently) the "equality of all religions" with a Hindu gentleman who was at first hostile but now is interested in the gospel, answered the questions of a Hindu young lady who wanted to know about this "Christian God in the Bible" and gave her a Gospel of John the next day.
       There is currently flood of evangelism that is sweeping across India.  Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims are coming to Christ in unprecedented numbers.  A major focus of this is in the states of Punjab and Haryana, adjacent states in the northwest of India.  Both have passed anti-conversion laws (the one in Haryana is particularly strict) [x3] and in both the anti-conversion laws are actually increasing the curiosity that young people have about Christianity.
       After three days, on to Ludwa in Kurukshetra District, the legendary source of the Bhagavad Gita.  Taught at a prayer meeting there, encouraged the minister.  Then I came down with malaria (a very mild case) and went home to Naggal, many hours by crowded buses. [y2]  {EMAIL}

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Beas and Amritsar, Punjab, North India
       A few days later I went to Beas, 40 kilometers from Amritsar, saw Amritsar, wept at Jillianwallahbagh (see the movie "Gandhi"), and taught in prayer meetings, blessed households, etc. [z0]   The Sikhs in that neighborhood are one by one becoming Christians. [z1]  I stayed with a family who had all been Sikhs until recently, but are now Christians and are very active in spreading their faith.  It was still the "hot weather", so we all slept in the courtyard rather than the house.  To get to Beas, we took an express bus, which was just tolerable for the four-hour journey; but on the return, the six-hour local bus was exceedingly uncomfortable. [z2]  {EMAIL}  {EMAIL}
       Then back to Naggal again. [A1].   I had been in India a month, and I needed to write lots of reports on the state of the mission, and to confer with my elders on how the mission was to proceed.  The result of this was the decision to begin transitioning my ministry to the south, to Andhra Pradesh where I had worked before. [A2]  Although the work in the north was very exciting, for the Lord is doing great things there, it had been anticipated that it would prove to be a temporary assignment for me.  Now it was decided to advance the date of that transition.  {EMAIL}

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Vijayawada and vicinity, South India
       Another thirty-eight hour train ride, and I was back in Vijayawada. [B1]
       As soon as I arrived in Vijayawada, [B2] Samrat and I began planning a series of evening meetings in the local churches. At the same time, we were formulating a long range plan for ministry in Andhra Pradesh, one that would extend over several years.  One major question in those long range plans was location.  Where would I focus my ministry?  Vijayawada? [B3]  Hyderabad? Or somewhere else?  The more we considered this and prayed about it, the more it seemed that Hyderabad had the greatest ministry potential.
       However, even if I focused my ministry geographically in Hyderabad, I would still need to rely on my friends in Vijayawada. [C01]   So a lot of my time in the first week was spent in simply re-establishing my relationships there. [C02]  We visited Elisha Peter's grave.  [C03]  [C04]  [C05]  I got to know young adults who were children on my last visit. [C6]  I met all the new children in the neighborhood. [C07]  [C08]  [C12]  [C14]    I found a reliable Internet cafe. [C15]

       Then for a week Samrat took me around to different churches every evening where people gathered for prayer. [D1]   On most evenings we visited two or three such prayer meetings in Krishna District, mostly in or near Vijayawada or Machilipatnam. [D2]   The messages continued to be out of Isaiah, by this time I was on such passages as "...I will also make You a light for the gentiles, that You may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." Is. 49:6 and "It is the Sovereign LORD who helps me.  Who is he that will condemn me?" Is. 50:9  When some chapters such as Isaiah 51 did not seem relevant to the audience of the evening, I was always able to see a passage which is a springboard to the New Testament, such as Isaiah 51:2 "Look to Abraham your father" which opens the door to Romans chapter 4. [D3]

       It was here, using different translators each night, that both the difficulty of understanding a translated lesson and the lack of training of the preachers became apparent. [E1] For example, once when I said "Let us turn now to III John 9", the translator, a preacher with thirty years experience and a leader among the Churches of Christ, said something like "Yohannu Baptisu" in his translation.  I suspected what had happened; when I later asked some Telugu speakers about it, sure enough, this preacher had said "Let us turn to the third letter of John the Baptist."!
       On the final night, [F1]  I preached in Guntur District, [F2]  in new church in a village of "the caste that has no men". [F3]   All of the members of this church are women, they were prostitutes before they came to Jesus Christ. [F4]

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Hyderabad and Kodada, South India

       Then I went to Hyderabad by train, [G01]  and immediately on arrival I was hustled onto a bus along with four Swiss evangelists [G02] and one other American and about twenty Indian church workers, [G03]  and we drove about eight hours to Kodada, [G04] where I was "Chief Guest" [G05]  at a Gospel Meeting with about a thousand in attendance. [G06]   I spoke on the passage [G07]  "And the foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD ... I will bring to my holy mountain ... for My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Is. 56:6-7 Working through a very skilled (and very expensive) translator was a good experience; [G08]  I knew the crowd, which included many Hindus, was getting the message.  People on their way home from the fields were stopping on the road  at the back of the crowd and standing on tractors and wagons to listen. [G09]   Then after midnight we turned around and drove all the way back to Hyderabad, arriving at dawn.  For the entire trip, preaching and all, I was "out of it" with an allergic reaction to some peanuts I inadvertently ate. [G10]
       On Friday and Saturday were the big "Pastors Seminar", [H1]  mostly pentecostals, [H2]  at which I was to be a guest speaker but not the main speaker. [H3]    As it was, my lesson was put off and put off again until I gave it at a street prayer meeting of about 30 people instead of addressing the 800 at the Pastors Seminar. [H4]   This is India; whatever you plan for, it will usually happen differently. [H5]

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Conclusion of North India ministry
       Then it was off to North India again. [I1]  This time I insisted that no-one assist me on my journey, because some Americans had objected that making arrangements for me was taking too much of the school staff's time and energy.  They insisted on coming to get me, but I refused, not even telling them where I would be when, only the day of my arrival.
       This time I was able to travel old-fashioned First Class, [J1]  a compartment with only four berths, a latching door, an open window, and no airconditioning.  Few trains have this class anymore; it is replaced by the lower priced Sleeper Class (which I usually took) and the higher priced Airconditioned classes.  Whenever possible I avoid the AC classes, not because of cost, but because I enjoy the open window, and the people are generally friendlier in "SL".
       After 33 very pleasant hours of travel, [K01]  I arrived Hazrat Nizamuddin Station in New Delhi; [K02]  not to be confused with New Delhi Station which is in Old Delhi. [K03]   There I changed trains for Ambala, the "Umballa" of those who read Kipling.  Arriving in Ambala just before noon, I faced what I knew would be the real challenge of my trip north.  I had to get on the right bus for Dera Bassi, without any knowledge of Hindi at a place where I could expect no-one to speak English. [K04]   There were two exits to the train station, on opposite sides of the seven tracks, I managed to pick the right one to get to the bus-stand.  There on the highway was a line of buses, I picked one that was not very full and had a "Chandigarh" sign in the front window because I had been told that all buses from Amballa to Chandigarh go through Dera Bassi.  "Dera Bassi?" I said at the door, the driver nodded, and I installed myself on the engine cover behind the driver so I could see out the windshield.  When the bus was full we left; an hour or so later I saw the sign "Derabassi" and the recognized the bus stand there.  Here I knew I only had to find a man shouting "Barwala! Barwala! Barwala!" and get on the bus he pointed to. [K10]   From Barwala to Alipur the standard auto-rickshaw rate is Rs. 30, so I knew if I just walked over to the "autos" waving a Rs. 50 note in my hand I would soon have a ride, [K11]  even with no Punjabi to bargain with.  So in a little while I arrived safely back at my room in Naggal.
       My host here at the school in Panchkula had insisted before I traveled south that I not make that trip a final move south but that  I maintain my room in Naggal, and that I return when the American sponsor was visiting. [L01]  He wanted my assistance in convincing the American of the need for autonomy of the Indian ministry.  This seemed quite reasonable at the time, as I had promised to help my host in any way I could. [L02]    [L03]  However, by the time I returned, my host had decided to handle things differently. [L04]  So we all agreed that I would now move south permanently, and they gave me a letter blessing my South Indian work.  My hosts insisted that they arrange for my rail tickets, so having given them my itinerary and ticket money, I returned to Naggal village to pack all my things and to await a confirmed rail ticket. [L05]
     Until now, I had always been quite busy, as my hosts were always rushing me off to one off-campus ministry or another when I was here in Haryana, so I had not had much chance to get to know the school staff. [M01]   But now that my duties with the school and its ministries was finished, I had time on my hands, and I had time to get to know them as we spoke together either at my house or at the little shops in Naggal village where they came to get tea and so on.  [M02]   Talking to these staff members gave me a much greater understanding of the ministry there.  Many of the staff still identified themselves as being Hindu or Sikh, having only taken on Jesus as their newest teacher.  Those who had made a definite commitment to Jesus Christ were a very small minority. Another mission team arrived from America for several weeks of medical missions about the same time I arrived from the south.  But  the medical mission team was hustled back to America and the medical mission was canceled.   [M03]
       In the mean time, I was still waiting for my rail ticket south to appear.  It began to appear that nothing was being done about obtaining it.  So I began working on making my own arrangement.    I was in a very remote place, [N04] and so I could not arrange to leave on my own; there was no "auto" stand in the village.  I speak neither Punjabi nor Hindi, and the little Telegu that I know is of little use there.  Finally, I became friends with a man from outside the village who had a shop in the village.  His cousin owns a car, which he operates as a "gypsy cab". {EMAIL}  We arranged for a ride to Ambala, the nearest rail junction.  The day of my ride, my car and driver arrived, I piled all my stuff in his car, and off we drove to Ambala. On arriving in Ambala, I was able to get tickets for the next day, so I booked a hotel room for the night.  [N06]

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Relocation to Vijayawada, South India
       The next day I took the train to Delhi.  My tickets were for the same trains I had taken on my very first trip south three month before, and I still remembered not only the difficulty of the auto-rickshaw trip across Delhi between stations, but also my experience ten years before,  [O2]  when taking a cab from the same station Benjamin and I had been virtually held hostage by an unscrupulous cab driver for a whole day.  But God answered my prayers, I made friends with an Indian family on the train to Delhi, and when we arrived at New Delhi Station (in Old Delhi, remember) the family, who spoke Hindi, arranged for my auto ride to H. Nizamuddin Station (in New Delhi). [O4]   There I got a porter to carry my bags into and around the station (for I has many bags)  who was polite, helpful, stayed with me the whole time I was waiting for the train, only overcharged me about what I should expect, then after loading my bags on the train, picked my pocket as I shook his hand goodbye.
       The train was late, so while waiting I made friends with a soldier who was to travel on the same train. [P1]  He was from the Rajput Division, and the Rajputs, from Rajastan, are Hindus, and very proud of their Hindu tradition. He noticed me reading my Bible, and began asking me about it.  By the time we parted, I had given him my Bible, and he had promised to read it, starting with the Gospel of John.  The Bible which I was using that day, which I gave to him, was made to be the same size as a GI New Testament, so it fit the "prayer book pocket" inside the left breast of a British (or American) army field-jacket.  The sergeant said "I always wondered what that pocket was for." [P3] 
       On the ride south, I was able to have a long discussion of Christianity with a group of young Hindu businessmen in our compartment.  Some drifted out of the conversation, but one or two continued with me as I laid out the basics of the Gospel, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him" II Cor. 5:21 This had become the theme verse for my entire mission trip, and continued to be through the end. [Q3]   It focuses on what makes the Gospel different from Hinduism (and Islam) rather than focusing on what makes the Church of Christ different from the other denominations. [Q4]
       A young man in the next compartment overheard our conversation, and when it was done he joined me. [R1]  He was a preacher from Delhi in an independent church.  It turns out he had done his final year of Bible College in Baltimore, Maryland.  We spent hour discussing the Bible, and once again God opened the door to continue the mentoring ministry He had sent me to India to do. [R2]
       42 hours after leaving Ambala (and 70 hours after walking out of my door in Naggal) I arrived in Vijayawada.  I had plans to relocate to Hyderabad, [S04] to begin a ministry in the Ramnagar slum of Secunderabad, but I did not yet have final approval of this plan from my elders. [S05]  Also, there were still details to be ironed out with my landlords-to-be in Ramnagar, repairs to the house, hiring of servants, etc. [S07]
       While I was waiting, Rajkumar took a turn for the worse.  I was now sharing the prayer house with Rajkumar, so now I was effectively in a private hospital ward.  Then Rajkumar was sent to the hospital.  We all though he was going to die, the doctors had lost hope.  But Raj pulled through, barely.  He came out of this bout of bacterial encephalitis and septicemia with a paralyzed side, and lost the few words he had begun to regain.  He lost most of the progress he has made since he awakened from his three-year coma six months before, but he is still alive.
       Death is a constantly present reality in India. [U02]   Hardly a week went by without news that a neighbor or friend or relative had died. [U03]   Many of these are old, but quite a few are young or middle aged. [U04]   While I was staying in Vijayawada, [U05]  news came one Sunday morning that a Church of Christ preacher had died only a few blocks away. [U06]  That afternoon we attended the funeral. [U07]    Indian funerals are almost always held within 36 hours of death. [U08]   There are no funeral homes; [U09]  a tent is hurriedly rented and stretched across the street in front of the home and there the funeral is held. [U10]   A truck is rented to serve as hearse; the family prepares the body.  Christians and Muslims usually bury their dead in India, [U11]  in contrast to the Hindu custom of cremation, [U12]  so after the service at the home there is a long procession to the cemetery. [U13]   In this case, the man was a well known Church of Christ preacher, was only in his forties, and had died suddenly;  heart disease and hypertension are very common in Andhra Pradesh.  [U14]    The man had left a widow and two teenaged children. [U15]  So many hundreds of people came to the funeral. [U16]

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Conclusion of Hyderabad ministry, South India
      In the midst of this approval of my Hyderabad plans came through, [V01] so I got on a train with Das, my translator, since Samrat was too busy with his brother to go.  We spent a whole day negotiating about the house, [V02] we expected then to spend the next three days hiring remodeling contractors and domestic servants.  But instead, the negotiations for the house broke down.  The cost of repairs was suddenly much higher than originally quoted, and the rent tripled.  Then on top of it all they asked for a large loan (I think it was Rs 40,000) "until (the next group of American preachers) gets here", and made it clear that whenever they asked for a loan they expected to get it.[V3]  We left the house of my former hosts in Ramnagar and went to Das' uncle's house in Hyderabad to talk it out in private.  There I learned that the family we were negotiating with for the house, my former hosts in Ramnagar, were in constant communication with my former host at the school in Panchkula, North India.  From him they had received an inflated idea of my finances, and had tried to recruit Das, my translator, into sharing the wealth between them all.  But Das refuses such all offers.  We never went back to Ramnagar. [V05]
       However, this left me with my plans for ministry dashed on the ground again. [W01]   Our rail tickets back to Vijayawada were for two days hence, so I decided to devote those two days to prayer to beg God to show me what He wanted me to do, now that two doors for ministry had been slammed shut in my face after such hopeful beginnings.  [W04]  After much prayer, Das suggested that he and Samrat could organize monthly three-day seminars for preachers for my remaining months in India.  We began sketching the plans for these seminars, and, upon returning to Vijayawada, [W09] Das and I, along with Samrat, fleshed out these plans.

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Pastors Seminar, Vijayawada, South India
       We would have three seminars, the first in Badavapeta, Vijayawada, in December on Joshua.[X1]    In January the seminar would be in Errabalem village, [X2]  in Guntur District just across the Krishna River from Vijayawada, on Paul's letter to Titus.  Then in February we would have a seminar in Machilipatnam, about 60 miles from Vijayawada near the coast, probably on Philippians.  In each case every day for three days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) I would teach all day to preachers, then each evening there would be a Gospel meeting for a general audience. [X3]

       The next three weeks were spent in Vijayawada preparing for the Preachers' Seminar. [Y2]  Samrat traveled about and made phone calls and invited all the preachers he knew, both Church of Christ and others. [Y3]   He also made all the logistical arrangements, [Y4]  because I was expected to provide lunch every day for all the seminar participants. [Y5] 
       Meanwhile, I crammed my head with the book of Joshua and the passages covering the life of Joshua in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Judges, as well as New Testament references.  That meant reading through the book of Joshua many times in many translations, plus all the other passages the same way.  At the beginning of all this study, I was drawn to the theme of "Be strong and Courageous" Jos. 1:6 as so many preacher have done before with Joshua.  But by the middle of this twenty days of intensive study, I had decided that the theme should be "Joshua the Servant". [Z2]  I would use this seminar to pursue four objectives:

  1. To teach the method expository preaching (using the book of Joshua as a worked example).

  2. To bring the students (preachers) up to a level of competency on the stories of Joshua.

  3. To share the insights we find into how God relates to his people which we find in the book of Joshua and in the life of Joshua.

  4. To hold up Joshua as an example of how we should live our lives as servants.

This last objective is especially important in the context of a preachers' and pastors' seminar, where people see leadership and servanthood as opposite to each other, and see their own role as leaders, not servants. [Z6]
       On the night before the first day of the seminar, we had scheduled a prayer meeting. [aa01]   I had made it clear that it was not to be like a typical Indian "prayer meeting", which are primarily evening preaching sessions with a bit of music and precious little actual prayer.  Rather, we would get together to pray for God's purposes to be fulfilled in the three days of the seminar.  I expected that the local preachers, especially the Church of Christ preachers in the neighborhood, would want to come.  But I was disappointed.  Only Samrat, his mother, sisters, and brother-in-law showed up, with me and Das the translator.  But we prayed, and God answered. [aa11]
       The next day, [bb00]  men began streaming to the little prayer house in Badavapeta. [bb01]     I put on my new Indian clothes and greeted seminar participants as they arrived. [bb02]   Finally we got started. [bb03]   Preaching and teaching from 10 AM to 10 PM for three days, everything now seems like a blur.  Of course there were breaks every couple of hours, [bb04]  but I did all the teaching,  I did not alternate with anyone.  Everything I said had to be translated by Das, as only about 10% of the participants understood English well enough to follow me. [bb05]   This meant that I had to pause after each statement  so Das to translate it into Telugu. [bb06]   Which meant I had to be thinking of what I would say next while straining to follow the rough gist of what Das was saying in Telugu try to to catch any major misunderstandings, while simultaneously watching the audience to see from their faces if we had lost them altogether on a difficult or hard to translate point. [bb07]   It is very exhausting, and very fulfilling.   I managed to cover the entire life of Joshua in three days and still have one hour left over on Saturday afternoon.  This hour I used to teach on the mode and meaning of baptism, which had nothing to do with the lesson in Joshua, but had everything to do with the cultural context in which half of the audience were Church of Christ preachers and the other half were preachers from other denominations.  I managed to challenge everybody's thinking on both sides of the aisle.  [bb12] [bb13]  [bb14]  [bb15]  [bb16]  [bb17]  [bb18]
       From the beginning almost everyone present was very pleased with my teaching. [cc01]  but there were a couple of exceptions.    On the second day we had one problem; a couple of young men from the Church of Christ came after lunch (having missed the first full day and half of the second) and after one hour began complaining that they had not heard the "Apostles Teaching" being taught.  When asked what they meant, they said that I had left out all mention of the mode and purpose of baptism, the proper name of the church, the doctrine of the trinity and the titles, roles and qualifications of elders.  The lesson they had just heard had been a detailed exposition of the defeat of Israel at Ai, the sin of Achan, and the subsequent victory at Ai and Bethel, and the lesson to be learned on how hidden sin effects the life of the church. [cc02]   I will grant that it was not the kind of teaching they were used to; many of the participant said that they had never heard Bible teaching like this, that focused on one topic.  It seems that in most Indian churches the same list of topics must be covered in every sermon; the real trick for a skilled preacher is to make the same points week after week and still keep it interesting, the tour-de-force being to prove the same points using a new and unique set of verses. [cc03]   Anyhow, these young men were quite discontented with what they heard.  They confronted me about this during a break.  At the end of that break, before I had re-entered the prayer house, the meeting resumed and, as usual, began with a session of volunteer solo singing.  Then an elderly woman got up and began singing her solo.  Half of the group gathered were blest by her message in song, but the Church of Christ definitely were not feeling blest, they fidgeted and squirmed in their seats and threw glances at me.  I was uncomfortable as well; I was making gestures to my translator to bring it to an end if he could, but his hands were tied by culture and courtesy.  Suddenly the two complainers got up and, shouting something which roughly translates "Those who are faithful to the LORD will leave now!" they stalked out of the building and across the courtyard toward the gate to the street. [cc04]   Many of the Church of Christ preachers began to get up and leave, not because they agreed, but because they were afraid they would be singled out for censure by their ultraconservative colleges if they stayed.  But I was ahead of them to the gate, I latched it, then turning to face them with my back to the gate I said "If you are going to leave now you have to talk to me about it first.  I intended to say to them "If you want her to stop, you wrestle her off the podium - then you can defend your rudeness toward an elderly woman to your neighbors" but I never got the chance.  As soon as I spoke, they went back into the prayer house and sat down. [cc05]  (I had not actually locked them in; there was another gate standing open, but it was down a long passageway by the kitchen, perfectly suited for slipping quietly away but no good at all for making a dramatic exit.)
       In the meantime Das had interrupted the woman's song and she sat down; I went in and resumed our Joshua lesson; I was too angry to speak about the incident yet.  About an hour into the lesson, at a question time one of these young men questioned me in front of the group about the woman singing - "How could I let her do that?"  I responded by saying "Are you proud of what you have done?  You forced me to be rude to a woman I should have respected as my own mother.  Are you proud of that?  You humiliated her in front of this whole group, and you are continuing to humiliate her by what you are saying now.  Are you proud of that?"  Then going on to compare and contrast their behavior to that of Priscilla and Aquila toward Apollos, I continued in the "you brood of vipers" mode for about five minutes. [dd05]   When I was done, the Church of Christ preachers sitting near them had edged away, and they had no reply.   Those two young men did not return the next day; several people made comments that their presence was not missed.
       In discussing this incident the next day several of  those in other denominations said that they had never (before hearing me) heard a Church of Christ preacher teach Bible without concentrating on criticism of others. [ee06]   I, on the other hand, had focused the lessons on how we could apply these lessons to ourselves, and particularly how these lessons highlighted my own uncorrected faults.  This is a problem in prevalent in the Indian churches, but particularly in the Churches of Christ - sanctification is just not taught. [ee08]   A minimal set of rules - church behavior, no smoking, etc. - is taught, but no obligation to continually allow the Holy Spirit to keep changing me to conform my character to the character of Christ.
       At the end of the third day, as I said, there was an hour left, so I taught on baptism. [ff11]  So now when those two young men say that I never taught the Apostles Doctrine on baptism, those who stayed for the whole seminar can correct them and say "If you had stayed for the whole seminar, you would have heard his lesson on baptism".
      When all the teaching was over, [gg20] I was wreathed with flowers and presented with gifts. [gg21]   But the greatest gift for me was the testimonials that followed. [gg24]   Instead of the traditional pro forma thank-you for my lessons [gg25]  (which is usually used to enhance the prestige of the one doing the thanking) [gg26]  a long line of preachers got up to tell how these three days of teaching had opened their eyes, [gg27]  how they had never heard such teaching, [gg28]  how it was going to change their lives. [gg29]  I lost count at a dozen men. [gg30]  One preacher had over thirty years seniority and is over fifty churches and said he had never in his life heard teaching straight from the Bible like that. [gg31]
       I think one of the best ways to judge the success of a meeting like this is the progress of the congregational singing.  At the beginning, the five women in one corner out-sang the 25 men present, [hh26]  which is about usual in India.  By Saturday afternoon, the thirty men in our closing session sounded like an army.
       Several days after the seminar I was given the translated sign-in sheets for the seminar; fifty-five preachers had attended, about half of them identifying their church as Church of Christ. [ii6]

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Nepal via West Bengal and Bihar, North-East India
       My visa to India is for ten years, however, it carries a restriction that requires me to leave India for at least two full days every 180 days. [jj1]  My two best options for meeting this requirement were Kakarvita, Nepal or Columbo, Sri Lanka.  For a time I considered flying to Columbo and spending Christmas weekend on the beach there, even though it was more expensive, in order to avoid the dangers posed by the Maoist insurgency in Nepal.  However, after much prayer about this, I was convinced that God wanted me to go to Nepal, so on December 26th I set out by train to Kishanganj, Bihar.  The plan was that I would visit a friend there, and with his assistance travel overland into Nepal.  [jj3]
       Kishanganj straddles the border of the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal.  My friends father is a Free Will Baptist minister living in the Bihar side of Kishanganj.  After two days on the train, I arrived and my friend met me at the station. [kk1]  The next day, I spoke at a belated Christmas celebration at a small church on the Bangladesh border.  The next few days taken up with preparations for crossing into Nepal, learning about the mission there, and with a lot of Internet communications related to the momentous events of that week (which will be covered in more detail later). [kk2]  On Friday, we learned that one of the oldest and most beloved of the Free Will Baptist preachers in the area had died, so on Saturday we all went to the funeral.  The funeral was in a remote village amidst the tea plantations of Darjeeling District in West Bengal.  I was quite an adventure, because the taxi we hired kept getting flat tires, and in the end stranded us in the middle of nowhere.  So someone had to leave the funeral to come and fetch us, then we had to get a ride from someone else after the funeral back to the main highway where we could hire another taxi to take us home.  All in all, a very long day. [kk4]
       On Sunday, I spoke in the Free Will Baptist Church, then on Monday we left for Nepal.  First we traveled by bus from Kishanganj through West Bengal to Siliguri.  There a taxi was waiting for us to carry us into Nepal.  Then a short ride of ten or twenty kilometers to Panitanki, on India's border with Nepal. [ll2]  Through Indian immigration to get my passport stamped "Exited India", and across the river to Kakarvita, Nepal.   On both sides of the river immigration and customs seemed to be almost on the honor system, with no barriers, just an office near the road.
       I stayed three days in Nepal,in a little hotel on a commercial back street.  All around me were betal-nut warehouses, and the air was full of the pungent fragrance of betel.  Kakarvita is, among other things, a smuggling center, and much of my time when I was not in the Internet cafe was spent sitting on the riverbank watching a long line of heavily laden bicycles smuggling betel across the riverbed into India. [mm2]
       On my last full day in Nepal, led by the Spirit I followed narrow streets down to a little hamlet on the river's edge.  There, as I walked down a very neat and clean narrow street between thatched huts, a man suddenly said as I passed "Do you know P. K. Das?"  I did not understand what he had said, so he repeated "Do you know Philip K. Das?" [nn1]  Then I realized he was speaking of my host in Kishanganj; but how did he know me and know who I was staying with?  It turned out that he was a Free Will Baptist preacher, a Nepali living here in Kakarvita, and he had seen me at the burial two days before.  We went to his home, and spent a very pleasant hour together.  I was at that time preparing my lessons on Titus for the upcoming second seminar, so I shared part of the lesson with him.  God had in a completely unexpected way given me an opportunity to continue my ministry of mentoring preachers.  [nn3]
       Also on that day the Nepali army fought a "major battle" with the Maoists about two kilometers from my hotel, 36 Maoists and two policemen were killed.  I was down by the river at the time and never knew it had happened until I saw it on the news that night. [oo2]
       After three days in that charming town I set off on my own back to Kishanganj.  The hotel arranged for my taxi to Siliguri, but from there I had to take a bus.  The taxi dropped me on the highway, then I flagged the next bus and got on.  I had left Kakarvita at noon, but it was dark by the time the bus arrived in Kishanganj, and it was hard to see enough to get off at the right stop.  The next day I started the two-day rail journey back to Vijayawada. [pp3] 

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Orphanage in Tuni, South India
        One of my purposes for being in India [qq01]  was to find ways to promote American involvement [qq02]  (particularly Church of Christ involvement) [qq03]  in charitable works such as orphanages in India. [qq04]   Lifeline of Hope, [qq05]  which sponsors several orphanages in India, [qq06]  had asked me to photo-document their orphanages in India, [qq07]  and I was glad to oblige. [qq08]  Although the actual time of my visit to the orphanage in Tuni was in February, [qq09]  that visit will be described here in this narrative in the interest of clarity. [qq10] {EMAIL}

       I arrived in the small city of Tuni  [qq11]  in northeastern Andhra Pradesh late in the afternoon. [qq12]  The Lifeline of Hope Childrens Home in Tuni is in the Church of Christ prayer house, [qq23]  in a residential neighborhood across the river from the actual city of Tuni. [qq24]   When I arrived, [qq25]  playtime was just beginning. [qq26]   This gave me a good opportunity to see the children acting naturally, [qq27]  and it was immediately clear that the children were happy and healthy. [qq28]   I was able to spend that evening [qq29]  and all of the next day in Tuni [qq30] photographing the childrens home  [qq31] and surrounding area. [qq32]  I am very impressed with this facility, [qq33]  and with its director. [qq34] 

       Moving back a few weeks in time....
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Tsunami Damage Assessment, South India
       On the morning of 26 December 2004, I was awakened at 6:30 AM by noise in the church building. [rr01]  I thought "I know we are having church early today, but that is still hours away; why do they have to be stacking chairs so early in the morning making all this racket?", then I went back to sleep.  At 8:30 when I got up, I was told there had been an earthquake, then I realized that the sound I had heard was not chairs being stacked but the prayer-house doors rattling in the earthquake. [rr02]   I immediately, once I saw on BBC that the epicenter was at Aceh, knew that the eastern coastline of India was at high risk for tsunami.  Less than an hour later it struck.  We were not in danger, being about a hundred kilometers inland, but the entire coast of Andhra Pradesh state where I was was affected. [rr03]  The tsunami zone extended for a thousand miles along the eastern coast, the southern tip, and a small part of the southwestern coast of India of, with a small gap that was protected by the "shadow" of Sri Lanka. [rr04]  But the tsunami zone was narrow, at most a couple of kilometers wide, in most places only a few hundred meters wide (a couple of football fields). [rr05]  In general, the tsunami damage was light in the far northeast near Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state, increasing in severity southwestward to a maximum at Nagapatnam (Point Calimere) a few hundred kilometers south of Chennai (Madras) in Tamil Nadu state. [rr06]   However, local geography played a major role in affecting tsunami damage; one coastal village might be devastated, while another a few kilometers farther south was hardly touched.  (The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were also devastated, but that, like the other countries affected by the tsunami, is beyond the scope of this document.)  There were over five thousand tsunami deaths in mainland India, mostly in Tamil Nadu. [rr07]

        On the day of the tsunami, I was to travel to West Bengal, Bihar and Nepal, which was necessary in order to restart the 180-day clock on my visa [ss01].  I considered canceling that trip, but after praying about it I realized that it was best for me to go north at that time, so that any tsunami relief work I subsequently was involved in would not be interrupted. [ss02]   Four days after the tsunami, I received an email in West Bengal from Lindy Adams at Christian Chronicle asking for information about the effect of the tsunami on the Churches of Christ in India. [ss03]  Following up on that email, I was able to make contact with others who were already involved in tsunami relief coordination, notably Don Yelton of Whites Ferry Road Church of Christ Disaster Relief and G. David Illankumaran of Maduma Nagar Church of Christ in Chennai. [ss04]  I immediately volunteered to help in any way that I could, especially helping with transportation, itinerary and logistics for incoming Church of Christ workers, as Vijayawada is strategically located to provide such help. [ss05]

        The most immediate need for those in the USA who were beginning to mount a tsunami relief effort turned out to be on-the-scene information. [tt01]  So while I was still in Nepal I dispatched my translators and helpers to the coast in Krishna and Guntur districts to begin assessing the tsunami damage there. [tt02]  We started there because these are the home districts of my workers and they are familiar with the coast there.  The day after I returned to Vijayawada, I went to the coast in Krishna District myself, and the next day in Guntur. [tt03]  In the mean time, due to a misunderstanding which is hilarious in hindsight, I came to understand that the higher-ups in disaster relief in the Church of Christ in the USA wanted me to coordinate ALL of the major Church of Christ disaster relief for India.  Not that I wanted so big a job, but if they can't find anybody else to do it...  [tt04]
        What had happened was that when an Indian preacher asked for aid US from Churches of Christ for churches "from Chennai to Kannyakumari" I was asked to "handle it".[uu01]  Now in the first place, while I suspect now that by "handle it" he meant handle that one preacher, at the time I thought he meant handle "from Chennai to Kannyakumari". [uu02]    In the second place,  the person in the USA who said this did not immediately recognize the names "Chennai" and "Kannyakumari", while I was by this time so Indianized that I had forgotten that most Americans would not know these names. [uu03]  Perhaps they thought we were only talking about a couple of adjacent villages.  But to say in India that you are handling the tsunami relief "from Chennai to Kannyakumari" is like in America saying you are handling the hurricane relief "from Savanna to Key West".  [uu04]  Since I was already doing needs assessment in Krishna and Guntur districts in Andhra Pradesh, once ten more districts in Tamil Nadu were put on our plate, we went ahead and tossed in the two districts in between, and thus we set out to coordinate efforts over a thousand miles of coastline.  [uu06]
        We decided to start by preparing a report on the districts we were in, while at the same time training brethren in Tamil Nadu to prepare needs assessments for those districts. [vv01]  By the time the big misunderstanding was cleared up, the report on Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam districts was nearly complete, and we had made valuable contacts among the churches in Nellore District and Tamil Nadu. [vv02]  I am still proud of the report we put together for those three districts. {EMAIL}  We were able to firmly establish that the impact to  members of the Churches of Christ was orders of magnitude larger than previously estimated. [vv03]  We had established that there were many dozens of Churches of Christ that no-one had known about among the rural poor of the affected regions. [vv04]   In addition, we now had a team of about a half-dozen workers who had been rapidly but thoroughly trained in methodologies that would be invaluable in the next phase of our work. [vv05]
        Once it became apparent that we were not expected to be major tsunami relief coordinators, the was a few days of lull in our work. [ww01]  We could not just pitch in and start doing local relief, first because we had insufficient cash on hand to do it, and second, because in order to get information from local preachers for the needs assessment, we had stated that we ourselves would not be distributing aid from America, but that this information would be passed on to others.  [ww04]
        One of the great difficulties with the tsunami relief efforts was the jealousies and envyings between local preachers. [xx01]  Many time the focus was more on "how much money will pass through my hands" or "how much credit and prestige will my ministry get" rather than "how can we do the greatest good for the greatest number of the most needy".  In this environment, information is power. [xx02]  That is why we promised that we would not be the distributors of aid.  Because if we were going to be the distributors, then why should the local preachers help us, when all that would mean is that someone else other than them would get to handle the money and get the credit and prestige?  [xx03]
        Another difficulty in tsunami relief is that when the car breaks down, you are in the middle of nowhere. [xx09]

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Tsunami Relief Planning for HHI, South India
        In a few days we were back to work, this time with a different mission. [yy01]  Healing Hands International of Nashville, TN, was preparing to send a team to begin tsunami relief work for Churches of Christ in the USA. [yy02]  They had been shocked by the jealousy, envy and strife within the Churches of Christ in India communicated to them in emails. [yy03]  They needed someone to prepare an itinerary for them that would cover the tsunami zone fairly and would not give all the control to just one or two local preachers. [yy04]  As one of them said later "When all of the important somebodies in the church are fighting to be HHI's "sole representative" in a country and so enlarge their own ministry, prestige and power, HHI seeks out the "nobodies" who are not striving and works with them." [yy05]  And I was the most "nobody" Church of Christ missionary in India, and my workers are as "nobody" as it gets.  So HHI asked me to arrange the accommodations and itinerary for the five-man HHI team's two week visit. [yy06]
        I spent most of my secular career working among software engineers, [zz01] and it is said that "Managing software engineers is like herding cats."  But herding cats is easy compared to getting Church of Christ preachers in India to cooperate. [zz02]  Almost every preacher two whom we explained what was happening with the HHI team responded "Just tell me what flight they will be on and I will meet the plane and handle everything for them."  This sounds like a generous offer of assistance at first, but it is not [zz03].  What they are really saying is "Let me be the sole filter of their Indian experience.  They will see only what I want them to see, hear only what I want them to hear, go only where I want them to go, do only what I want them to do, and most important of all, spend money only the way I want the money spent.[zz04] When I would tell them that all Indian preachers, great and small, would be given the same opportunity to meet the team to show them around for at most one day, etc., many of them would get highly incensed. [zz05]
        So we spent hours and hours on the telephone making arrangements for lodging and meetings with preachers and trips to the coast, [AA01] met with preachers from the length and breadth of Andhra Pradesh and from Chennai (some of them very cooperative, some of them not very cooperative), all the while gathering a longer and longer list of who was doing what tsunami relief where.  In the middle of this I held a three-day preachers seminar in Guntur District (see below).  Once I began to get a grasp of the big picture of what the Indian churches were doing in tsunami relief already, and what was glaringly undone, [AA03] I could start sketching in an itinerary for the HHI team (which was actually three itineraries, because we planned to split the team three ways to cover more area). [AA04] Then we went to Nellore City, [AA05] met with local preachers and began to get them organized and cooperating for the tsunami effort, and visited tsunami damaged villages on the Nellore District coast. [AA06]  From there we went to Chennai and repeated the process.  After that we went to Kakinada to verify some important information concerning church leaders in that area, which allowed me to spend a day in nearby Tuni at the orphanage (see above)[AA07]
        Finally, with the itineraries complete, hotel reservations made, and more than a dozen different rail tickets purchased, we headed back to Chennai to greet the arriving HHI team.  [BB02]

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Tsunami Relief Work with HHI, South India
         The area of tsunami damage in India is over a thousand miles long and in most places about a hundred yards wide. [CC01]  The area of economic damage is the same length,  but about a mile wide;  that is, that most of those who lost their livelihood due to tsunami damage live in villages within a mile of the coast. [CC02]  In most places on the coast, extending inland for about five miles from the beach is a sparsely populated region of tidal floodplains, salt marshes and sandy wastelands, with a patternless maze of poorly maintained roads. [CC03]  Many people who live on the "coastal highway" five to ten miles inland are completely unaware of the thin line of villages on the narrow dune line between this wasteland and the sea.  Even among the few who know of these coastal villages, still fewer know how to get to them. [CC04]  And those who have visited these coastal villages, generally have visited only two or three and have no idea that the village they visited is only one of many in that region.  [CC05]
        Many of these villages are populated by "tribals", especially of the Yanadi tribe, one of the "Scheduled Tribes", who are even lower on the Indian social ladder than the "Scheduled Castes", the "untouchables". [DD02]  Because of this, and also of their migratory lifestyle (as fishermen, they follow the seasonal migrations of the fish), in many places they are not recognized as part of the community.   So local officials frequently issue them neither voter registration cards nor ration cards, and do not count them in the census. [DD04]  Therefore even the government had little accurate knowledge of the population of the tsunami affected zone.  In addition, many times this led to tsunami relief being withheld from those tribals who suffered loss, {EMAIL} while the same aid was being given to others who had suffered little or no loss.  A delegation of government officials would rush from village to village, and wherever they saw flattened houses and broken boats, they declared that village "tsunami affected" and therefore eligible for aid. [DD06]  But to avoid fraud, aid could only be given to those proving residence in the village.  So rice farmers and tradesmen and so forth on unaffected inland or high ground relieved aid upon producing a voter registration card which proved their residence in the "tsunami affected village", while the poor tribals, with no such cards, whose flattened houses and broken boats were the basis of the aid, received nothing. [DD08]
        Within the church it was little different.  Many preachers and church leaders assured us that "no Christians had suffered loss in the tsunami" because they were unaware of the presence of Churches of Christ among these coastal villages. [EE03]  In some cases this was honest ignorance.  In other cases, it was a stubborn and racist refusal to acknowledge such socially low persons as their brethren in Christ Jesus.  [EE05]
        Most church leaders in India cannot imagine church growth happening in any way other than the way they themselves grow churches. [FF01]  One church leader assured us that there were no American preachers working among the tribals in the coastal villages, because they are so remote.  And so, because there are no American preachers campaigning there, [FF03] there cannot be any Churches of Christ there.  Many Indian Church leaders have assured me that without American support and supervision, the Church of Jesus Christ cannot grow or thrive in India.  Without American help, God is helpless to grow His church.  But God seems to have had other plans.  [FF06]
        Wherever and whenever a people group find themselves without hope, there the hope of the Gospel shines brightest. [GG01]   For those who think they are self-sufficient, it takes great effort to convince them of their need for Jesus Christ. [GG02]   But among those who know they are helpless, the Good News of Jesus spreads like a prairie-fire in a dry field.  And so it has been among these fishermen. [GG03]   So the churches among the fishermen were not, like other Indian Churches of Christ, started by American preachers on campaign or by Indian preachers supported from America.  Rather, they were started by unpaid young men from the villages who, after being baptized into Christ elsewhere, [GG05]  returned to their native villages and started a church among their friends and relatives there.  Unlike the overwhelming majority of  the Church of Christ in India, [GG07] who grew up in some Christian denomination, these are direct converts from Hinduism.  It was these Christians who bore the brunt of the tsunami.  [GG09]
 

        On the morning of  14 February 2005 Samrat, Shekher and myself took the train from Vijayawada to Chennai.  There we made final arrangements for the welcoming meeting by Indian preachers for the arriving team from Healing Hands International (HHI) to take place the following evening.[HH02]  We had gone to great lengths to arrange this meeting, and to conceal from all others the exact time and flight of the arriving team.  [HH04]   In the first place, I knew that the team wanted to begin their time in India with a team meeting to finalize their goals and itineraries before setting off for the field, and this could not happen if they were surrounded by Indians, each with their own agenda, from the moment they arrived. [HH06]    In the second place, at least seven different Indian preachers and church leaders, each in competition with each other, had each stated that we should hand the team over to them and let them decide who the team would and would not work with.  So whoever was the preacher who went to the airport to meet the HHI team would at least have the advantage of have their ear first, and would expect that this entitled them to be the team's official handler. [HH08]   If we picked one preacher to be the first to meet the team, whoever it was, the others would consider that we had shown favoritism toward that preacher.  So we determined that no preacher would be first, that all , great and small, would meet the team at the same time, and that everyone would, at that meeting, have equal opportunity to greet the team.  [HH10]
        The next morning we set out early for the airport.  There, after the confusion and delay one comes to expect in India, we met the HHI team on their arrival from Sri Lanka. [II02]   Only one Indian preacher had manage to bypass our plans to give all preachers equal access to the team; once we had shed this uninvited attachment, we proceeded to St Thomas Mount,  which overlooks the airport.  There we were able to get to know each other, and to pray together for our work in India, on the same spot where the apostle Thomas spent his last hour on this earth. [II06]
        That evening, at our hotel across from  Chennai's Engmore Station, more than a dozen preachers gathered to welcome the team from America to India.  After the meeting, each member of the team was introduced to their translator and guide, and they began going over the final details of their itineraries.  Railway tickets and cellular telephones we had purchased in advance were distributed to team members and guides. [JJ9] 
        The following day, the team members began leaving in three directions. [KK1]  John Sproul and Parker Polidor went north to Vijayawada to survey the tsunami damage in Krishna and Guntur districts in Andhra Pradesh.  Roberto Santiago and Jake Birdwell went south to survey the damage in Tamil Nadu.  [KK2]  Team leader Dave Goolsby and myself began visiting government offices in Chennai, meeting with those officials of the Indian government responsible for tsunami relief and for the coordination of the operations of NGOs such as HHI.  [KK3]  Two days later we went north to Nellore to organize the work in Nellore District.  Each team then on arriving in its base city had to make their way by hired car to the remote regions of the coast where the needs are.  [KK4]
        Several days later we all returned to Chennai to compare notes.  Plans were made for the following week, rail tickets were changed, air tickets purchased, team assignments were shuffled on the basis of the first week's findings.  On Sunday we divided up to three different churches so that no one church could portray itself as "The Host Church of  American Tsunami Relief". [LL6]
        Then it was back to the field.  Two team members flew to the remote Andaman Islands.  Others flew south to Kanyakumari (Cape Cormarin) to augment the tsunami relief efforts there of the Chennai Churches of Christ. [MM02]  One team member went north to Ongole to organize the relief efforts of the Church of Christ in Prakasam District.  Dave Goolsby and I returned to Nellore to continue the work of organizing the churches there. [MM03]  Food distributions were begun, arrangements were made to purchase fishing nets, a boat was presented to a church in Tamil Nadu, and other boats were ordered.  [MM04]
        After one final day of wrap-up meetings in Chennai, we departed.  The HHI flew on to South Africa, and I took the train back home to Vijayawada. [NN2]  A very capable Indian gentleman and two assistants had been hired to continue administering the work, solid plans had been made, a process for transferring funds and for insuring accountability was established.  Now the project of succoring the Christians and their neighbors hurt by the tsunami would continue.  My job had been to put the Americans from HHI in touch with the Indian Christians who could make it happen, and I had done so.   [NN7]

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        Turning back the clock about a month....

Pastors Seminar, Guntur District, A. P., South India
        In the midst of all the surveying of tsunami damage and planning for the HHI team, [OO1]  I still had the ongoing Pastor's Seminar program. [OO2]   The seminar in Machilipatnam on Philippians in February had to be canceled, [OO3] because it coincided exactly with the arrival of the HHI team in Chennai, and I was needed there.  We were able, however, [OO4]  to shift "Tsunami Central" across the Krishna River to Errabalem, [OO5] in Mangalagiri Mandal, Guntur District and hold our January seminar on schedule while continuing the tsunami  coordination work. [OO6]  Errabalem was a more remote location than Badavapeta, Vijayawada, [OO7] where the previous seminar was held, so attendance was lighter at the daytime sessions. [OO8]   However, [009] the evening gospel meetings were well attended, [OO11] and there were several who came forward for the invitation, [OO12]  and three were baptized into Christ.  [OO13]
        The subject of this seminar was the book of Titus. [PP01]   The daytime sessions were again a worked example of expository preaching through an entire book of the Bible, [PP02] and were geared for preachers and pastors. [PP04]  Because the participants this time were almost entirely from other denominations, [PP05] and because the subject material was in the New Testament, much more time than in the Joshua seminar was devoted to our initial response to God's offer of salvation.  The greatest part of the lesson were on the role and work of the evangelist. [PP07]  The seminar was a great success; all those who attended felt they had learned something, and all desired me to return again.  [PP09]

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Depart India via Delhi
        Once the American HHI team had departed India (leaving a newly-organized Indian team to continue the work), it was nearly time for me to return to India as well. [QQ2]  A friend came down to Vijayawada to accompany me up to Delhi; the same young man whose apartment I had shared in Haryana and whose family I had stayed with in Bihar on my way to and from Nepal.  The journey north was uneventful, and in the early hours of  7 March 2005 I boarded my British Air flight back to Washington DC via London.  [QQ9]

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  [instructions]

Credits

Kenneth A. Grimm
Edit: 8 April 2007

 

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