RIMI Missions Trips Blog

My “range of motion”, e.g. ability to just walk around the “neighborhood” has been severely limited by my hosts.  Usually I tell someone I am heading for a walk, take my camera and a bottle of water, and go.  Here I’ve been asked not to do that.  The leaders believe this is necessary, because of the persecution, and I’ll not put them or this MIBC in jeopardy.

This means my impressions of Orissa are limited for now, to what I can see from where I‘m at, and what I saw from the train window as I came.

The train traveled through Raipur and New Raipur in Chhattisgarh.  This area is as dry and hot as I’d remembered, and the high plains, rocky soil and arid conditions continued into Orissa.  It seems as I travel east toward the ocean, that the land is greener and might capture more water during the rainy season.

What they call “mountains” in Orissa (at least what I’ve seen), might qualify as tall foothills in Wyoming.  They are green with trees.  Traveling west to east across Orissa on the train, I noticed that a lot of their “mountains” stand alone surrounded by flat land.  A while later there will be another isolated mountain.  I’m clearly biased, but in Wyoming somebody has had the sense to herd all the individual mountains together to make proper mountain ranges.  For any readers who do not know about God’s country, all the trees in Wyoming  have been rounded up and put atop the mountains, thus creating wonderful fragrant forests which are perfect for deer and elk and moose, and for hunting deer and elk and moose.  This of course, leaves plenty of grazing land for cattle and our state bird, the antelope.

But I digress (a bit homesick perhaps?).

My twofold purpose for being in Orissa is to do what I normally do: encourage believers, preach and train pastors.  This is always a great and fun adventure, because these people are so open to what I can bring. I rarely know where I’m going to sleep, occasionally know who I will be with and never know what I will eat.

My second purpose is a bit more somber, and no less important.  Christians in Orissa and several other Indian states have seen unprecedented persecution.  Blood has been spilt for the cause of Christ before, but nowadays, with so much else in the news, Christians around the world are uninformed about India’s persecuted Believers. Here, churches and homes have been burned, religious leaders slain, and believers grievously hurt.

In a small way, I hope to inform the Christian community in the US and elsewhere by shooting video and doing interviews (with translation) that tell the story. These will be edited and distributed.

Arguably, to do this well and authentically, I must travel to those people and their ruined villages (if they still can return to them).  And I must do this carefully so I don’t disobey any government travel restrictions or put myself and my hosts in peril.  This is one of those times I wish I was a medium sized brown man instead a tall skinny white one – with blue eyes.

After today’s Pastor’s Conference and tomorrows’ Bible College graduation the challenge of travel and the rigor of many pulpits, churches and homes begins.  And I’ll be ready.

1. Never get a berth on a sleeper car near the toilet. It isn’t so bad when you are moving, but when the train stops….

2. Take off your shoes and tuck them under your seat, far from the aisles.

3. Rail cars stay together on the same passenger train for years – they have the name of the train, e.g., “Samta Express” on the side in both English and Hindi. The train number is there too.

4. Each train has its own number and a second number for its return. So outbound from Nagpur the train number is 2808, inbound it is 2809.

5. Eating hot food prepared at the train station is no guarantee it will be easy on your stomach.

6. After 12 hours on a train, that foul odor you smell… could be you!

7. The repeated all night shouts of “coffee, coffee” or “chai chai” (tea tea) are not designed to help you sleep.

8. As I see it, a civilization this old should have learned to make a better cup of coffee.

9. A derivative statement of #8 above: The reason the Sun finally set on the British Empire? Lousy coffee. Blame Reagan for the fall of the Soviet Union; blame Nescafe for the fall of the British Empire!

10. With a basket of oranges balanced on her head, a skilled Indian woman can stand on one foot to remove a stone from her sandal.

11. Haldiram’s of Nagpur probably makes more kinds of grain based snacks than Heinz has varieties of pickles.

12. It is not impossible to sleep on a mattress of newspaper pages spread out one layer thick on a concrete train station platform. Even when trains screech and rumble by and the chai wallas shout their wares.

13. The standard issue Indian rail car can sleep 72 people, but at least six more can crowd on if they don’t mind getting stepped on occasionally.

14. The Indian rupee (INR) traded for American bucks (USD) at 50.76 to 1 in 2009. The rate has now shrunk to 43.6 INR to 1 USD. Ouch!

15. The must universal interaction between humans is a brief glance followed by looking away briefly followed by a second glance. It is at this point that the decision to engage farther is made by one or both individuals.

16. Slum dwellers in India will string gaily colored lights or cloths even if their meager existence gives them nothing to celebrate.

17. Rampant garbage is not the only evidence of over-population in an area, but it is a primary evidence of it.

18. Multiple coats of paint on the outside of an Indian rail car do not hide its age any more than a too-thick layer of pancake makeup changes the birth date of any woman.

19. A man’s willingness to turn his face away from beggars while demonstrating no emotion is evidence that the thickest skin he has is not on his calloused feet.

20. You may fill your belly with a huge meal of only rice, but that is not the same as being satisfied.

Mumbai, in a neighborhood near the beach.

I’m looking out the window early in the morning at some men drawing water from a well. The well is about eight yards in diameter, and from the length of rope they seem to be pulling up, about six meters down to the water.  The man in the red and white shirt is diligent and professional in his drawing of water – a real pro!

I had not intended to be here – as I expected to be arriving in Orissa today, but a huge traffic jam caused me to miss my train on Saturday afternoon, and no other berth was available until this afternoon (Monday).  India has many lessons for the sojourner, one is to be patient.  And I’m pretty good at being patient – while in India.  Interestingly, in the US I would be antsy about a delay, but here, I’m moderately philosophical about it.  I am, after all, on “Indian Time”, which correlates to other cultural “times” like, “Arab Time”, “Mexican Time” and “Bureaucracy in America” time.

In a place where history reaches back ten times farther than my own nation’s story, a matter of a day or two more seems tiny.

Ten minutes have passed and it is still the same guy drawing water with the same bucket and the same green rope.  I sense an entrepreneur here.  While I’ve not seen rupees passed to him, I imagine this is his job.  No.. wait… he’s pulled up his rope and bucket for the last time, grabbed them and a funnel and has placed them into his pedicab.  Now he’s grabbing a dozen large water containers (he’s just filled) and putting them inside the vehicle as well.  This entrepreneur handles several segments of the supply and delivery continuum in his business niche.  Off he goes now, his “tuk tuk” buzzing white smoke out it’s exhaust.

Below me is a man washing his trousers in the old fashioned squeeze ‘em against a rock manner. He’s draped them over a rock wall now, returning the concept of  “drip dry” to its original definition.

I’m writing this, you understand on a tiny laptop with a black cellular phone modem sticking out of it.  I will finish this blog entry and email it half way around the world, where in twelve hours a colleague will cut and paste it into the RIMI web site.  It may be that twenty-four hours from now, just as you are checking the blog before bed, that you read this.  By then, the man in the red and white shirt will probably be back drawing water, and I’ll be twenty-four hours closer to Orissa.

Well water technology – and Internet technology – time warp indeed!

The words on the door said:
“Where there is Peace there is Faith
Where there is Faith there is Love
Where there is Love there is God
Silence Please
Between 10pm and 6am”

The poem, part of a Carmelite prayer, the sign, a Carmelite residence hostel rule.  The top portion was above a small window in a hallway door next to the registration desk, with the “Silence” rule underneath it on a poster board.

The confluence of the two struck my funny bone this morning as I waited for a ride.  I had spent a good night of sleeping and not sleeping in a clean safe environment.  Normally, I complain when my various Indian hosts put me up in a place that is so nice – it is a waste of mission money,  but jet lagged and gearing up for a long trip to Orissa, I thought, “hey, why not?”.

I stayed at the Anubhav: the Center for Carmellite spirituality and Inter-faith Dialogue at the St. Joseph Church Annexe. It is an island of peace in the midst of crazy, dirty, hot, noisy, wonderful Mumbai.

Jet Lag 101 and Mira Road & Maxwell Street

I suppose every global traveler has an opinion on what to do about jet lag – from those who over-medicate themselves and spend a week in bed to those who claim it doesn’t exist.  I fall somewhere in between, and I have two rules: get “into” your time zone (or if in a plane your destination time zone) as much as possible, and don’t be a hero.

The first one is easy — figure out when bedtime is at your destination and mimic it – sometimes a sleeping pill helps.  So if I’m on the way to Frankfort in a plane over the north Atlantic and it is bedtime in Germany, I try to sleep.  If I’m in Mumbai (as I am now) and its 10:30 pm, I start thinking about bed.  This creates a “moving target” time-wise as one circumnavigates the globe, but gets you a step at time onto your final destination’s rhythm.

My second notion is not to be a hero.  Time zone modifying is a process – you can push it but you can’t ignore it.  When you are whacked out from traveling east-to-west or west-to-east, don’t make any big decisions, tell people you are not up to par, and don’t ignore the benefit of a twenty minute power nap.

A few other ideas that make sense – if it is daylight – get outside – the sun does something to your brain that helps you acclimate.   Another notion is to take a walk or get other exercise when it is not night time – rather than lollygagging around in bed; you get tired and you may get some sun (see above).  (Wow, I’m almost sixty and this may be the first time I’ve ever written the word “lollygag” – how liberating!).  Finally eat real meals at their real times – I sense there’s a rhythm in what and when you eat that helps get the body lined up time zone-wise.

There was an element of time travel in my walk around the Mira Road district of Mumbai this evening.  The simple stalls and tiny markets I saw on my walk remind me of a visit to Chicago’s Maxwell Street in  the 1950’s.  I remember little about the reason we went, but I recall my dad (not mom) and a couple of us Bernard brothers threading our way through the vendors as my dad searched for something (a car part?).  The sights and smells and sounds were so different from what I knew of shopping in our own small suburb.  It was magical.  Waaaaaay to much for a small boy to see and hear and NOT stop to soak it in.  And stopping to soak or gawk or lollygag (there it is again) was NOT on dad’s agenda.  So the magic rushed by.  I do remember hot peanuts wrapped up in a newspaper from one vendor though.  I bought something like that this evening, and for a moment, the magic came back.

From 34,000 feet Tehran doesn’t look too menacing.  We flew over it about a half hour ago.  Small and distant, it appeared under the wing (I am two rows behind the wing) and was revealed as a sparkling array of lights.  The biggest group was Tehran, then smaller and smaller bunches showed the towns and villages.  Looking down from here, the Ayatollahs, Revolutionary Guards and all the notions fostered by media, culture and politics are invisible.  The problems there, the dangers, the grave issues of nuclear proliferation, human rights and state-sponsored violence, are meaningless from this height.   From the six mile high comfort of a Boeing 747 economy class seat, these problems are not fear-inducing, and they seem unimportant.  But they are important to those on the ground, and in foreign embassies, and in villages of Iraq, Palestine and Israel.  Just not to me.

In two hours I land amidst the challenges and opportunities of India and these ARE important to me.  For reasons I don’t fully understand, India is important to me.  Certainly the abandoned orphans, desperately poor and persecuted believers have a hold on my heart.  Yet India’s students and street vendors, the people on the train platform and the faces on the street also cause me to stop and wonder.  And then I must do something. Pray, teach, touch, give, receive, preach, hope, sometimes cry or laugh, but most of all I feel.

Passengers in planes flying high above India tonight, may not think its problems significant, they may not feel for India, but I do.  So while I am still surrounded by this Lufthansa and Boeing traveling capsule, I will eat, pack up this laptop and get ready to land in Mumbai.

And to feel.

I’m at the Denver airport, my feet are comfortably up on my luggage, I’ve got a great Internet connection, and I’ve just finished my McD’s burger and fries (my last one for a month – burgers at the Mickey D’s in India taste nothing like the ones in the US.  Think about it.  Burgers in the US = overfed cows full of Wyoming mountain and prairie grass vs. burgers in India where cows are sacred, skinny and… well… they need a bath.  Indian McDonalds serve = non-beef hamburgers, we call it “mystery meat”.

I leave America in less than two hours and I look forward to the journey’s end.  A part of my heart has been in India for several years now, and so arriving in Mumbai is a bit like going home (okay, that’s a stretch) it’s more like visiting favorite family members – many of whom I have not yet met.

My trip this time begins with a day in Mumbai with my good friend J. A. and J., their associates A. and N. AND their 43 kids!  I’ll download books and candy and some teenage-boy sized shirts and then head off to MITS, the Mission India Theological Seminary for a day to catch up on my jet lag and see some of the wonderful teachers and students I met last year.  Then eighteen days in Orissa – the heart of my trip.

Next I’ll go to Chennai to seem more good friends, return to Mumbai for several days and on April 16 head back to the US.

So if you read this, check in now and again.

Returning Home

I’m in Delhi at a Pastor’s house, and will preach in India one last time before I board the plane to Mumbai and then onward to the US.  I thank God for safe travel, smooth connections, a calm stomach (with some highly seasoned food and water of questionable origin), and so much more. Mostly I am humbled by the dedication of the countless Indian Believers I have met. Their faith, strength and hope is remarkable.

Maybe after I have time to reflect, I’ll have more to say. For now, I’m not very focused.

D. K. is a school principal and missionary by the UH/UP border. He comes form a lower class family in a mall town that had never seen a Christian. His testimony is different from most I’ve heard, and opens up some interesting possibilities.

In 1984 Pastor K.’s mother was given a copy of “Jesus Calls” magazine. She read it and believed. Some time later she heard an audible voice instructing her to pray, so she became a fervent prayer-warrior. She prayed for a sick person who was healed, and this women prayed for others who were also healed. Over time, more than 250 villages were touched by testimonies and many believed. No missionary or preacher had yet visited the area. Eventually, 400 families, over 2000 people were reading the Bible and praying. Yet for fifteen years there was no contact with any outside Christians.

D.’s family persecuted [him] at first, but in time the village, including his father became believers. Now his three brothers and a sister are all in ministry. What I find most interesting about this story is that no evangelist, missionary or pastor was involved for the all that time! This was entirely a move of God on the heart of one woman and then many. People who had no contact with the “church” but who became the church on their own. Isn’t God creative?

Pastor D. told me of something else, a strategy called the Suesang Movement (which means “following the truth”). People of different backgrounds (Believers, Hindus animists) join for prayer. They are not required to give up their identity, and prayer is open for anyone. Many of the participants in this informal gathering freely become believers. In his area, the local group is called Massai Suesang Mandali.

Again, no structure. No clerics, not training, just some Bibles, the move of God and prayer.

One for the Record Books

In the 1950s, a photo in Life magazine showed a phone booth stuffed with an amazing number of college students. Apparently the craze swept the Pat Boone generation. I don’t know how many fit in there, but I know how they felt all squeezed in there. Today I participated in the Indian version of “how many college students can you fit in a phone booth”. A large number of us packed into an auto-rickshaw designed for no more than four riders and driver. My young friend M. and I had been shopping and were returning six km. to the College in Haldwani. “Auto” drivers, are loathe to take less than a full load when they go to the smaller towns because they may return empty. Each rider is worth ten rupees, so the driver earned 140 rupees for the trip. You do the math.