DAY 30 – 3:24 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad

DEVOTIONS: Daniel 9

TV: CNN International

This week I’ve been working on the summer camp video production project, so not too much to report, but I have some quotes and passages building up over the weeks, so I’ve decided to share them here …

“We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society. Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision a reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned to the exploits of his genius to fill the full enrichment of his life.”

Anybody know that one? Anyone? anyone? Bueller? Dad?

It is from LYNDON B. JOHNSON’S 1964 “Great Society” speech.

“It’s not that we are becoming more Anglo-Saxon. It’s that we are having an encounter with reality.”

--FRANK SCHIRRMACHER, German newspaper publisher, commenting about the need for German workers to retool and work longer hours

“Seek knowledge even unto China.”

--saying of the Prophet Muhammad

“First we were afraid of the wolf, then we wanted to dance with the wolf, and now we want to be the wolf.”

--CHINESE BANK OFFICIAL, on China’s relationship with the United States.

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

--ROY ROGERS

Out of clutter, find simplicity.
From discord, find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

--ALBERT EINSTEIN

“To build may have to be slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless of a single day.”

--SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

“It’s kind of like virginity. It’s hard to get back.”

--JOHN ZOGBY, pollster, on Bush’s chances of regaining public trust, based on the previous experiences of embattled Presidents such as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

“It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors … one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country.”

--BILL CLINTON, former U.S. President, speaking in Dubai on the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq

“He is the one who made himself the Vice President in favor of torture.”

--STANSFIELD TURNER, former CIA chief and president of the Naval War College, criticizing U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney last week on his efforts to water down proposed anti-torture legislation.

MY FAVORITE:

“Women make more money these days, they’re calling the shots, they’re more powerful. And let’s face it, it’s hard to meet someone.”

--HEIDI FLEISS, former “Hollywood Madam” on why she struck a deal to open a Nevada brothel that will cater exclusively to female clients.

DAY 26 – 9:31 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad

DEVOTIONS: Daniel 8

MUSIC: Stone Temple Pilots – Core

So last night at about 10, on my way out to play this board game to pass the time before the Colorado/Nebraska game, I passed by the dining hall. The mess is usually vacant at this time of night, but tonight it hopping. It seemed like everybody on campus was hard at work putting together scores of bag lunches assembly-line style. The lunches were for this rally the following day to garner support for a constitutional amendment giving Dalit Christians equal rights (more on this a little later). The goal was 15,000 lunches. Only about 1,000 were completed.

After my Thanksgiving (my family was eating turkey on Friday this year) call home. I rallied the troops waiting to play The Settlers of Cattan and we jumped in.

Basically, the process entailed cooking massive amounts of rice in huge cauldrons over wood fires. (I took some pictures that will hopefully be viewable by the end of the month.) Then the rice was cooled. Spicy lemon-leaf-bean-something-or-other sauce was added to the huge batches of rice. The rice was cooled again to not melt the baggies in which it was placed. A small packet of spicy pickle was added. The bags were tied up and placed in boxes of 50-75 meals.

Repeat …

15,000 TIMES !!!

At 2 AM local I hooked up to the internet via laptop and cell phone to get the radio broadcast to keep updated on the Colorado/Nebraska football game during breaks in lunch packing. KOA-AM (Denver) blocks internet broadcasts of Colorado football games so I could only get the Nebraska feed. For those of you who don’t know the game was not pretty and listening to the Big Red homers in the company of a fellow voluntter NU grad did not make it any easier.

I retired about 4:30 AM well into the fourth quarter with the game way, way, way out of reach. (Colorado some how, some way sneaks into the Big XII Championship as for the second year in a row Iowa State goes into the final Saturday of the season with the championship game on the line and loses. This year the Cyclones squandered a 11 point lead and missed a field goal in overtime to grasp defeat out of the jaws of victory allowing the Buffs to get steamrolled Saturday again by Texas on it’s crusade to the national championship.) But the lunch packing continued until 11 o’clock the next morning with like something just short of 13,000 lunches. UNBELIEVEABLE!

Approximately 25,000 Indians, mostly poor Dalits, showed up to increase awareness of the upcoming Indian Supreme Court ruling on giving Dalit Christians the same rights as others who have converted to different religions from Hinduism. Many speakers from many political parties and other Christian Dalit leaders put on record their support to legal and parliamentary action to give Dalit Christians the rights that Hindu Dalits, Buddhist Dalits and Sikh Dalits enjoy today.

One Dalit leader said of the rally, "It was historic because we came out openly in the public square and bluntly laid down our position for the … government and the Congress Party that they should not count on the political support of the Dalit Christians if they are not willing to give support on this matter. The time for waiting is over -- 50 years is long enough. We as Christians need to stand and up act and this rally is the beginning of our public agitation and movement."

The ruling was supposed to be made two days later on Monday, but the Supreme Court adjourned delaying the ruling once again. Although the delay is disappointing, as this and other rallies across the nation have shown, the movement has caught the interest and involvement of many people of influence.

Please pray for Dalit human rights and freedom.

"An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

DAY 25 – 8:43 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 8

MUSIC:
Pulp Fiction – Soundtrack “Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.”

So I realize that my blog may sound more like a European teenager’s diary on holiday during gap year, but the fun stuff is so much more interesting to write about. Alas, this entry will be more work oriented, lest my supporters begin to question where there hard-earned money went.

Last Thursday and Friday and today I logged tape for the video production guy here. For those of you who don’t know, logging is watching video and writing down what is on the tape at the corresponding time code. It is a somewhat tedious process but the work more than makes up for itself during the editing process. He has 22 tapes he shot from a Christian summer camp they ran for teenagers from all over India and other parts of the world last summer. We are working on putting together a DVD highlighting the camp and promoting next year.

I count it a blessing that I hooked up with this guy, as I did not know about his department before I arrived. He is basically a one-man-band. From what I understand, he is basically self-taught and has learned a lot in the few years he as been producing videos, but he definitely has a ways to go. The good thing is he is very cordial and willing to learn from me (scary, I know). You can pray that we work well together and communicate well. Pray that I grasp the vision behind the projects and get a good idea of what the projects need to be and who our audience is.

Monday morning we left campus on a three-day trip to visit a rural village and dalit school. As the eldest male, I was “leading” four other foreigners on this relatively short adventure. I was told the village was about four hours away, the car would meet us on campus at 8 AM, we would have the same car and driver the whole time and we can come home any time on Wednesday. I was given a couple of contact numbers and wished good luck.

Monday morning it took us a little while to track down our car as it was waiting for us at an adjacent building, but as they often say here, “No problem,” and we were on our way. Being the good leader I am, I called ahead for directions. When the driver said he had directions, I didn’t bother paying attention to my notes, I was too engrossed in my book and then my slight case of motion sickness. When the driver told us we were about half-hour away, I called the manager of the school for final directions. Voicemail. We got to town and I called again. Voicemail. I called my other contact number and gave the phone to the driver. Apparently, there were two locations with the same name, a small city and a village. We were in the town. We were supposed to be in the village. We were 45 kilometers away, “No problem.”

We finally arrived at the school only about two hours behind schedule. The school greeted us with a lovely assembly including an interpretive dance and also showered our group with flower petals as we ran a human gauntlet of students. It was rather nice. After school we walked around the village a little bit.

The boys stayed with the family of a village leader including two adorable students from the school. That night after dinner, we looked though photos of our respective families. The family was so giving it was embarrassing, but there was a shortage of beds, bedding and space. To call our sleeping arrangements tight would the understatement of the year. We developed a saying, “What happens in the village stays in the village.” So, I have vowed to not disclose any more on this subject, but let’s just say that during the many weeks of mission experience in my life, I have never been this far out of my comfort zone.

On Tuesday we split up and taught English, math and health classes as well as told stories, taught songs and answered questions. The nurse in our group discussed the village’s health with the school manager as we look to eventually train and equip a community health worker in every dalit school village.

Tuesday night we showed the family and other onlookers the internet via laptop and cell phone. It was probably the first time many of them had ever been online or seen the net (how cool—or actually rather sad, is that?). We googled the village and it came up with an article about a local hero, who was actually my other contact numbers.

Tuesday night was another night that “stayed in the village”.

Wednesday the school had exams for a couple of hours. Then our group did an hour of teaching songs, reciting Bible verses, performing a drama and playing games based on the concept of obedience. Then we had lunch, said our good-bys and were on our way.

After 2 plus weeks in India, I think I am getting used to the crazy driving, but our driver was particularly aggressive. I rode shotgun on the way home to attempt to hold of another case of motion sickness. The trip home was not too bad, but about 45 minutes from home as we began to get caught up in Hyderabad rush hour traffic we got passed by a silver SUV. That’s a little odd, I thought. That’s the first time we’ve been passed the whole trip. Moments later the driver stated the same fact. Wow, nine plus hours in the car. We probably passed 200 vehicles of all sorts and got passed only once.

It’s about 9:45 PM Friday now. We are staying up for the Colorado/Nebraska game. One of the volunteers is a NU grad (N is for knowledge!) It is played at 2 AM here. 4 hours of this board game called The Settlers of Cattan, a game we’ve gotten hooked on, then internet TV or radio broadcast of the game.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND GO BUFFS !!!

DAY 20 – 9:08 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 8

MUSIC:
Steve’s CD –(a collection of Christian music from Anna G., formerly Anna O.)

“$5.4 Billion pledged for Pakistan,” read the headline. “50 Nations to Raise Money for Rehabilitation of Quake-Hit People,” continued the subhead. Really? I thought. That’s pretty amazing. That’s about all we can ask for. That’s what I had asked for from God in prayer. It’s really great too see such a specific answer to one of my prayers. I won’t really go into the details, but the gist of the story follows …

Pakistan had organized a day-long international conference to raise money for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the 3.3 million people affected by the earthquake. An estimated 75,000 people died and an equal number of people were seriously injured.

Those of you who have been following this story or read the article by Salman Rushdie in an earlier post know that the money had been slow to come from the West and the rest of the world. On Saturday $5.4 billion dollars in the form of grants and soft loans was promised Pakistan from the world. The damage caused by the quake is estimated at $5.2 billion.

The single largest donor was the United States, which pledged $510 million, including $156 million already. Saudi Arabia pledged more than $340 million, China $300 million, Iran $200 million and India $25 million.

Overwhelmed by the response, Pakistan President General Prevez Musharraf said that all finances would be utilized transparently on improving the lot of the quake’s survivors.

In related news, at the same conference and counter to the Rushdie article, Pakistan and India officials suggested that a resolution of the Kashmir issue could once and for all come about through this tragic earthquake.

Pakistani President Musharraf said, “I take this opportunity and forum to appeal to the President and the Prime Minister of India, to the government of India, to the entire opposition in India, to the people of India at large … let us together solve the Kashmir issue once and for all.” He said that fleeting opportunities did not come along everyday and if leaders failed to grasp fleeting opportunities, they failed their nations and failed their people. He continued, “Therefore, let success and happiness emerge from the ruins of this catastrophe, for the
devastated people of Kashmir, let this be the Indian donation to Kashmir.”

Indian Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed responded in kind saying India was ready to resolve all issues including Kashmir through dialogue “in an atmosphere free of terrorism and violence.” The minister said it was very encouraging to see that people in both countries came forward to help the victims of the tragedy and contribute to their relief. “This spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and goodwill for the victims of the earthquake gives us strength and motivation to work for greater people-to-people contact and confidence building measures between our two countries,” he said.

Now, I know that politicians talk is usually worth less than the paper it is printed on and I know that maybe even without out the prayers of Christians everywhere the world may still have anted up to save the tens of thousands of lives left hanging in the balance after the earthquake as the impending Himalayan winter approaches rapidly.

But, BUT isn’t our God a great god? A God who gives hope in the darkness of despair and hopelessness. A God who gives hope in my own desperation and sense of infinite smallness. A God who can use the horrific tragedy of a tsunami or an earthquake to make himself known and to bring peace to countries that have historically hate each other. A God who answers prayers. A God who answers prayers.

PRAISE GOD!

DAY 19 – 2:02 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Everyone is Normal Until You Meet Them by John Ortberg

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 7

MUSIC:
KBCO Studio C vol. 16

Today is my birthday. I am 29. Don’t feel bad because you forgot. Only Megan M., Heather W., Lori G., KBCO and most of my immediate family remembered. But the people here knew and we’ve are doing some fun stuff to celebrate.

To begin the celebration, last night we (me and the two Irish lads) decided to take out the Indian young men that are apart of the “Teacher Training Program” here on base. These are guys in their early twenties who are training to teach in the dalit schools. Now we knew that cultural norms would require this to be a male-only escapade (unmarried men and women do not really socialize here especially at a ‘night out on the town’ or whatever). But it was still sort of funny as we asked the guys if they wanted to go out for dinner. The boys asked there leader and he said it was fine, but “…there are three sisters among us. They cannot come!”

Later at Pizza Hut after appetizers, pizza and soda, me and the Irish boys decided to order dessert. We repeatedly asked the Indians if the wanted any dessert. No one seemed interested. That was a little strange, I thought as I ordered for us foreigners. A few minutes later we were told that they were unfamiliar with the word “dessert” and had no idea what we were talking about. After it was made clear to them that we meant ice cream, cake or apple pie, they promptly ordered.

So after the bus ride home from the restaurant, “good-nights” said, I retired maybe at 11:30. Some time passed (I was unaware of how much because I was asleep) and I hear a bang at the door. “What?” I barked. “It is Benu,” came the reply. “What do you want?” I growled from my warm bed. No answer. Through my foggy and yet unawake head I realized that he was still outside the door and would not be continuing this conversation through my closed door because it would be deemed rude. I don’t have to tell you what I deemed being woken up in the middle of the night. So I got up groggily, unlocked and opened the door. There were a dozen Indians and two Irish men at the door. I attempted to quickly close the door, but Benu jammed his foot in the way, blocking the door as they sang heartly “Happy Birthday” and some other Christian version of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. Then they prayed for me. It was rather quite nice. Before I fell asleep I looked at my watch on the bedside dresser. It was 12:05 AM (5 minutes into my birthday).

This morning, Saturday, I awoke to the normal blaring steam whistle, typical of a factory or coalmine, announcing breakfast. Now it was 7:30 AM on Saturday on my birthday and with no responsibilities on this day, I thought it might be nice to sleep in a little. But I head some voices coaxing me out and I figured something might be up. So I got out of bed, quickly dressed and opened my door. There was a full, door-sized banner, birthday card signed by all and taped to the doorway blocking my exit. Luckily it was only scotch tape and not to difficult to escape. When I entered the dining hall, I was once again serenaded by the crowd to another “Happy Birthday”. Some of the girls had prepared a special breakfast of pancakes with syrup and scrambled eggs. There were more cards, surprisingly suspicious, but one from “Mum and Dad”, another form all my pals at the work and even a card from Mark Warner who said he would remember me when he got to the White House. They also presented me with two gold fish.

There was a wedding reception on campus so dinner was extra special.

And tonight India beat South Africa in cricket

This has been quite a happy birthday.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a special lunch at some hotel.

Next week we are to take a road trip to visit a village and a dalit school.

DAY 16 – 9:19 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Everyone is Normal Until You Meet Them by John Ortberg

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 6

MUSIC:
KBCO Studio C vol. 16

Overall, today was a good day. I am tired, so I will be brief, but here are the highlights:

***We spent the morning in one of the Dalit Schools. Ben, one of the other volunteers, and I played Around the World and did some art in both second and first grades.

***After lunch I met the video production guy. After being here two weeks, I didn’t even know there was a video production guy until about three days ago. We’ll today it seemed to just click. This may be why I am here or this is part of the reason I may be here or this may be a big part of my day-to-day activities when I am not helping out, whatever it was encouraging and an answer to prayer. Praise God!

***In the afternoon we ran some errands and did a little shopping.

***After dinner we played badminton and cards. I hope to get some reading before bed. The Volcker report on Iraq’s Oil-for-Food-Programme is really big here. I still haven’t quite figured out how India is involved, but it has been in the papers the whole time I have been here.

***Finally, I’ve told some of you, but figured I better make it official (and interested too see who actually reads the entire blog.) I wrecked on the bike three days ago. We (yes, I had a passenger) were cruising down a two-lane road (one lane each way) on a typical crazy Indian traffic afternoon and a SUV is trying to pass a truck (BOTH COMING TOWARD US) on this particularly narrow stretch of road. So rather then clip the SUV we veer to the LEFT (the correct) side of the road where the pavement ended. The bumps in the dirt were too much for the poor little Honda Hero and we went down. Luckily we weren’t traveling extremely fast and it all happened pretty quickly. I suppose it could have been much worse. I cut up my palm pretty bad and my passenger scraped and banged up his knee and the bike took a few scratches to the exhaust pipe. But we got up, dusted ourselves off and were on our way.

QUOTES:

“If you talk to God, that’s a prayer. If God talks back to you, that’s schizophrenia.”

--OSCAR CRUZ, outspoken Philippine bishop, referring to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s claims to have had conversations with God on political issues.

“I’ve gained no wisdom, no insight, no mellowing. I would make all the same mistakes again, today.”

--WOODY ALLEN, director and actor who turns 70 next month on aging ungracefully.

DAY 15 – 11:01 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Everyone is Normal Until You Meet Them by John Ortberg

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 6

iPod MUSIC:
Various U2 (It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.)

PLEASE PRAY FOR KASHMIR AND DONATE MONEY !!! see the links and article below.

by Salman Rushdie (yea, him)
The Hindu (India) November 15, 2005

The calamity in Kashmir is a wound on a wounded body. It is death arriving in awful majesty in a place where death has become a grubby, ugly, everyday affair. There has been so much man-made death in Kashmir that, if one believed in God, one might say that God had become competitive and decided to show the killers – the killers in uniform and the terrorists cloaked in secrecy – what a real killer can do.

There has been so much man-made agony in Kashmir – so many young men have been broken, so many women vandalized, so many villages smashed, there have been so many explosions, so much loss, so much blood on the no-longer-virgin snow, the raped, defiled snow – that the bitterness of this natural disaster is not the only beyond bearing, it is obscene. The earthquake is a hammer blow launched against a people that have already been smashed.

And now, as if to finish things off, the Himalayan winter is setting in, and the greatest calamity may lie ahead of us, not behind.

The Kashmir winter is beautiful, but it is also cruel. To look upon the valley in it’s coat of winter white, the frozen ice-sheets of its lakes, the pale air pregnant with the promise of snow, is to feel tears of beauty freezing in your eyelashes. To contemplate the mighty surrounding Himalayas, wrapped in whiteness like an immense Christo artwork, is to learn, again and again, the salutary lesson of human smallness.

“If there is a paradise on earth,” the Emperor Jehangir wrote long ago, “it is this, it is this, it is this.”

In Kashmir’s high valleys, too, was born the legend of Shangri-La. But the real Kashmir is not a place where men and women live as immortals, safe from the ravages of time. Paradise in winter was always ruled by cold-hearted gods. Today, more than ever before, Kashmir is Death’s dominion.

The messages from Kashmir keep coming and the note of desperation in them grows louder all the time. Millions of people are homeless – the number may be as high as 3 million, on both sides of the so-called Line of Control (the India/Pakistan border) the scar of history slicing across the troubled province’s face to divide its India-ruled and Pakistan-ruled sections.

On the Pakistani side, according to the regional Prime Minister Sikander Hayat Khan, 70,000 injured people are in need of attention. But many roads were destroyed by the quake, many others are impassible because of landslides and mudslides, and the Red Cross reports that relief helicopters have sometimes been unable to land because the throngs of desperate people scrambling toward them have been so large. And the United Nations says that, unless more funds are received at once, its fleet of helicopters will have to stop flying in the next few days.

The decision of the Indian and Pakistani governments to open the Line of Control to assist the relief effort is belated, but welcome nonetheless. Without an immediate increase in relief funding, however, it will soon look like a useless gesture. If winter-proof shelters cannot be built in the next month or so, Kashmir will become an icy graveyard in which literally hundreds of thousands of people will freeze to death.

In spite of all the difficulties, the relief effort is taking place. National relief agencies, private charities and many other humanitarian bodies are getting medicine, blankets warm clothing and tents into the affected areas.

But, as one Kashmiri journalist wrote to me, “Nobody can survive the winter in the border villages in a tent.”

Meanwhile, the world seems to be suffering from compassion fatigue. After the eastern tsunami and the Western hurricanes, this is not incomprehensible. But the people of Kashmir deserve better then they are getting. They certainly do not deserve to be subjected to a kind of “political test” of aid-worthiness.

Yet, ever since the day of the earthquake, people in the United States and Europe have been asking me and many others the same politically loaded question: Will the disaster “help”? Will it enable India and Pakistan to sink their differences and, at long last, to make an end in their long Kashmir quarrel?

It has been hard to avoid the conclusion that Western attitudes toward aiding Kashmir depend to some degree the answer to this question being “yes”. Alas, the answer is “no”.

India and Pakistan are still mired in mutual suspicion, as the saga of Indian helicopters reveals: India offered them, but Pakistan refused to accept them unless they were flown by Pakistani pilots, which India in turn refused to accept. Meanwhile the quake victims went right on dying.

Moreover, as the recent murder of a moderate Kashmiri politician showed, and as the bombs in (New) Delhi would seem to confirm, there are Islamist groups who remain determined to sabotage any improvements in Indo-Pakistani relations.

As long as those groups find sanctuary in Pakistan, a peace settlement will be impossible.

All of which should be irrelevant to the matter at hand. For more than half a century the world has turned a blind eye to the political problems of Kashmir. It must not now turn its back on the Kashmiri people.

If the flow of aid does not increase at once, it is probable that more people will die in the earthquake’s wintry aftermath than perished in the quake itself. It is entirely possible that the final death toll will be greater than the tsunami’s. We may be looking at the greatest natural disaster in human history.

But in this case we have the power to avert it. In this case we can send the money to fly the helicopters, tend to the sick and build the winter shelters. If we do this people will live. People who have already lost everything, people whose homes have been destroyed, whose children have been killed in their ruined schools, may yet be prevented from losing their very lives.

If we accomplish this, it will be a great good thing. If we fail – because we are tired of disasters or because Kashmir is far away, remote and quarrelsome, and doesn’t feel like our business – well, then, shame on us. Shame on us who have our homes and our children and cannot care about those who don’t.

I do not want to believe, however, that this avoidable catastrophe will be allowed to occur. But time is very, very short. There is not a day to lose.

PLEASE PRAY FOR KASHMIR AND DONATE TO THE RED CROSS SOUTH ASIA EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE AND DEVELOPMENT

www.redcross.org

DAY 14 – 9:15 PM Hyderabad Time

READING:
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Everyone is Normal Until You Meet Them

DEVOTIONS:
Daniel 6

iPod MUSIC:
nothing

you heard it here first, write it down, Monday, November 14, 2005 – 9:15 PM Hyderabad, India Time…

Mark Warner, former Democratic Governor of Virginia will be the next President Of The United States.

Sunday, November 13, 2005 – DAY 13 – 4:06 PM Hyderabad Time

READING: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Everyone is Normal Until You Meet Them by John Ortberg

DEVOTIONS: Daniel 6

iPod MUSIC: Last of the Mohecians soundtrack (It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.)

JUST QUOTES AND OTHER TIDBITS TODAY:

A Baghdad Diary
From The Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad, India), November 10, 2005

“Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean there out to get you, and someone’s definitely out to get us (journalists based in Baghdad, covering the war in Iraq).”

“(At a US military base in Baghad) There’s a souvenir stall which sells, among other things, hefty silver spoons ordered by Saddam from Christofle in Paris for the Republican Palace emblazoned with the Baath party eagle, a bargain at $15 a pop. I (this journalist) have laid in a supply for future Christmas presents.”

MY FAVORITE QUOTE (from the same article):

“But there is nothing as thrilling as flying in a Black Hawk. To avoid ground fire they fly low and fast, so that you can see car numberplates and shirts on laundry lines billowing as you past. I think this is what it must be like being an angel. An angel equipped with a pair of 50-calibre machine guns and a nose cannon to visit catastrophic retribution on the unrighteous.

THINGS I READ ABOUT IN THE PAPER TODAY …

THE SUDAN: an US deputy secretary of state got into a heated shouting match with a local official at a refugee camp.

MAGIC SPEED BUMPS: in London they are developing and installing electronic speed bumps that automatically flatten for cars traveling the speed limit and grow for seeders

“iT”: a new computer given to the underprivileged people in the world en masse.

MORE QUOTES:

“It’s not easy to host all these countries.
It’s particularly not easy to host, perhaps, me.”

-GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President, in a press conference in in Mar del Plato, Argentina, site of a 34-nation Summit of the Americas, where anti-Iraq protestors, calling Bush a “fascist” and a “terrorist” threw Molotoc cocktails and set a building on fire

“The difference from after the Miers nomination was like being at morgue versus being at a combination of a wedding reception, Super Bowl party and bar mitzvah.”

-JORDAN LAWERENCE, member of the Christian conservative Alliance Defense Fund, on Bush taping Judge Samuel Alito--four days after Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination—to replace Sandra Day O’Conner on the U.S. Supreme Court

“I’m saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb.”

OSCAR GOODMAN, Las Vegas Mayor, in a televised interview, on how to stop graffiti artists defacing the city’s freeways

As a result of China’s drive to succeed, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates argued to me, the "ovarian lottery" has changed—as has the whole relationship between geography and talent. Thirty years ago, he said, if you had the choice between being born a genius on the outskirts of Bombay or Shanghai or being born an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would take Poughkeepsie, because your chances of thriving and living a decent life, even with average talent, were much greater. But as the world has gone flat, Gates said, and so many people can now plug and play from anywhere, natural talent has started to trump geography.

"Now," he said, "I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.”

Thomas Friedman from The World is Flat

"Always tell the truth, that way you don’t have to remember what you said."

Mark Twain

“Fortune favors the prepared mind”

Louis Pasteur

Thursday, November 10, 2005 – DAY 10 – 12:14 PM Hyderabad Time

READING: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
Time Magazine (Asia edition) Noveber 14

DEVOTIONS: Daniel 5 (still)
iPod MUSIC: KBCO Studio C vol. 16 (It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.)

Yesterday we visited the Pipe Village, near our base. What’s the “Pipe Village” you may ask. I did. It’s called “The Pipe Village” because they live in pipes. They live in pipes. Gulp.

So we went out to this village where a community of Indians actually live in big old broken sewer pipes. The village is located next to a pipe factory and the pipes that these people live in (I will try to post some pics) are left over from the factory. The men of the village labor at the pipe factory on a contract basis. They may make $2 for 10 to 12 hours of hard work. Even these people live in such utter poverty, I was told they were happy to have the opportunity to work. (This is not just the white conservative in me, it is the truth J)

We were taken to The Pipe Village by a pastor who has started 3 churches in the area. The other two churches were in areas near a rock quarry. Here the families break rock by hand. The men break off the larger pieces of rock with big mallets and the women break the big rock pieces into smaller pieces. We were told for about a weeks work the families may get $20. One of these villages had a new church paid for by a western organization.

Today, I began my “cultural liaison” duties by picking up two young men from Ireland at the airport. They will be in India for 3 months teaching at some of the Dalit schools, among other things.

QUOTES:

That religion which allows one to touch a foul animal but not a man is not a religion but a madness.

That religion which says one class may not gain knowledge, may not acquire wealth, may not take up arms, is not a religion but a mockery of man’s life.

That religion which teaches that the unlearned should remain unlearned, that the poor should remain poor, is not a religion but a punishment.

Excerpt from a speech by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

Wednesday, November 9, 2005 – DAY 9 – 5:54 PM Hyderabad Time

READING: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad

DEVOTIONS: Daniel 5

iPod MUSIC: The Black Crows – Greatest Hits (It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.)

Those of you who know me know that I do not worry very much. Of all my faults, I count it a blessing to not be a worrier. Having said that, occasionally I do go though periods of anxiety. I’ve been going through one of those periods for about the last 2 days (nights actually). The last two nights I’ve actually had dreams about this anxiety-causing issue. There is really not much I could do about this situation. I have put in my time and done my best, but now, it is out of my hands. All I can do is give it to God through prayer and wait and have dreams. So anyway, I’ve been praying and waiting and having dreams. I’ve tried my best to give this to God, put my faith in him and trust and be patient.

So I’ve had these dreams. This morning I got an email regarding this issue. This email could have come at any time or never come at all. Though the source of the email has not always been trustworthy, it was encouraging. I feel it was God showing himself to me at the exact necessary time I needed to be shown him. Once again he was telling me not to worry. Trust him. While in India, concentrate in India. Home and the future will be fine as long as you abide in me.

Praise God!

QUOTES:

Every mornig in Africa, a gazelle wakes up
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

African proverb

Oh God, when I am wrong, make me easy to change and when I am right, make me easy to live with.

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 – DAY 8 – 1:54 PM Hyderabad Time

READING: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Culture Shock! India by Gitanjali Kolanad
DEVOTIONS: Daniel 5

iPod MUSIC: Tom Petty – Wildflowers (It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.)

Sunday was church. There is a church here on campus and it was “Junior Church” (Sunday School) Sunday. The service was centered on the youth. There was everything from songs from the children’s choir to recitation of Bible verses to a drama. The highlight was when some of the kids got up to say the books of the Bible. Children of all ages had been working on it for some time with the reward of chocolate being promised upon successful completion. Now, the size of the reward was reverse proportional. So the cutest thing, when a 3 ½-year old stood up, perfectly recited all 66 books in order and received “big chocolate”.

This week I am helping with a pastors’ conference. It is for all the pastors in the denomination in this state. The organization and denomination brought in 5 speakers from the US and UK to speak to, encourage and train the 150 or so pastors. Some of these pastors are from very rural areas of India and are serving God and their villages on a shoestring budget. One pastor in particular works 3 days a week as a day laborer, 3 days a week meeting with and evangelizing his village and Sunday preaching. Many of these pastors are threatened by the anti-Christian movement, threats include the raping of wives and breaking of legs if they continue their ministry. Please pray for India and specifically the Christian pastors of Utter Predesh.

QUOTES:

The Lord said to him, “What is in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it. Then the Lord said, “Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail”—so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand—“so they may believe that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

Exodus 4:2-5

The images that the word “India” conjures up are diverse and often contradictory, suggesting that on must be the real India, and it’s only a matter of finding out which one. If only it were that simple! To understand India at all, you must be able to hold on to completely contradictory images, and realize that both represent the true India.

Gitanjali Koland from Culture Shock! India

Friday, November 4, 2005 – DAY 4 – 11:44 PM Hyderabad Time

READING: The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
DEVOTIONS: Daniel 3
iPod MUSIC: Simon and Garfunkel – Concert in Central Park It’s actually on my computer this time, not the iPod.

So I have officially ridden motorcycles on 4 continents (North America, The Scared Valley in Peru with my sister, Agina, an island off of Greece and now Hyderabad, India) well maybe they weren’t all “motorcycles”, maybe motorbikes or mopeds or Vespas (for you Saved fans, all two of you out there.

Jackson, the husband of the volunteer coordinator and IT project coordinator for the organization I am working with, knew I ride a motorcycle back home, so basically he has lent me his bike for my time in Hyderabad. Now this “motorcycle” is a late model Honda CBZ Hero 135 (cubic centimeters, a small bike)—with a kickstart, but it has a little zip and can get me around.

Riding in India makes any bike exciting. So I rode around a little during the day (very exciting and fun and definitely doable, since I was following Jackson on another bike. We had some close calls, but no big deal—don’t worry, Mom and Anna and Cameran, I’m wearing a helmet) and then tonight I rode to Jackson and Samantha’s house, following one volunteer in a rickshaw with the other on the back of the bike because Friday is pizza, sitcom, movie and Desperate Housewives night. Now their place is not all that far away and this would be the second time I had been there today, but on the way out in the dark the other volunteers informed me they would be spending the night and not returning to the complex with me.

“Oh really,” I thought. I wish I had known that before I had decided to take a motorbike out in a new city in a foreign country in the dark.

So we ate pizza and watched sitcoms and a movie and Desperate Housewives and then I decided to stat the trek home.

I got directions from one of the volunteers: “Here’s the easiest way, there’s some speed bumps, but it is the way I would go: Right out of here. Left to a “T”. Right. Left to a “T” and then Right. Then your on the main road. Take a Right at the statue and then follow that down to the complex on the right.

Whatever, dude! But I really had no choice. OK, God, here we go. Now, I’ve got the riding the bike part down, now it’s the staying on the LEFT side of the street I need to concentrate on. Stay on the left, Stay on the left. Look RIGHT first when turning RIGHT.

Right Turn. Left. Speed Bump. Speed Bump. Right Turn . Speed Bump. STAY ON THE LEFT. Left Turn. LOOK RIGHT. Right Turn. Main Road. Pass on the RIGHT.. OK, no statue, but that looks like the intersection where I turned on the way here. Turn Right. OK. Pick up speed. I hope I’m going the right direction, what if I’m not. I wish this stupid headlight worked better. Would I ever be able to find my way back to the apartment? Will I end up spending the night on the side of the side of the road? I hope I’m going the right way. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. Street Lights would be nice. How we doing, God? I’m insane. Ain’t it cool? OK this looks familiar. OK. There is the complex, on my right across a large cement and grass median, the main road and a frontage road. Great! There it is, but how do I get there? Where do I cross the median. Literally, seven minutes later in the pitch black dark, I find a place to cross the median, turn around and head back to the complex.

I made it, but it was crazy! That’s all I can say. I was hoping to pray more on this trip, but hopefully, during the rest of the trip, it will be more for others and less for me.

Earlier in the day I met with Samantha, the volunteer coordinator for a brief orientation. I now have a broader idea of what the time here will look like, a somewhat better idea of what I will be doing, at least for the next two weeks and a better overview of the organization with which I am working.

I came to India with the hopes of working with the several western short-term teams, medical and otherwise that come to India as a sort of cultural liaison, logistics coordinator. It looks like I will get to do some of that down the road. Eventually, I think I will be helping coordinate logistics for incoming teams, assisting team orientation, working alongside the teams when they are here and helping with debriefing as the go.

This week there is a conference of international pastors the I will be helping with however I can and next week I will be at one of the Dalit (lower castes, “untouchable”) schools, observing, teaching and assisting with some video production.

I will write more about the organization I am working with later as I experience much more firsthand.

TTFN,

-sl

Friday, November 4, 2005 – DAY 4 – 9:36 AM Hyderabad Time