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| News From India - Part 1 | | Date Created: Jan 27, 2005, 02:19 PM |
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I finally got the dial-up connection here in Manipur to work with my laptop. So here's the first installment of my trip log. I've posted some pictures here.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 (9:20 CST)
We've just begun our trip to London from Chicago. The flight from St. Louis to O'Hare was uneventful. It was an American Airlines flight. Need I say more. But now that we are on British Airways we're in a new world. This is a huge Boeing 777. The cabin is cavernous, and the seats are quite comfortable, surprisingly so. There's even enough room to cross your legs. Every seat has a 5- or 6-inch flat screen monitor in the headrest ahead of you. I'm watching and listening to BBC news while I type. If you can believe it, they are trashing Bush. Surprise. Some British reporter is talking about how Brits don't mind Americans even if they don't care for Bush. Sheez.
Anyway, back to the plane. This environment is much, much nicer than my flight to Franfort last year on Lufthansa. We have movies, TV, quality stereo radio, and the flight attendants (I guess you don't call them stewardesses anymore) are just now coming by to offer us our "before dinner drinks." Hmm. Maybe a little Scotch on the rocks. You know I was really dreading this trans-Atlantic flight, but British Airways makes it doable. Oh, and I forgot to say that the flight is underbooked! I have three seats to myself. After dinner and, of course, an after dinner drink, I plan to stretch out and sleep. Well, here's my drink. Enough for now.
Friday, January 21, 2005 (3:40 AM in Calcutta)
Yes, we lost a day flying east. Were sitting in the domestic terminal at Calcutta waiting for Khen Tombing to arrange for some place for us to sleep tonight. But first the flight from London. Ten hours of misery. There's no other way to put it. It was not as bad as it could have been--at least we had the amenities of a BA flight, most of them anyway. Interestingly enough we flew on the same kind of plane (Boeing 777) but the experience wasn't anything like the flight from Chicago to London. This plane's seating configuration was "cattle car." Only a few rows of First and Business Class seats gave way to an ocean of Coach. This alone alters the environment. But Tim and I noticed that the food was not as good, the service was substandard, and so we couldn't help but wonder about the way BA caters to American travelers as compared to Indians. There were maybe four Caucasians on that flight.
But mercifully, we deplaned and are able to stretch out our legs a bit. That's the other thing about the second flight--the seats were crammed closer together--exactly what six-foot plus Midwestern guys like us don't need for a 10-hour trip. The must have crammed in an extra row. And it was packed; not an empty seat.
The Calcutta airport: not what I was expecting. Small, dirty, in various stages of disrepair, the initial experience is less than impressive. Indian soldiers are everywhere with assault rifles. Hmmm. Not very good ones either. Just now I instinctively started to do a google search to find out what kind of weapons they were caring. But I have no access to the Internet. No WiFI network. I can't even find an electrical outlet.
We had to move from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. We'll be flying out of Calcutta for Imphal, Manipur tomorrow or later today. The people seem curious about our presence. We're the only two white males in the building. They eye us but don't say anything. The atmosphere is alien, and seemingly dangerous, but this may only be my pejorative reaction to the alien, unknown world in which I find myself. This is a different world. One has to get over the odd mannerisms (to us) of the people as well as the dark and dirty environment so that strangeness is not misinterpreted as hostility.
Friday, January 21, 2005 (9:00 PM)
Where should I begin? Well, first, it's late and I may not get very far with this entry. We just finished eating. There's a pretty nice Indian cuisine restaurant in the airport where we've had all our three meals. That alone was surprising because the airport is pretty run down. Now we're back in our room and Tim is already asleep. I've just taken some Melatonin, so I'll be shutting down real soon.
Our accommodations are strange, to say the least. This is some government-run "motel" associated with the domestic terminal. I believe it is here to give a place for people to spend the night who get marooned at the airport. But I'm not sure. Poor Khen felt bad about putting us up here, but, hey, we're big boys. The room is small and quite dirty. And just walking across the room barefooted leaves the bottom of your foot black. The shower puts out a steady stream of drips. But the room has two beds and that's what we really needed. I hope the sheets are clean, but I doubt it. And after spending a part of the day driving and walking through Calcutta, we are probably enjoying luxuries that are unavailable to most of the people this town. More about that tomorrow. I can't keep my eyelids open, so I need to lie down.
Saturday Morning, January 22 (5:30 AM)
Just finished showering. The water pressure was better this morning, a running drizzle rather than a stead flow of droplets. At least the water is warm. I had a bit of a scare last night about my own internal plumbing, but it came to nothing. I feel great this morning. The spices here in the food are exotic. My stomach is usually pretty tough, but I guess it needed a bit of a cleansing. Anyway, enough about my gastrointestinal history.
I slept great last night--eight straight hours. Tim did, too. If that's evidence that we have adjusted to the change of time, then we should be okay for the coming week of work.
Back to the city of Calcutta. As I said last night, yesterday we took a cab into the heart of the city, or at any rate, what I took, to be the center of activity. It was a good hour roundtrip drive. The people we asked said to visit "the new market." We couldn't quite understand what they were saying about it, but it seemed to be the place to go. We had no idea what to expect. At first I wondered if they were directing us to a western style "mall" because we were Americans. I was happy to be wrong about that. I don't have access to the internet right now, so I don't know what would show up if you googled "Calcutta" and "new market." But I can tell you this: no picture or description could capture the experience.
But first the cab ride. Unbelievable. A half hour of sensory overload. The cabs seem like small versions of the standard bulbous London black cabs, but they are bright yellow. No seat belts, door locks, and a cabbie that speaks English but is nevertheless unintelligible, especially when all the windows are open and the cab is speeding through honking traffic. Yes, everyone honks. Honking in the States is usually a way for an angry motorist to vent his spleen. Here it's a technique for positioning oneself on the road and warning pedestrians that they are about to be flattened if they don't step back. There are lane markings on some of the roads, but they don't count. Nobody cares. The roads are a mass of honking, weaving cars, cabs, trucks, bicycle-powered "rickshaws," mopeds, motorcycles as well as running pedestrians and here and there dogs, goats, and cows. Now imagine the most chaotic way of mixing all this while still maintaining the flow of traffic. That's Calcutta.
In America if a car comes within a foot of yours in a parking lot you panic. Here the cars, trucks, and motorcycles are bobbing and weaving in three "lanes" at 30 or 40 miles per hour. They are all missing one another by inches at every turn. Amazing.
Saturday Morning, January 22 (9:35 AM)
I had to break off my last entry to eat breakfast. I never eat breakfast except when I'm traveling. Here the breakfast is quite good--an Indian spiced omelet (onion, chili peppers, & other unknown spices), a chicken sausage (no beef or pork anywhere on the menu), a fried potato patty, and a very interesting dish with spiced potato strips and some pastry whose name I cannot remember. Anyway, I'm sitting in the airport proper now waiting for the arrival of our plane to Imphal. I read in the newspaper this morning that there was a blackout on the runway last evening. All the runway lights went off for over an hour, and nobody seems to know why. Apparently it was a huge mess here last night. Tim and I were sound asleep. But there doesn't appear to be any problems today.
Back to the city of Calcutta. I've heard about the poverty from others who've visited India, but you really do have to see it firsthand to appreciate it. The streets are often lined with shanties made with anything and everything. I noticed that they are often roofed with layers of plastic trash bags, maybe even plastic tarps. I'll include some pictures when I get home.
Occasionally, when we were walking through the market area, I would look around and see a child holed up in some corner. Once I saw a young boy sitting up in a hole in the wall across from a shop that Tim was visiting. He just stared at me. Odd, very odd.
The character of the city is very difficult to describe. I'll do my best. I'd sum it up as crowded, dirty, and chaotic. Tim commented that it's like stepping into a time machine. He's right. If it weren't for the occasional new car and the ever-present oversized billboards advertising the latest Western technological innovation, the whole experience seems surreally anachronistic. Everything is dirty. Lian told me this about India years ago when he was in the States. Even after he had been in the States a few years he still couldn't believe how clean everything was in the USA. I couldn't really understand what he was saying until this weekend. Part of the problem is that there appears to be no clean air regulations for autos. The leaded gasoline emissions leave a dirty, brown dust everywhere. I saw this last year in St. Petersburg, Russia.
There is garbage everywhere. There doesn't appear to be any regular garbage pickup. I saw people throwing bags of garbage into the river and unloading loads of trash off their bicycle-powered flatbeds. The river must be filthy. I can't imagine the problem they have with rats. I didn't see any live rats, but I saw a number of dead ones on the street. The crows here are huge and they are everywhere. Seems like they are well fed. The men relieve themselves on the side of the road when they have to. And there are concrete boxed holes just off the street for solid evacuations. There's animal dung everywhere, too. Cows, goats, and dogs wander the streets. There were few places where the presence of cows was comical. For example, at one place on the raised median between opposing flows of traffic at least three cows were comfortably seated. There's virtually no let up in the traffic, so I wonder how these cows eat and drink. Who knows?
It seems as if everyone who is able has a street-side stand of some sorts to sell whatever they can. This is especially true near the market area. Almost all of the shops are open to the air, even on the downtown streets.
At the market in the heart of Calcutta our foreign naiveté was on full display. They saw us coming. Two tall, white Americans carrying camera bags. Duh. We were met in the street by a number of men and boys imploring us to come with them to see this or that shop. I was suspicious at first because they wanted us to go into a large indoor area (what I found out later was "the new market") to get the best deals on scarves, fish, chicken, and whatever. We walked around outside for a while with these guys following us. It was weird. We told them we weren't interested in buying anything, but were just looking. They ignored this and kept imploring us to come with them. Finally we did and we discovered that shopkeepers hire men and boys to go out and drum up business. If they are successful they get a cut of the profits.
I find it almost impossible to describe the place. I'll have to think about it some more.
Sunday, January 23 (6:45 AM in Mualkoi, the Tombing's village)
We are in the guest room at the Tombings. I'll post a picture or two. It's right next to the orphanage Covenant Children's Home. We had a good night sleep under the mosquito nets. I wondered if the mosquitoes would be bad this time of year, but their winter is warm by our standards. It may have gotten down to 40 last night. Without a freeze there's really no affect on the little buggers. Last night shortly after we arrived we were standing out in the playground near the fish pond (a hole where they breed fish for food) and noticed the swarms of mosquitoes. Tim quickly went inside to fetch some repellant for our skin. It worked. No bites.
Well, now I must take some time to describe the next new world we encountered in Manipur. Where to begin? The flight from Calcutta to Imphal, Manipur, was quite comfortable. I had expected to fly on a puddle-jumper, but we flew in a very clean 737. We had one stopover, so the two legs of our trip took 1 hour and then 35 minutes. We were served lunch on both legs of the trip!
Arriving in Imphal one cannot help but notice the strong presence of the Indian army. When the plane landed a squad of soldiers surrounded the aircraft. I noticed that they all fingered their AK-47's off safe. We learned from Lian that Manipur is a hotbed for rebel forces. They are insurgents against the Indian government hoping to restore Manipur's independence, which was lost in 1947. Only a minority of the population supports the rebel cause, but the rebel's militia is a severe nuisance and the Indian government is committed to snuffing it out. The Manipuran government, however, seems to be under the influence of the rebels.
We finally met Lian at the Imphal terminal. After talking briefly with the security and registering our PAP (Protected Area Pass), we got our luggage and left in Lian's jeep-like Scorpian (and Indian made SUV). We tried to get our PAPs stamped at the police station in downtown Imphal, but the person whose responsibility it was to do this was gone. It was a holiday for the Moslems. So we began the trip to Churachandpur (the larger "city" in which Lian's village is located).
The countryside is pretty, lots of rice fields against the backdrop of steeply rising mountains. Churachandpur (CCPR) is only about 60 miles from Imphal, but the trip took well over 2 hours. The two-lane road is sometimes paved, sometimes gravel, and always peppered with potholes and "speedbreaks." These are a series of bumps or even physical obstacles set by the army to slow traffic at checkpoints. They are looking for rebels. The road is filled with some cars and buses, lots of tricycles, motorcycles, people, and animals. There's no centerline so one has to carve out one's own space with the horn and some quick maneuvering. It is similar to Calcutta, but here there are only two "lanes" and everyone travels a bit slower.
Sunday, January 23 (5:00 PM)
We will leave for evening worship in about 30 minutes, so I thought I would steal a few minutes to make another entry. As I sit here and type Tim and Lian are in the other room singing and playing the guitar. Tim is helping Lian by writing out the chords for some of his favorite hymns. Lian was telling us how much he missed worship at Providence, especially the singing. Two of his favorites are "For all the saints" (sung to the Ralph Vaughn Williams tune) and the Lorica. Gee, I have always been told that these hymns were too "western" for Asiatic people. It's amazing how music catches on, especially when it is well done.
I preached this morning to an open-air service of 400 or more people. After that I lectured for about 1 1/2 hours on worship. Khen Tombing translated. Preaching and lecturing through a translator is very difficult. Especially when you have to stop to let him translate. This form of delivery necessarily affects the content of my sermons or lectures. It is almost impossible to present an extended argument. This kind of translation lends itself to very simple ideas and presentation, something I'm not that good at. If you try to lay out an argument of any length, you will inevitably lose the audience because of the time it takes to get it all out. It's very frustrating for me.
The food here has been quite tasty. I think Clara and Lian were surprised that I liked all their spicy Indian dishes. Clara has gone overboard cooking. We've had chicken with each meal, but I know that they don't normally eat meat.
This afternoon we took a walk through the village with Lian and he warned us about the wrong color and how we ought not to cross the boundary into the forest . . . just kidding. He took us to the house in which Clara grew up and the house where they lived just after they were married. Now, of course, they live in a room at the Covenant Children's Home.
Monday, January 24 (8:00 AM)
I've just finished preparing for my lectures today and so I have a few minutes before breakfast. I haven't said anything about the bathroom and shower yet. The bathrooms are set up so that the shower is in the middle of the small room. The water flows into a drain in the center. You stand in the middle, next to the sink and the toilet and take a shower. Our guest room shower thankfully has a western-style toilet. The bathroom has an open cross-shaped window to the outside. No window or screen. It's high enough that no one can see through it, but the outside air flows into the room. Taking a shower in the morning means showering in a room about 45 degrees cold. Add to that the fact that the "hot" water lasts about one minute and you have a real challenge--wash your hair and your body before the water turns ice cold.
We had a good conversation with Lian last night after the evening worship service. I think I'm beginning to understand more about the needs of the leaders here this week. The problem is I look at all the notes I brought (mostly old sermon notes and lectures) and nothing seems to fit. So much of what I preach and teach at home really is keyed to the issues and problems of 21st century middle-class America.
Lian will be translating for me today. He has experienced worship at Providence and is also familiar with the terminology and categories I use to explain the purpose and order of biblical worship. Last night he translated my sermon and it worked out very well.
Today I will talk about the biblical purpose and order of worship in the morning and begin to describe the outlines of biblical eschatology in the afternoon. That last lecture will be a simplification of my essay "God's promises to the Jews" where I argue that Jesus is the last and faithful Israelite and all the promises are yes and amen in him!
Tuesday, January 25 (8:00 AM)
Clara has solved the shower problem. She brings us a large bucket of hot water (heated on the stove, I think) and a smaller bucket to dip the water. So now we dip the hot water, add some cold water from the sink, and pour it over our heads. Man, it's much better than cold water.
Wednesday, January 26 (8:30 AM)
In my last entry I noted that Lian started translating for me on Monday. This arrangement has been perfect. Since Lian sat under my preaching and teaching for so long and since he knows Providence's way of worship, he is able to understand what I say and communicate it effectively to his people.
So far I have talked at the foundational level of the order of God's drawing us to himself (cleansing, consecration, and communion). The second lecture was a laundry list of 14 "principles" or "theses" on Worship. Things like "worship is first of all the Lord's service to us" and "worship must be dramatic and vigorous." We also "practiced" reciting the responses so that I could show them that "liturgical worship" need not be dreary and lifeless. In all this Lian did a great job of translation.
Today during the worship portion of the conference I will explain the terms "covenant renewal" and also begin to unpack the "sacrificial" nature of the worship service. Eventually, although I doubt if I'll get to it today, I will walk them through the details of the Ascension qorban in Leviticus chapter 1.
Yesterday I also lectured on the duties of and differences between ministers and ruling elders in the afternoon. I will conclude my comments on that today.
Tim has done a great job explaining to them the principles by which the church chooses appropriate music for worship. It's hard to tell whether they are getting it, but I think it's been helpful. Yesterday he began to teach them how to read musical notation. Only one or two of them knew anything about western musical notation. He also handed out the recorders yesterday. After the conference ended everyone was standing around outside "playing" their new instruments.
I may have to run off in a minute for breakfast. Clara makes what is in effect a full dinner for us every morning. Yesterday we had an omelet, rice, green vegetables (not sure what they were), fried beef with some sort onion or leak, and some Indian spiced chicken. Both of these last dishes we put over the rice. Well, actually, we put everything over rice. And, boy, do they eat a lot of rice. They amount of rice they each put on their plate amounts to what we will make for our whole family at home.
Last night we at at Khen and Rith Tombing's house. This was the second night in a row. And both nights she (and Clara) cooked up a feast. Last night we had a Chinese-spiced grilled pork, and an Indian butter chicken dish (like tiki marsala). And for the first in a week we watched some TV, about 10 minutes of BBC news.
The social customs of this culture are very different than what we are used to. Since this is a small village, everyone knows everyone else. But what is more, people are always stopping by to visit. Always. Stopping by means coming in and sitting down for long periods of time. The house is always filled with people. We Americans would not be able to abide this sort of thing. Imagine if people just showed up at your doorstep every day and expected to be invited in at whatever time of day no matter what you were doing. That's what it's like.
At one level it's a wonderful example of true community. But it appears to go to far in that it hardly allows families or individuals to have much, if any, private time. Lian says that he almost never has time to study or even prepare for sermons. Most of the time he preaches extemporaneously and without preparation. I've also noticed that he and Clara get very, very little time together alone. Thankfully, Tim and I have a relatively private room in which we can get away for a while. They probably think I'm weird, but I'm used to spending a good deal of time along studying and preparing for sermons and lessons.
Last night Lian was called away at about 7 PM. I know he had planned to spend some time with his family, but there was a large meeting of the young people down the road and they wanted him to come and address them. All the young people of the village of Maulkoi were meeting to elect their own leaders. It seems that the youth of the village have their own organization in order to provide services for the community that are not available from any other source. So, for example, there is no "funeral homes" or services for burial of the dead. The youth organization volunteers to do this along with a number of other things. Since the village is almost entirely Christian, dominated by Maulkoi Presbyterian Church, the youth meeting has Christian music, prayer, and the local pastor (Lian) addressing them on their Christian responsibilities as young people. Something like this would never happen in the United States; it's virtually unimaginable.
We've been able to take a number of men into town and buy them coats and shoes. The church took up a collection and we have over $500 to spend on helping the men at the conference get warm clothes. Some of them have never owned a pair of leather shoes. Others have no money to buy a suit or nice pair of pants. I'll try to take some pictures of the street-side shops where we take them to purchase these items.
We just finished breakfast (once again a hearty meal of beef, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and rice) and were able to sit and talk with Lian a bit. He spent the morning dealing with the people that stopped by the house this morning from 7-9 AM.
Thursday, January 27 (7:11 AM)
I just finished preparing for one of my lectures this morning. I'll be talking to the men about Christian civility in controversy. Talking with Lian the past few days about the controversies in the church here lead me to think that they may need to hear this. I'm able to be a bit flexible about what I talk about since I have my computer. I can use old sermons or talks I've done at Providence when I see the need here.
Maybe a word about our typical day here would be interesting. I usually wake up at 6:30 AM. Tim seems to get up a little earlier. We've adjusted to the time shift (11-1/2 hours) pretty well. The only slight problem I have is that I tend to begin to wake up a bit too early. I sleep pretty lightly the last few hours in bed. Oh, and did I say that we sleep in mosquito nets. This is a new experience for me. But it helps me sleep because it isolates you somewhat from the rest of the room and world. It's like sleeping in a cocoon.
Once I get up I immediately begin to prepare for the coming day's lectures. Depending on what I learned the day before, I may decide to do something completely different. What this means is that I'll have to find a suitable old sermon or lesson, or I may even write out the outline of something completely new. I've done that a few times. They needed a refresher on the meaning and duties of the offices of minister and ruling elder. We discussed this in two periods.
Normally, I'll be done with this work about 8 AM or so. After burning a CD with the day's lesson (if that is necessary) I'll have to find Lian's younger son, Son (that's his name), so that he can print it off for me. Son oversees the little computer room in Covenant Children's Home. I need to give him enough time because he has to turn on the generator to operate the computer and printer. The power only runs here occasionally.
After that I'll look in the kitchen to see if Clara is around and ask her to get me a bucket of hot water for my "shower." Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 AM we will eat breakfast. I think I've already said this is really a dinner in the morning. Yesterday, for example, she cooked a very tasty beef and potato dish with (as always) Indian spices. So we ate this over rice.
We come back into the room after breakfast and get dressed for the conference. Then we walk about 10 minutes down the road to the church. The conference starts at 9:30 with a half-hour devotional. This would be a 15-minute talk if it didn't need to be translated. Everything takes twice as long when it needs to be translated.
Immediately after the devotional I begin my first talk on worship. This lasts for one hour. The next hour's lecture is done by either Tim or Lian or Vung (Lian's father-in-law). After that we break for "lunch" which is usually just some bread and tea. Yesterday, I missed this so Clara brought down a big chunk of carrot cake for me. I lecture once after lunch on the church or eschatology. Then Tim begins his training in musical notation.
We make our way back to the house by about 3 PM or so. I might take a bit of a nap and Tim might walk a while. We may also travel into town with some of the poorer men to buy them coats, suits, or shoes. Then we'll return to check email or relax until dinner. After dinner we usually hang around in the room to read or prepare for the next day. I usually get in bed around 9 PM.
Here's the schedule:
Sunday
Sermon on Matthew 4
Lecture #1 on Worship (essentially chapt. 1 of my book)
Sermon #2 on Matthew 4
Monday
Devotional on 1 Sam. 1-2
Lecture #2 on Worship (Worship as God's service to us)
Tim's lecture on church music
Lecture on Eschatology (Jesus as the last & faithful Jew)
Tuesday
Tim's devotional
Lecture #3 on Worship (General Principles)
Tim's 2nd lecture on church music
Lecture on church government (Ministers & Ruling Elders)
Tim's first lecture on musical notation with recorders
Wednesday
Devotional on Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12)
Lecture #4 on Worship (Sacrifice & Leviticus 1)
Lecture on church government (part #2 of RE's & ministers)
Tim's 2nd lecture on musical notation
Thursday (today)
Tim's devotional
Lecture #5 on Worship (Part 2 of Lev. 1)
Lecture on church government (how to argue with Christian civility)
Tim's 3rd lecture on musical notation
Friday
Devotional on Mark 10
Lecture #6 on Worship (step by step through the service)
Lecture on church government (part 2 of how to argue)
Tim's 4th lecture on musical notation
Saturday
Devotional
Lecture #7 on Worship (part 2 of step by step)
Lecture on eschatology (resurrection & the new world)
Sunday
Sermon on Matthew 8 (discipleship)
Evening sermon on Matt. 9 (discipleship)
Monday
Fly to Calcutta and get a room
Tuesday
One day in Calcutta
Prepare Sunday sermon & begin PowerPoint presentation for evening service)
Wednesday
Fly out of Calcutta - an 11-1/2 hour flight to London!
London to Chicago - a 9-hour flight
Chicago to St. Louis - arrive in St. Louis at about 11 PM
Sleep!
Thursday, January 27 (6:30 PM)
We just finished another Indian feast. Today's lectures went very well. I think everything is now beginning to click. This afternoon Lian and I were able to have a long and productive conversation about his work here. There are numerous challenges. I don't see how he does it. I've never met anyone so single-minded in his desire to see the church here grow and prosper.
We spent some time in the city after that with a dozen men from the conference. Providence members donated some money for the poorer men to buy some coats and shoes. I may have said this already, but I can't remember. Anyway the men were smiling ear to ear. For some it was the first pair of shoes they ever owned. |
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