This is (almost) the end…

But not really, since we have the awesome fantastic UK tour ahead of us…. and God is never done working in us anyway. So, only five full days left here now, its quite a strange thought. Anyway, here is some of what has been going on recently in school…

Over the past couple of weeks a kid in Becky’s class has really changed a lot- going from hardly ever joining in and being uncooperative to suddenly doing everything wholeheartedly and being first finished with all the work they do. Its an awesome change- Becky has been saying that the kid was really lacking is self confidence and so didn’t want to have a go at stuff, so its a really great thing to have happened. Becky’s also become increasingly addicted to “the stones game” (sort of a skill/tricks game with 5 stones) and has been known to make kids stay after school to play with her, and has been practicing by herself in her room so she can beat the small children at it. Please pray.

Naomi’s class has taken a really amazing turn since easter-they all requested to have lessons on “why Jesus died for us” and other such Christianity related stuff, which Naomi was more than happy to give them. Being given opportunities like that is such an answer to prayer since we ‘re not really supposed to directly tell them about Christ and stuff unless they ask. This week is officially party week for her class now, with a birthday pretty much every day. Please pray for that class and the stitching group they have sort of smooshed with, since with Naomi leaving and Sumitra getting married soon the class will be without any teachers.

Anna’s kids class has exploded! There are suddenly about ten new boys in it, with more almost every day. This is great news but has been a bit of a shock for Anna, since her class has become so much bigger and more rowdy. Please pray that she will have a really good final week with them and be really inspired with lessons that can engage the whole class.

My classes have been going swimmingly recently. I was looking over some of my first photos recently and realized how much my kids class has grown up and changed. Half of their lives seem to be full of exams but their final exams are finally over and kids I haven’t seen in months are trickling back which is so good. I went to the boys’ class every day last week to rehearse a dance with them, which was very hot and tiring, and I’m not entirely sure what it was for, but I now know a great Indian dance to a punjabi style song called “Jesus loves me”! I really have no idea where they got the music from.

Preparing things to leave seems to be taking up a lot of time, and we are really wanting to say bye to everyone properly. Please pray for us, with the big mangle of stuff going on in our heads and for enough energy to make the most of the last week.

 David

Easter Mubarak Ho

This morning we had a fantastic easter service in our newly decorated church, which was a memorable event since it was Naomi and Anna preaching for the first time. The girls hadn’t had any opportunity to preach in church yet, not because of women not being allowed in leadership but I think because of the general culture of the area- if a newcomer was to come they would be quite taken back at a woman preaching. They gave a great gospel message to everyone, which was followed by an opportunity to respond and communion.

I mentioned the church was redecorated- it had a new carpet, curtains and paint job, all the hard work of a guy called Ram who happened to turn up at church last week and got recruited for the job. Throughout the week he worked solidly, and came to all of our church meetings too. The most exciting thing was seeing him at the end of the service, on his knees, being prayed for and surrounded by new friends, and asking for the gospel to explained to him more. He’s a different man!

It was great to see Kuldeep’s mother there again too- the same woman who just a few weeks ago had been adamant about her son not coming to church and mixing with those sorts. There were also a huge amount of women from the area there, one of whom got healed at the end of the service and was brave enough to go up to the front and tell everyone.

It was a great time, but strange to think of it as our second last time at church here. Its great knowing that God is using us right to the very end of our time here, and beyond.

David

Holi Hai!

Its Holi! No one seemed to be entirely sure what day it actually was this week- either friday or saturday. Holi is a mad festival where loads of stuff happens but the main thing is throwing gulal (powder paint) and water at each other. The paint and water thing doesn’t really have a religious significance to people (around here anyway), its just about having fun and getting messy really.

So on thursday at the village school, after the kids had been itching with anticipation for a good hour or so, we all ran outside and slapped paint all over each other. It was awesome. Theres something very satisfying about throwing powder paint at people. True to most things Indian, they were the most lurid colours possible- fluorescent pink, purple, blue, green yellow, red and orange. Somehow the predominant colour I ended up being was pink.  Not cool.

We got home that evening to find that our apartments had no water, so Anna and i had to sit in the apartment for the next few hours waiting for the water to come back and trying not to touch anything. Naomi and Becky arrived home after us looking remarkably clean- the city school had been far more reserved in their celebrations because half of the colony probably would have turned up with water, mud and colours otherwise!

There was nothing reserved  about how our apartment block celebrated Holi though. On saturday we didn’t go out because unfortunately Holi also means a lot of drunk people, stoned people, groping strangers, and the occasional throwing of things other than water (cow poo, acid etc.), but we did have a massive water and colour fight with all the residents of our block. The taboos of man and woman, young and old were completely forgotten as everyone got smeared in every colour possible and completely soaking. I got hugged warmly by a lot of purple men. There should be something like this in the UK!

We all spent about an hour in the shower trying to scrub the bright pink off our faces, we all had slightly strange coloured patches of skin and streaks of hair at church this morning. Tour training at IMC should be fun… we have quite a few packs of paint powder left…..

David

Agra

This Saturday was my birthday so we decided to go to the Taj Mahal. We set off on Friday night, got to the train station at 8.30 for our 9 o’clock train, got in the queue and eventually got to the front at 9.10… amazingly the train was delayed by 15mins so we got tickets and caught it! I feel slightly sorry for anyone who tries to travel when we are! That’s the third train that has been late by exactly how long we needed it to – God just keeps sorting it out!

We were the second people in the Taj at 6am when it opened and had a magical hour watching the Taj as the sun rose. It is so beautiful and incredible and amazing! Wow!! Went and had some breakfast (curry) before going to Agra Fort- another huge, incredible place. Had lunch and then got the train back at 2.. unfortunately it was delayed so the 3 hr journey became 5. However we were home in time for the team to give me an amazing mini birthday party with pizza, coca cola and cake!

Today at church we celebrated International Women’s day which was really cool. Women from the city school stitching and English classes and some of city school children’s mums came in their sarees! The church was packed! It kept being full and we kept moving forward until we had 80+ squished in. Was a great service- Abha preached which was great in a culture where women preaching is still very unusual. She talked about how God made both men and women in his image and how we are equal in his eyes and should be in the eyes of the world. It was a really important message that many of these women would never have heard before. According to their children, the women really enjoyed themselves and some, we know, are planning to come next week!

Naomi

Jaipur

Last Friday we left our comfortable abode in Dwarka for the bright lights and stuff of Jaipur- an amazingly historical city in the rajasthan desert. We left at 5.30am and had a very hot 5 hours bus journey to get there, only for me to realise that in my sleep deprived state I’d left my passport behind. It turns out that passports are absolutely essential for staying overnight anywhere, and i was told very bluntly by the hotel management that trying to get around it would be fraud… it didn’t look good for our weekend away.

We called up John our host to explain to him what had happened- and he told me that Anand would find a way into our appartment, then hung up. 30 minutes later scans of my passport were being faxed through to the hotel! When we got back from our trip we found our front door bolt loose and slightly mangled- Anand had simply taken a mallet to it and was in in a few seconds! What a guy.

So our weekend went on as planned- we visited all the general “must see” places like Amber Fort and Hawa Mahal and were thoroughly architectured out by the time we were done- we were in a bit of a daze. We spent our first evening in a place called Choki Dhani a bit outside the city, which was pretty much a cultural theme park (but without rides) which according to lonely planet is particularly popular with middle class Indian families. We had an all you can eat meal off banana leaves, wore turbans, had ‘traditional’ head massages (I’m sure it was just an excuse to beat us up- there was a lot of slapping, face smooshing and joint cracking) and rode on camels for 5RS (7p).

All of Saturday was spent sight seeing, the “monkey temple” was best. Set up in the hills, it has pools ’several elephants deep’, amazing temples and hundreds of monkeys, which took peanuts from our hands and climbed on us. We were guided around for part of the time, and went into a very small dark shrine which felt slightly disturbing- we had to get out. There is some pretty strange stuff going on in the area- at one place we passed they daily sacrifice goats, and it used to be a daily human sacrifice.

Our bus journey back was a bit longer- we got stuck in a 4 hour stand still on the motorway so we didn’t get back until about2.30 am. It was amazing though, a man on the bus told us when to get off, which seemed to be a completely remote part of motorway, but an auto was sitting just along the road so we got on that and were home in minutes.

It was such an awesome weekend, this weekend we are hopefully going to see the Taj for Naomi’s birthday- trying to cram it all in before we leave oh so soon.

David