January 19 – January 30 (India Trip)
During my trip to India I will take notes and make comments along the way as I have internet access to keep everyone up to speed concerning the experiences of the trip. Keep us in your prayers!
A Devotional Guide to Get and Keep Us in the Word of God
During my trip to India I will take notes and make comments along the way as I have internet access to keep everyone up to speed concerning the experiences of the trip. Keep us in your prayers!
January 22, 2009
At least it’s Thursday morning here (6:06am) but it is 6:36pm in Racine. This has been so amazing. From the 14.5 hour flight here (which reminded me of the bus ride for the DC trip) to all the sights and sounds of India. I am up in a little room of a business office in our hotel in Hydrabad (I know it’s spelled wrong). It is further south and nice and toasty warm. We have seen traffic like you would never see even in Chicago. Lanes are kind of suggestions as far driving here. We have seen cattle walking down the road. Packs of wild dogs running the streets (yes, we were walking around after midnight) and men peeing on walls in the open along the road.
The hotels have been amazing. Our first hotel would rival anything on Michigan Ave in Chicago. This one is good too, but not as nice. They say that you either pay $250 to $300 a night for a nice place or $20 for a place I wouldn’t let my enemy stay at.
The trip has gone as expected. We have been totally safe the whole time. Our guides are very diligent about telling us what not to eat and making sure we are safe and sound. “You are my responsibility,” one man said last night.
Last night, we visited a small village where they teach literacy classes. There are about 20 people ranging from 5 to 65 taking this class. They are in their second month and they already know the alphabet and how to write their names. They even sung a song for us which I have on video. It was amazing to see these women stand up and tell how their life has already changed. One woman (not in my group) said that for the first time she can leave her village and go see her relatives because now she can read the bus signs and know where to go without the embarrassment of asking someone what the signs say. The fact of the matter is, there aren’t many signs.
The food has been amazing. Last night I had a chicken dish. It was chicken in a spicy gravy over rice. The wait staff won’t even let us dish our own food from the serving plate. They insisted on even pouring our water. They are very helpful. Yesterday when we arrived here, I almost had to tackle the guy to take my own bag up to the room. It backfired on my, because once there, I didn’t know how to turn on the lights. You had to put the key in a slot on the wall to allow the lights to go on. I guess I should have just let him do it.
I better log off now. But we will be here for a couple days. One hour of internet access is only 100 rupes ($2.00). So I will probably be back on tonight after we are finished at the Pearl factory.
The conditions here are about what I expected. Big beautiful buildings one minute and people living in tire cities over buildings the next. There are block after block of open are shops. It reminds me of if people put their garages right next to each other and left the garage door open and just hung out there. But these are not nice garages. The poverty level here is amazing. Poverty level is 300 to 500 rupes a year. I have 8 times there in my wallet. But Mission India does more than just teach people how to read and write (which they do on old fashioned slates). They teach the people about working and saving and how to be neat and clear so they are healthier. It’s very practical.
It is mostly women who take these classes. One girl we saw yesterday in Delhi was a 15 year old Muslim. That she was with us and talking to us was a miracle in itself. Normally, at that age, her parents would not let her out of her house until she was ready to be married. But she was learning to read and improve herself and you could see the confidence she was gaining.
These people work so hard. Each year, Mission India (which goes by the name Servant of India here) reaches out to 2,000,000 through their programs. The problem is, there are 1.1 billion people in India and at least 50 percent are struggling and downtrodden. Yeah, you could say the same about the people in our country right now, but there is no comparison. These people have nothing. There is no public education. They have to pay to go to school. These people are in a pit and there is basically no way out. That’s why Mission India teaches them about everything, and about Jesus. As they learn about the importance of working, they memorize Bible passages about how God provides. As they learn about hygene, they memorize Bible passages about taking care of your body. Now, they dont’ know they are memorizing Bible passages. They learn that as they grow.
We were told of one family yesterday who came to the literacy classes. Because the mom learned to read and save, they were able to get away from the money lenders and actually become money lenders themselves. They were able to send their kids to college and their grandchildren are doing so well now. Because one mom learned to read and write and the importance of saving, three generations have been helped.
Take care and God bless. Keep us in your prayers.
Yesterday was an amazing day. We started out by a visit to Mission India headquarters here in Hyderabad. It’s this three/four story building that has to be a hundred years old. The power flashes off regularly. We had devotions with the staff and hear some of the kids sing. I have a few video clips of that. We heard about their work with the Children’s Bible Camps. Basically what they do is train leaders to run a 10 day VBS like program during the 45 day period when it seems everyone in India is on vacation. The reach 5,000,000 children through this camp. The only problem is that there are 1.1 billion people in India so that’s not as many as it seems. Then, after the 10 day camp, those children can apply to join the year round camp where they meet after school every day for 2 to 2.5 hours and sing songs, play games, learn to read and write and obviously everything is about learning about Jesus. We visited one of those camps yesterday. We drove for about an hour to get to the camp and got out at one of the homes where the leader lives. It was a modest home, but still, more than a hut. There were 20 to 25 younger kids there, ages 2 to 15 or 16. They were excited to see us strange white people. They same a few songs, recited their bible passages and gave their testimony. It was amazing. This one cute little girl who was sitting up front, as so tired, her head kept falling to the side as she struggled with sleep. I wanted to take her home. The parents of these kids make maybe a dollar or two a day. And if they don’t work, they don’t get paid. Most live in huts. I guess if they attend the camp so long, they give them a soccar ball to play with. It is usually the first toy they ever have. On the way back, we are informed that the operations manager for this camp is going to ride back with us. That puts three of us in the very back seat and two in the middle and the driver and other leader in front. This is not a big vehicle. Anyway, I’m packed into the back like a sardine with my backpack on my lap and I’m just watching the traffic go by. The operations manager who might be 17, 18, maybe 24, says something about me being quiet. I just said that I was tired and that it had been a long day. Then he says something about being so exited and he couldn’t wait to get back and talk to his wife. He says, “I have never sat by an American before.” I just smiled and said that I had never sat by an Indian before. He seems like a nice kid. My own children don’t want to sit next to me, but this young man was so excited to sit next to an American.
Yesterday morning after breakfast, a few of us went out for a walk. It was interesting to walk around and watch everyone get ready to get to work. You’d run across young children walking to school in uniforms. It seems that every student who does go to school wears a uniform. Marty had just gotten back from a walk and was very pumped up. He said it was amazing, he would wait until there was a little trafic (a few small motorcycles, or a motorized rickshaw) and then he would walk out in front of them and they would get out of the way. So we took off to give this new game a try. And it worked. They stop or move. The same thing happens in heavy traffic (we didn’t try that, at least on purpose).
Our schedule got changed yesterday and we didn’t go to the pearl shop. I’m kinda of glad because we were dead tired and wouldn’t have gotten back to the hotel to eat until 9pm. Imagine eating nice spicy food at 9pm and then trying to go to sleep. The first day in this hotel I had Looney Chicken. It was the bowl of chicken in a garlic brown gravy over rice. It was very good. A little spicy, but not bad. But then, I like spicy food. Today, I was kind of full because we had a big lunch at the Mission India office. That was amazing. We ate the traditional Indian way (with our right hands). Eating with your left hand is an offense to them becasue they do all their personal sanitary work with their left hand. Trust me, eating rice with pieces of chicken and gravy with your right hand is not easy when you are left handed. But the food was awesome. Again, spicy, but I like spicy. But it was messy and not easy. So after that big meal at lunch, I just had sessame chicken for dinner. Very good. After we finished dinner the waiter brought around this oblong silver plate with toothpicks in a glass cylendar in the middle and what looks like small, fine kitty litter all around it. One of the women who works for Mission India and is on the trip with us so she can see what they do here, said it was a after dinner refreshment. So I tried it. At first there was this mild taste. We sat for about three minutes discussing what it tasted like (fortunately it didn’t taste like small kitty litter). Then the liqurace flavor came through. Again, I don’t like liqurace, but it was mild so it was ok. I took a picture of my eating some with my cell phone.
So we have one more night here in Hydrabad and then we move further south to the tip of India. The name of the town starts with Trium …. I’m looking forward to that hoping to see an elephant. But when we move, we are flying through Mumbai, but will only be at the airport for a few hours. We have been totally safe. Everyone looks at us with curiosity, but we have never felt threatened. It has been a wonderful experience.
Keep us in your prayers and I hope it hasn’t been too cold there. It’s been in the 80’s here, but it’s hard to tell since we don’t have american thermometers.
I was wrong about one thing. We do have two or three English channels. I guess Hindi and English are the two languages they speak everywhere. There are 23 official languages here in India. They speak a different language depending on the state. But English and Hindi are spoken everywhere. So, yes, we did get to hear all about Obama becoming president. Everyone here is excited about it and asks if we saw the inauguration. We have to explain that we were landing at the airport just about the time that was happening and will have to watch it on youtube when we get home. Anyway…
It’s almost time for breakfast. Thanks for listening. Keep us in your prayers.
I am thinking of you and praying you are well. It sure sounds like you are. Fun Reading! Keep writing as much as you can. This is as close as I will ever come to knowing about India.
Funny that your going to eat breakfast before we have gone to bed. It is 10:47 PM right now. Smile!
God Bless you!
Ruthann
Thank you so much for writing this, it has been great reading like Ruthann said! It sounds like you are having a wonderful once in a lifetime adventure. Our entire family is wishing you all the best in your journey and are praying that you have a safe trip home.
HI!
) Sounds amazing what you have seen and experienced so far. Our prayers are with you.
God’s blessings.
In Christ,
Connie
Alright ! You made it safely !
Keep the monologue coming, I enjoy hearing all about your experiences with the locals and the food. I’m headed over to Trinity for the basketball tourney, I’m working the concessions with Liz. I’ll see if they are serving any spicy chicken with gravy over rice ?!?
Be Safe !
Dean
Sounds like you’r constantly on the go and eating well.It has to be a fantastic experience to see how Christianity or Lutheranism
is handle where you ar visiting.
Godspeed
Cy
Hello from Chennei, India, our fourth stop on this whirlwind tour. It was been a wonderful couple of days since I was able to write. We left Hyberabad on Friday and took a flight to Mumbai (obviously I’m safe because I’m writing this) and then a flight to Trivandrum.
Trivandrum was awesome. On Saturday, we were supposed to drive for 2 hours, visit the site where the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal come together, and then visit a literacy class and a Children’s Bible class. Unfortunately, the 2 hour drive turned into 3.5 hours. It seems that in India, you have to stop at every State boarder and check in. Well, we crossed three states and it took more than 30 minutes at one boarder check in. We also had a guy on a small 125cc motorcycle run into us (don’t worry, everyone was ok and if you drove 1 mile in India, you’d wonder why more accidents didn’t happen). Plus, we came up to another accident 2 minutes after it happened. Someone flattened (literally) a motorized rickshaw (spelling). I loved the way they dealt with the accident. About four guys, maybe five, just pushed the wreakage off the road and everyone just kept on driving.
But finally, we made it to the very southern tip of India. It was amazing to see three large bodies of water come together and actually stand there. I stood in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal all at the same time. It was so cool. It was also the site of the Dec. 26, 2001 tsunami (spelling). There is this huge statue about 10 stories high about 100 to 200 feet out in the ocean and this one girl (more on her later) told us that the water came up over this statue. There is also this colonade (kind of like the outside of Soldier Field) about 100 to 200 yards inland and also about 5 or 6 stories tall and the wave went over that too. This girl told us that she lost two babies in the wave.
More on the girl. She is a begger. You have to get used to beggers in India. They are everywhere and they are very aggressive and persistent. This girl was trying to sell hairpins, yes, you heard me right, bobbie pins! We were down at the site for 45 minutes to an hour and maybe more and she just wouldn’t leave us alone. Now, don’t get me wrong. She was the sweetest thing. About three foot nothing. Thin as a rope. Not agressive, but very persistent. If I could, I would have adopted her and taken her home. But I don’t think my wife would have liked that. She even slipped a collection of hair pins on one of the guys pocket. But ultimately, she wanted a donation and we were told not to give anyone money because as soon as you help one person, 95 people show up. Seriously. Part of the reason she hung around us is because we were the only white people around at the time. Yes, we are the token whites. We go to shops and stores and the prices immediately jump, because they know American’s have money. Our trick, take our guides with us and they do the bartering and get us fairly decent rates.
But because of the length of the ride down and the need to eat after two flights, we missed the literacy class and children’s bible club. But it was still a great day.
Today was awesome. We attended a church service at one of the oldest Lutheran churches in Karola (the state Trivandrum is in). I think they waited service for us because we started almost as soon as we got there. Get this, I went to church with no shoes on! The worship area is sacred so everyone removes their shoes before going in. I loved it. But it was strange. They were worshipping with our old page 5 and 15 service in a strange language we didn’t understand. But we could tell what was going on. Two of our pastors (not me thank God) were invited to preach. They did a good job. One of them was Pastor Tom Peterson from Stevens Point. He’s pretty cool. Being the two token Wisconsinites on the trip, we’ve been hanging together a bit. At one of the stops we made at a church, he made a comment about the people at home wearing cheese heads. But he failed to mention that these cheese heads were not really made of cheese, but of foam. So I’ve been picking on him about that ever since.
As part of the service, we were presented with a native shawl. It is a great honor to receive one of these shawls made of traditional, native material. We thought that our fearless leader was going to receive one and it was an awesome honor for him, we were stunned when we all received one. It was truly and humbling honor.
After church, they offered us coconut milk. They expertly sliced open the tip of a coconut, inserted a straw and gave us the whole coconut to sip the milk out of. Then one of our guides also brought out the very tasty most inner part of the coconut for us to try. It was awesome.
Then we sat down with some of their church workers and heard their stories. I can’t go over them here, but it was truly uplifting to hear their stories and be encouraged by their passion and enthusiasm for the gospel.
After that it was back in the cars, back to the hotel where we checked out and headed out to the Arabian Sea for some fun and lunch.
Then it was up to the Trivandrum airport and our short 1 hour flight to Chennai (spelling) on the East Southern Coast.
It’s actually very cool. At this moment as I am typing, it is 11:14pm Sunday night. In Racine, it is 11:46am and Pastor Gehne should be just finishing with the 10:30 service. I’m about ready to go to bed for the night, and you guys are just ready to start your day after worship. To be honest, five or six of us were together having a lovely beverage remembering our churches who at that very moment we in worship.
Tomorrow, is a light day (but a good one). For the weekend we separated into four groups and tomorrow we are back together to share our experiences and stories. We will also say good-bye to four of our members who head home (they didn’t sign up for the three day extension). We will miss them.
That’s about it for now. I will probabaly not have much to write tomorrow. Or maybe I will.
Take care and stay warm. It’s been in the mid-80’s here since I arrived. So it’s been lovely. We won’t talk about air quality. You have the advantage there.
Also, everywhere here, they serve chicken. I don’t mind Indian food, but I miss beef (cattle are sacred here and so no one offers beef on their menus). The first thing I’m going to get when I get back to the States is a big juicy hamburger.
God bless and stay save. And thanks for the comments. It’s nice to know people are readying this and I’m not just staying up late for nothing.
Hi Pastor,
Wow! I love hearing about your adventures. The road traffic and lane suggestions reminds me of Cairo, Egypt… donkey cart next to tour bus next to bicycle…
Bible study went smoothly today – Praise the Lord! I shared some of your experiences by reading exerpts from your updates. We did finish Chapter 10 !
Looking forward to hearing the rest of the story when you come back next week. You are in our prayers.
May God bless you.
Sue
Steve:
I’m having a ball following your trip, and reliving every moment with you (and keeping you constantly in my prayers). My church is supporting a mission planter in Kerala, so followed that with interest.
St. Paul Harvard had a Mission India emphasis today, and I shared your blog with my Bible Class.
Hoist a Kingfisher in my memory — and give my love to the Taj!
Mike
Hello Pastor:
Gald to read that your safe and enjoying the locals in India. It would appear that accidents are managed similar to how the Illinois Tollway Authority handles them along I294.
Keep the Blog going as this is a neat way to read about your experiences and the sights and sounds. It was a high of 12 degrees today and the church felt balmy inside.:>)!
Hope your frequent flier miles are adding up and airport security is treating you well.
Peace,
Mark Lendvay
Hey PJ! I hope you are having fun in India!
We miss you in the 8th grade!
-Ali
Hi,
I just reread all of your notes again and can not wait for you to return to hear more. I went to the movie yesterday and saw (just because you are there and it won so many awards)”Slumdog Millionare”. I heard people in India are not to pleased with the movie. It made me very sad to think it was even possible that a place like that existed. Of course it was a movie and I kept telling myself that as I cried, so to come back and read your notes makes me have a million questions. ( I promise to only ask half that many)
God Bless you for being there and touching the lives of those who need to hear your words. And to make someones day by sitting next to him. Smile!
Ruthann
I am so excited for you having this experience. We are praying for you daily in 3rd grade using your itinerary. Although by the time we pray for it, it’s already happened since you are so far ahead. Stay safe! Lisa
Hi
I hope everything is OK, you have not written since the 25th. Please let us know all is well.
Praying!!!!
Ruthann
Hi Pastor,
Sure is great to read all about your experiences! I look forward to hearing so much more about this amazing mission trip when you join us at LWML. Please know that you are in our thoughts and prayers. We pray for your safe return. Feel free to bring back some of that warmth and sunshine for all of us!
May God Bless You and keep you safe,
Dawn
Hi
I hear from my dad today(Wednesday) so even though he hasnt written in a while he is still fine.
Kristen
Hi Pastor-
I love reading your updates. Please let us know that you are okay. Can’t wait to hear about all your experiences when you get back.
God be with you until you return to us.
Lou Ann
Pastor Steve arrived home early this morning at O’hare Airport, Chicago. He is safe and will be joining us at Trinity this weekend for worship ! I spoke with him this morning and he said his inlaws were preparing Bacon for breakfast and he was very happy about that !
Dean
I’m home! It was a wonderful trip, but it is so good to be home. We got up Thursday morning (the equivalent of Racine’s Wednesday night) to go visit the Taj Mahal. The ride there was uneventful, but the walk from the bus to the Taj was an experience. Basically, we had to look at the back of the person in front of us and walk so that you didn’t look at one of the 10 or 20 persons trying to sell you something, anything between postcards, wooden cobras, tee shirts, or small marble replicas of the Taj. Outside the Taj property, was property like you’d see anywhere else in India, small dirty slums. Inside, there was great beauty. India is a place of great contrasts. There are people of great wealth and people of great poverty. It is heartbreaking.
The Taj is beyond words. I will be putting pictures on my facebook page so you can see them. It is large and beautiful. There is nothing like it in the world. Jewels embedded into the marble. Again, beyond words.
After the Taj, we went to a marble shop and then to a spice shop. The marble shop was amazing. They do all the work by hand. I was very tempted to buy something but it was expensive and heavy. If you spent about $1000, they would mail it to you. But less than that, you had to take it home.
At the spice shop, the smells were fantastic. I almost bought safron, the most expensive spice in the world. It was $10 for about 500 milligrams. But i ended up buying four kinds of tea. You can get safron here, you can’t get Indian tea here. I’m drinking a cup now.
Then we flew from Agra to Dehli, ran to a hotel for dinner and then back to the Dehli airport for our long flight home. I slept on the plane on and off, but it was still a long flight. Almost 15 hours. My in-laws picked me up, took me and made breakfast and then I took a four hour nap. And then it was time to come home.
It was a great trip, but it is wonderful to be home. We will talk more about the trip in the coming weeks.