Join the journey to Assam

India, 2012
Ramblings and writings from the mission eld of India. Saturday, February 4th MONOTONY
Travel, travel, travel. Huge amounts of boredom interrupted by very, very small bits of interesting stu and culminated by a good meal, odd rooms, and stuy noses. We were able to meet Joel at DIA. His college buddies drove him all through the night to meet with use at 4:00am to do the security and check in dance for the rst leg of our ight, Denver to Chicago. Joel has a neat story and Ill get to it on another day. The ight to Chicago was smooth and faultless. At Chicago we rst spent a good portion of our nearly six hour layover getting to know one another, talking about the mission schedule, and doing an I Am Second study. With less than about 40 minutes to spare, Taras plane landed from California and she joined the team. Tara is a 20 year old who is doing more travel and mission work before her 21st birthday than most of us will do in a lifetime. More on her later. Monotony. There is not another word to describe a nearly 15 hour ight across the frozen waste of the northern hemisphere. There is an old saying that its the journey, not the destination, that makes the trip memorable. In many cases that is true. In the case of spending more than half a day cramped in a droning tube of smell and bad food several thousand feet above the earthThe destination will certainly win out.

Saturday, February 4th, contd

After what seemed like an eternity, our plane landed in Delhi. Its a thoroughly modern airport, something that probably shouldnt have disappointed me but oddly enough did. The good part was that after we picked up bags from the carousel and checked ourselves through customs, Charles Golla was waiting for us with cabs. Charles is our main person in India. He is the sort of man that the second he smiles at you and oers you his hand, you know you are going to like him. You can tell that he has a heart as big as the continent he calls home.

After our rst exposure to the madness that is called trac in India, we arrive at our hotel for the night. Charles checked us in, two to a room and we all went upstairs to drop o our bags and agreed to meet in the lobby in 15 minutes to exchange currency and go to dinner. Larry and I got teamed up together, which is just ne by me. Weve traveled together before and get on well. But.we dont get on so well that we feel comfortable sharing what seemed to be a wide twin size bed. That bed, along with walls a lovely shade of lilac and one of the most unique bathrooms I have ever encountered, are what we found in our room. We gured wed sort out the bed situation later. Right now its time to get down to the lobby and switch currency. Were switching not only an average of $200.00 in personal funds for each team member, but also enough to cover the entire teams hotels, vehicles, meals, etc. In all, several thousands of U.S. Dollars are exchanged for several tens of thousands of rupees. The rate is 48 rupees to the dollar and I feel like a prince when I get a sizeable stack of 500 rupee bills in exchange for my short stack of four $50.00 bills. The whole transaction takes place in the lobby of the hotel and for some reason I keep thinking that one of the Sopranos is going to come around the corner at any moment. Its all up-front and above-board, of course, but there is something odd about counting out all that currency anywhere other than a bank. There is one small spot in the lobby where the internet connection actually works with one tiny bar of signal strength. Needless to say, that is not where I am updating the blog. I was able to check my email and give my wife a little comfort by letting her know I had made is safely to Dehli. I also let her know how to make popcorn and encouraged her to take Eric up on his oer to help around the house, particularly with shoveling the estimated ten inches of snow that was due to come at any time. Eric, you can thank me later. Tomorrowmore travel. This time to our nal destination, Tezpur.
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Sunday, February 5th Echolocation

We left Delhi the next day and ew to Guwahati. The ight was unremarkable. It was timely and the service from the government funded Indigo Air was exceptional for a small airline. Guwahati airport is more like a third-world airport should be. There is cracked plaster, water damage, quite a surprising number of army guards carrying semi-automatic weapons, and a wide array of traditional and contemporary dress. After some (you guessed it) food, we waited for our transport to arrive. There isnt a lot to do in this airport. No wi-, no Starbucks, no..well, not a lot of anything. Traditional tea booths and a shop selling yards and yards of the traditional silk fabric used here for dresses. Lovely stu. Our transport arrived. It is what we would call either a large van or a small bus. Its kind of the Indian equivalent of an airport shuttle. As you can see, on this one the luggage is on the roof and held in place by rope and faith. You may also be able to see that keeping a clean line of sight through the windshield is optional. In fact, its absolutely ne to tape any ora or fauna that you happen to be worshipping today right in the line of sight. That way you can concentrate on that instead of the task of driving. But thats OK. Driving is not done by sight. It is done by sonar. Ill get back to that later. The road is crowded with everything from full size trucks to bicycles to three-wheeled taxis to common passenger cars and carts pulled by hand or water bualo. Add to this a few thousand pedestrians, many with large parcels of straw or bamboo tied to their back, along with a few mystics and gurus panhandling, and you get an idea of the crowding on Indias roads. The lanes are reversed here so you drive on the left side of the road. Mostly. Actually, what you do is drive on the left until you feel like you can go faster than whatever is in front of you. Then you begin weaving back and forth while honking your horn constantly. This is where sonar comes in. Relying on that same technology that bats and submarines do, the driver listens for an echo to his horn and if he hears none, he swerves fully into the oncoming lane and guns the motor. At the last possible minute, when he hears an echo from an oncoming vehicle, he swerves back into the left hand lane, narrowly avoiding the vehicle he just passed. A narrow miss is still a miss, nonetheless.
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Sunday, February 5th contd

Well, maybe that isnt exactly how it works, but it is certainly the impression one gets. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. After a while there becomes a sort of rhythm to it. You begin to notice that it is like a large dance oor at a ne West Texas country-western bar frequented by gifted twosteppers. They swirl around their girls and scoot their boots and it all becomes a glorious bit of coordinated chaos with not one unintended touch of someone elses partner. The Indian trac madness is like that only with less beer and even more polyester.

Finally it turns dark enough that it seems the driver really is operating by sonar. There is no way to see the bicycles and water bualo who, it seems, are not equipped with reectors for some reason. Oh well. The dark makes it easier not to panic. We nally arrive in Tezpur. The hotel is nice and dinner is in about 30 minutes. The greatest relief is that we are now actually where we need to be to do the mission. These recent posts may have been interesting and all, but they are too much of a travelogue and not what I was sent here to do. Im really looking forward to getting to interact with the people of this country and share with them. I believe they have a lot to teach me. Tomorrow is Sunday here and well be attending church services with local believers an doing some additional training for the medical mission of the coming week.

Monday, February 6th Communion

Its Sunday here in India and a mixed day for us here. In the morning our team will split up to go to area church services. This afternoon is a bit of personal time until around 4:00pm when well all get together for some additional training before heading to the eld tomorrow to set up our rst medical clinic. Larry and I were up early and after depleting the instant coee available to us, decided to go out for a stroll. Mark joined us and we had a nice visit about the state of our team and the struggles some members are having. It was very early and the street was just coming alive. Merchants at the various small huts along the roadside were sweeping their dirt sidewalks with bundles of grass. Cabbies squatted near trash res lit near the stalls for their rickshaws, warming their hands in the 50-degree chill. The street never really gets quiet here. There is always a horn honking somewhere and the voice of a bus worker notifying the neighborhood that the bus will be leaving soon. We returned back to the hotel and had a good breakfast. Stir-fried vegetables, potato and pea curry, an odd but very good dough-like substance that reminds me a lot of Cream Of Wheat with all the moisture squeezed out and some sugar added. The only thing they dont seem to understand here is coee in the American/European sense. Everywhere seems to have one of those fake cappuccino machines that we see at convenience stores in the states. It produces a substance that is exactly unlike coee with hot milk. Our group split up into two in order to attend local church services. My group went to the local Baptist church. This church is located about three blocks from our hotel in the middle of a Baptist hospital complex. Once on the complex we took a wrong turn and ended up wandering the halls a bit. Yes, it is a hospital, but no, it is nothing like the states. This is eld medicine. A lot of beds in a shared ward, open air windows to let the ies in and out, and families visiting and bringing the food for their loved ones. I'm sure that it is the best of care that can be had in this area of India, but it is still very primitive by our standards.

Monday, Febraury 6th contd

As is almost always the case when out of country visitors are present, one of the visitors is asked to give the message. Being the Pastor in our group, Mark was tapped early. With decades of experience, Mark always has a message or two he can prepare in a moments notice so he gladly accepted. He was asked while we were having breakfast so he spent a little bit of time reviewing a scripture or two and putting the message together in his head. When we arrived at the church we were warmly welcomed and ushered to our seats. Its a very familiar looking and plainly adorned chapel that would be at home in most small towns in the states. Seating is segregated by sex: women on the left and men on the right. We had two young ladies in our group and the hosts were very accommodating, allowing our ladies to stay with us. We were taken to the front pew. The Pastor of this church, a distinguished looking Indian man with graying hair and beard, came and introduced his self before the service. At rst he keyed in on me, commenting on and appreciating the ne layer of gray that adorns my goatee. He assumed I was the Pastor but I immediately directed him to Mark. Again, he had an appreciation for grey facial hair, this time the ones on Marks chin. He asked Mark what he planned to speak on. Mark replied that he was going to give a message on unity and told the Pastor what verses he was using. The Pastor nodded and smiled as Mark explained his plan. Then he said, You will preach on the last supper, yes? With only minutes to go until the service started, Mark could only agree. No doubt Mark was remembering the many times he told us to be very exible during the trip. He now had about ve minutes in between songs and oerings in order to plan a 40-minute sermon that would translate well into the Hindi culture. There was plenty of music, most of it accapela and most of it old Baptist hymns. The richness of the voices raised in simple song was incredible. There was a special music group of young ladies that sang a more traditional Indian worship song. I was sneaky enough to bring my pocket stereo recorder and I wish I knew how to post an MP3 here. It is beautiful and so lled with spirit and such a contrast the complete cacophony of noise that is Indian trac. Mark took the stage and even though a few of his Western humor jokes didnt come evidently come across well, he pulled o a nice message for communion Sunday. It was a very special experience to share communion with brothers and sisters from halfway around the world. Our cultures are completely dierent, our language barrier is extreme to say the least, and I am sure we are just as much of an oddity to them as they are to us. But we share one common bond through Christ. To me it is simply incredible that complete strangers with such vast dierences can both look at a cup of wine and a piece of bread and communicate the greatest truth in the world. Not only is it communion with God, but a communion that is universal among believers, no matter the divide that is between us in an earthly sense. Tonight is more training and a rundown on the schedule for our rst day in the actual mission eld. It seems like it has been a long time coming and we are all anxious to let the work begin.

Tuesday, February 7 Joy

Today was the rst day of our actual eld mission. We gathered around a breakfast much the same as the prior day but with the addition of a chickpea and tomato curry and boomba bread. Before we actually dig into breakfast we have a short I Am Second devotional. A great way to start the day. Spirits were high as we were all lled with anticipation and a strong desire to actually get on with the work we came so far to do. Our bus arrived and we loaded up. It was about a 50-minute drive to the mission site and it took us out of the bustling cities and into farmland. There are always people on the road and even out in the middle of nowhere there will be roadside stalls oering fresh produce, cellular phones, welding repair, or any other number of odd products and services. I dont believe you can drive more than two minutes without seeing some small shack of a commercial nature. On the outskirts of a small village we come to our destination, a public school complex of about four buildings, all of them open-air and only a couple with more than a dirt oor. Our nationals were already waiting for us. In missionary jargon nationals are those local believers that you partner with. These include translators, lay people, and others that provide help and services for the mission. In addition to the nationals, several of the school children were waiting for us as well. Technically they had the day o from school so that we could use their classrooms, but they couldnt resist coming to see the big production. People were already waiting for our clinic to open so we set about the business or organizing the medical stations and the sharing stations. Exam areas were set-up as was a dispensary for the glasses and for the medications. As we set up it became clear that this was education at its most fundamental level. There were no desks, but rather a collection of crude wooden benches of various heights. The oor is not paved at all and instead oers an uneven surface of very hard-packed earth. No whiteboard, no projectors, no bulletin boards. Not even a chalkboard was to be found. 7

Tuesday, February 7 contd

This is a tribal area of India and Christianity has had some success here. Tribal people are generally considered so low that they do not even have a caste. In Indian society they are the lowest of the low. They arent received by anyone in Indian society and so they are very receptive to the message that God loves them. Taking all this into account, it was not too surprising that a lot of the people we ministered to today were already Christians, mainly Baptist with a few Catholics thrown in. The remainder of the people we encountered were Hindu or professed no real religion. While sharing with fellow Christians wasnt exactly what I had expected, it was no less fullling. To walk the streets of India is, to me, an image of hell. The vast majority of the people you meet on the street do not smile at you as you pass. Im not sure they smile at all. There is almost no spontaneous joy to be found. Misery, toil, and lth are overwhelmingly present. There is not even the sni of hope in the air. It is dicult to describe the despair and darkness that is so present here. It is how Satan would have us live. This overwhelming oppression of the spirit is why the time interacting with Indian Christians is so revealing. As a whole, the Christians we met were simple people. Most could not read or could read very little. Their possessions are not much more than what they have on their backs and some cooking utensils at their home. The very basic occupation of simply surviving is their career path. But their warmth of spirit and contagious joy is in such contrast to everyone else that you see and interact with on the streets of India. These people smile readily and their smiles are so genuine and warm. They share with you and are completely open with their faith. We pray together and Im moved several times to the point of holding back tears brought on by the beauty of their spirit and its incredible light in this place of so much darkness. It is an amazing reminder of something we tend to forget in Americanized faith: the simple joy of salvation and the knowledge that God loves us. It is, as Philippians 4:7 states .the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. I am like most people. I ll my mind with things like wondering whether my rst meal on American soil will be bacon and eggs or a steak. I concern myself with whether the wi- will be up at the hotel. Im kind of digging this little laptop that was loaned to me for the trip and think I should consider buying one. Or maybe an iPad. I would like to spend the money to x up my pick-up to something near the condition it was 170,000 miles ago. I'd like to spend some more time riding my motorcycle. But these types of thoughts that are common to most of us remind me of how selsh and ungrateful I am. I have so many blessings, more than I can ever think to count. And sitting before me, time after time, are these very poor, mistreated Christians with no opportunity before them on this earth and with great concern as to whether they will have a meal today. And they pour out a joy in God that lls the room entire room and my heart. It is enough for them. It should be enough for me. My Indian friends have so much to teach me. ! 8

Wednesday, February 8 Mechanics

It came to me this afternoon as we were rocking around on a rough country road in between clinic locations that I havent talked much about the mechanics of the trip were on. Sorry about that. This is a trip that is taking place as much in my soul as it is in the country of India and my writing has reected that. So, with my apologies for its tardiness, here is a bit of the day-in day-out of the mission. e3 Partners is a church planting focused mission group. As such, all of their missions have church planting as the goal for the trip. At its root, church planting is about evangelism and e3 uses a variety of methods to assist in the task of evangelizing. One of those methods is to provide free medical clinics. In India one of the appeals of a free medical clinic is that poverty is so prevalent that most people cant aord the 10 rupee (about $0.20) fee of the regular hospital. Yeah. I know. They dont have twenty cents. The pharmacy is an added bonus as in addition to the cost of drugs, there simply arent many real pharmacies in this part of the world. We are traveling with a physician loaded with a fairly large pharmacy to treat common ailments in India, and also an optometrist with prescription drugs for eye treatments and a large arsenal of reading glasses. In addition to these two men we have seven lay people including myself. Providing logistical, organizational, and overseeing the mission is a fulltime leader from e3 and our in-country partner. We partner with local churches and believers that provide interpreting, crowd control, and registration services. The days schedule runs something like this: 6:00am: Out of bed to start the day. Shower, read, personal devotion, etc. I like to get up even earlier and go for a short stroll while I think and pray. 7:00am: Meet for breakfast and a short I Am Second devotional. 8:00am: We load up the bus for our drive to the days location, generally 40-60 minutes away. 9:00am: We arrive on location and set up areas for the medical, optical, and pharmacy stations. A registration area is also set up. Counseling areas are set up so that one team member and their interpreter can visit with the patients in groups of one to six or seven once theyve received their medications. 11:30-1:00pm: We split up our lunch breaks so that there are always counseling stations available to patients. Lunch consists of PB&J sandwiches, a juice box, and a banana or two. 2:00 to 4:00pm: The clinic closes, counseling is wrapped up, and goodbyes are said to our hosts interpreters. Sometimes the same interpreter will work with us the following day, sometimes not. It depends on the distance from their home and their schedule at their real job. ! 9

Wednesday, February 8 contd

4:00-5:00pm: The trip back to the hotel. Generally a much quieter bus ride as were all pretty worn out, physically and spiritually. 5:00-7:00pm: This is free time. Take a nap or a shower, catch up on email or whatever. I spend some of this time preparing to write to you. 7:00pm: Dinner. We gather and tell our thoughts from the day. 8:00pm: An ocial summary of the day including a count on professions of faith, people ministered to, and other details. Generally well close with another I Am Second devotional. 8:30pm: Youre o. Sleep, read, whatever. Ive been using some of that time to simply digest the day and perhaps do a little writing. There are other many little details that Im leaving out such as stops at roadside stands to pick up bananas or water, making pb and j sandwiches for our lunches before we head out, and the daily search for something suitable for American girls to use as a restroom. Heck, American guys for that matter. (Peeing is ne, but have you ever squatted in the mud to take a dump? Its not fun trying to keep your balance and your pants out of the mess. You can thank me later for the visual image that just brought up.) Each day is dierent in its own way. Above is a typical day, one that we would put on paper as a schedule. In India there really is no such a thing as a schedule. Do a google search for India Standard Time and you will nd lots of references to this fact. We were told that our team would be sharing the gospel with about 300 people per day. That has not been the case. The rst day we shared with about that number. The second day we presented the gospel message to almost 450. Today the crowd was nearly 700. Each person that comes through the clinic is ministered to spiritually and hears a clear presentation of the gospel and is asked for a response. I dont have the exact gures yet, but we seem to be hitting about 40% of those that hear the gospel are making a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It is amazing and humbling to think about and I thank you for being a part of this mission to bring Christ to what is spiritually a very, very dark land.

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Thursday, February 9 Location, Location, Location

We have now ended our fourth and nal day in the mission eld. Im hoping to add nal totals in a future post, but I can tell you that 2053 people that were ministered to both physically and spiritually. I know that we had several hundred professions of faith and all of the people received a clear presentation of the gospel. Ive given you a basic day-by-day schedule and Ive written about the impact the rst day had on me. Rather than give you a rundown of each day, I thought I would highlight some of the many God-sightings that occurred on this trip. This will take several posts as there were many, many God-sightings. This rst one will take this entire post and it is about God putting us where He needs us to be. Our second days clinic didnt have much of a crowd. By about noon there were no other people waiting to see the doctor. We had seen about 250 people by that time. One of the Nationals (mission jargon for in-country believers that provide support) said that he knew of another place we could set up our clinic. It was at the home of a Hindu who, although quite poor, is a bit of a leader in his village. He is what e3 Partners calls a Person Of Peace: someone who may or may not be a Christian, but is inuential in their community and friendly to Christians. After a bit of a drive that included having to make a lengthy detour because of a questionable bridge, we arrived at the home of this person. We were able to set up the clinic using his courtyard, one bedroom, and his back yard. People soon showed up in droves as the word got out and we served another couple of hundred people. At the end of the clinic someone Doctor Lynn (hereafter referred to as Doc) with news about a boy that was bedridden about two kilometers away. Doc, Charles, and Tom hiked across the rice elds and when they arrived at the home they found a delightful young man who had gotten surgery on his knee following an accident. The knee had become infected and unless the boy got to a hospital within a day or two, Doc was sure that he would loose the leg. Doc did the best he could and left the family with some heavy-duty antibiotics and advice to get the boy to a hospital as soon as possible. The next morning Charles woke from his bed with one thought on his mind: Get the boy to the hospital. He prayed that somehow we could make it happen by the end of the day. After our clinic today Doc left the rest of the team to go back to Tezpur early so he could meet with a surgeon at the main hospital there. Doc was able to arrange for the boy to be admitted and treated. The hospital agreed that the only cost would be that of medications. It amazes me to think about the fact that we were where God needed us at the time God needed us. Take a look at all the ifs that could have gotten in the way and resulted in this young man loosing his leg. IF ten Americans had not felt a calling to India and IF that calling hadnt included a clinic at that particular spot in India and IF we would have had a large crowd for our only scheduled clinic of the day and IF someone wouldnt have told us about another possible location for a clinic and IF our team leaders would not have been exible enough to change our plans and IF there wasnt a Person of Peace in the village that was willing to host us and IF there wasnt an alternate route to the village that bypassed the rickety bridge and IF someone hadnt come to the makeshift clinic to tell Doc about the boy and IF Doc and the others hadnt been willing to hike several kilometers in rice elds and IF Charles hadnt woke up the next morning with nothing but that boy on his mind and IF Doc would have been delayed not gotten back to Tezpur in time talk to a surgeon and IF the hospital couldnt admit him and agree to waive much of the fee.. That boy would have lost his leg and possibly his life. There are a lot of skeptics that would call all of this coincidence. I used to be one. I remember my friend Mark and I having this discussion once and he said, It may all be coincidence, but I nd that coincidences sure happen a lot more often if I pray about it and get God involved. It feels awfully good to be in a place that God wants you to be when He wants you to be there. I need to try it more often. ! 11

At Home God Sightings

Ive been writing about various God Sightings on this trip. God Sightings are those times when you see God at work through circumstance, people, or events. These things happen every day and with every one of us. Most of us, myself included, dont notice them nearly as often as they happen. Sometimes we dont notice them until years later. These are a few of the less noticeable God Sightings that happened within the members of the team. The rst day or two were great struggles for Matt and Carly. There was a huge culture shock, the food didnt agree with them, andother issues. Add to this an event on the home front that was dicult for his wife, and Matt was pretty shook up. As luck would have it, Matt was teamed up with Mark as a roommate. Well, I say luck. It was actually a God thing. Mark is an excellent counselor, a great shoulder to lean on, and a rock of a friend when youre in need. By the time we actually hit the mission eld, Matt and Carly were unstoppable and a huge encouragement to the rest of the team. It was clear that no matter the diculties, God was going to use the Waitley family in India. It was also clear that God had put Mark and Matt together as roommates because Mark was the man Matt would need during those dicult rst days. I am the team member that is most prone to health issues. Due to a medication Im on, I basically have no immune system. I also have to watch my diet a bit in order to avoid cramping and ahem, other issues, to put it politely. Now whether this is a God thing or simply luck of the draw, I dont know. But I was one of only three team members that didnt have any health or digestive issues the entire ten days. Luck? Well maybe. But I know that my health was a major part of my wifes prayers for me. It always seems that Im luckier when prayer is involved. Matt, Larry, and I had been talking about a few things we would like to accomplish when we get home. In my luck of the draw bible readings (the ones where I just open to a random passage to see what God has for me that day), I came upon a passage in scripture that I felt was really applicable to the situation. I went across the hall to Matts room and read it to him. Matt said, Thats from II Timothy, Chapter 2. Ive been reading it because Aneel (our eye doctor) came to me this morning and said he felt God leading him to tell me to study the second chapter of II Timothy. Some would call it coincidence. Others would call it freaky. We call it a God Thing. As I said, sometimes we dont really notice God Sightings until years after they happen. On our last full day in India I couldnt help but look back at my history with Mark. My relationship with Mark started about twenty years ago. I was a conrmed agnostic and single at the time. It was my habit in those days to go to Hokes for coee and breakfast several times a week. One morning Mark showed up by his lonesome and, knowing me only in passing from my job at the music store, asked if he could join me for breakfast. That simple cup of coee led to a friendship that has spanned two decades, his leading me to Christ, my membership in the Berean Church (now New Hope) and now, a mission trip to India. Its been awe inspiring for me to see Gods hand in what was, at the time, a seemingly chance meeting over a cup of coee. 12