This week Tom Kinzel and I have been teaching daily classes in the coastal city of Chennai (formerly Madras). This is my second time to teach in the Chennai classes, and the fifth year we’ve had classes here. (Other members of our group are also holding classes in Coimbatore and Bangalore this week.) We have a large group of men in the classes, over 100 each day. Being a coastal city, Chennai is hotter than Hyderabad, although there hasn’t been any rain.

One of the very important things we do during our trips to India is interview preachers for reports to the churches that support them. We believe it’s important to get to know these men as well as possible for both the benefit of the supporting churches but also for the longterm growth of the work in India. While one of us was teaching, Tom and I spent the day Tuesday interviewing the men present who are currently supported by American churches.

After this afternoon’s classes, there is just one more day of meeting with the brethren in Chennai before I start heading home. Please keep me in your prayers during my travel.

Teaching class with bro. A.J. (only 23) translating

A view of the meeting room with over 100 present

With Udayakumar (l) and Charles (r) after my interviews with them

A fantastic old building dating from the time of the British Raj. Our driver says they're going to tear it down.

On Sundays the various members of our group split up to visit different congregations. It’s a way we can have the widest contact. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was decided that I should visit the Warangal church this morning. Warangal is about a three hour drive from Hyderabad. The roads were surprisingly good, although the monsoon rains made travel pretty messy. Bro. Rajkumar from Hyderabad traveled with me to serve as guide and translator.

The church meets in a rented “lower room” (rather than an upper room), seating for most is simply on the floor. As is frequently the case, the crowd was small at first, but by the time I got up to speak it was nearly full. We had about 50 in attendance. Following services I went to see a piece of land the church is considering purchasing for a regular meeting place. Warangal is a major city in Andhra Pradesh state, with a population of about a 150,000. It is an important place to have a well established church. Their regular preacher, J.K. Elijah, also preaches at a nearby church earlier on Sunday mornings. One of their founding members, D. Swamy, is the brother of bro. Gevanandam of Moula Ali.

Before our return back to Hyderabad we paid a visit to the 900 year old Thousand Pillar Temple. Due to the rain I was unable to explore as much as I wanted. However, I was quite popular with the other visitors. I probably had my picture taken ten times with other visitors clearly unused to Americans.

Tomorrow morning I leave for the airport at 6:30 to catch a plane for Chennai where I will begin teaching classes in the afternoon. Bro. Benson kicks off the Chennai classes while I’m en route; Tom Kinzel will join me in Chennai for classes and interviewing of preachers on Tuesday.

Members of our group will be spread out in various cities this week, and doing quite a bit of traveling. Please keep us all in your prayers.

Singing at Warangal

Preaching in Warangal

With one of my fans at the Thousand Pillar Temple

Friday night we kicked off a weekend meeting with the Balanager church in Hyderabad. Balanager is the smaller of the two churches we work with in Hyderabad. It takes around an hour to fight through the Hyderabad traffic to get to the other side of the city where they meet, a situation made more difficult by the monsoon rains we’ve been having. There were about 100 in attendance, several of those were visitors. We are conducting the meeting different speakers style. I spoke last night on the faith of the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15. Tonight Ed Harrell will speak with Rod Amonett to conclude the meeting on Sunday morning.

Tomorrow I travel to the city of Warangal to preach. The morning will start early, as it’s approximately a three hour drive to Warangal. As I mentioned in my earlier post, none of our group has ever had opportunity to travel there so it should be a great opportunity to meet the Christians there. After the day’s travels on Sunday I will be preparing for classes in Chennai where I fly to on Monday.

Our “down” time has been spent discussing the work here in India as well as interviewing some of the preachers about their work. One of the important responsibilities we have is to make contact with Indian preachers who are being supported by American churches so that we can report back to them. We are the only way most of the churches have to have direct contact with the men they support. This morning we will be meeting with bro. Surender of Balanager.

The week ahead will be a very busy one. Please remember us in your prayers.

Speaking at Balanager, bro. Surender translating.

2010 -

I finally arrived in Hyderabad this morning along with Tom Kinzel and David Owen. Our home base in India is Hyderabad, which is where both the Moula Ali and Balanager churches are. As much as India can feel like home, Hyderabad is it.

One of the things I was told when I first started coming to India five years ago was “be flexible.” Transportation is often a challenge, schedules can be fluid. The former was reinforced as we sat on the tarmac at the Mumbai airport and were told that there would be an hour delay before takeoff as the plane had missed its runway window. We were actually served breakfast while sitting on the tarmac!

I was reminded of fluid scheduling when Benson picked us up at the Hyderabad airport. He mentioned that it would be good if I could travel to the city of Warangal to preach on Sunday rather than fly, as previously planned, to Vijayawada for Sunday services. No one from our group has ever traveled to the church in Warangal, and the church has progressed to the point where they are considering building a church building. This also has impact on the scheduling for the timing of my trip to Chennai. Hotel and plane reservations will have to be changed all around. It’s certainly no crisis, but helps give a window into what can happen.

Today was spent in meetings to discuss our various plans for the time here, interviewing two Indian preachers and, of course, recovering from our travel. Tonight will be a chance to get a real night’s sleep and start acclimating to Indian time.

Tomorrow Tom and David leave for the Northeast city of Shillong, while Bill Robinson goes to Bangalore. Ed Harrell, Rod Amonett and I will remain behind to begin a weekend meeting at the Balanager church before splitting up to different places on Sunday.

2009 -

The last week is always tough to get through, especially this year since everyone had gone home by Thursday evening except for David Owen and me. After teaching classes Friday and Saturday, we had morning services with the Mumbai church this morning. As mentioned before, this is a young church with mostly immature members. They do, however, invite many of their denominational friends, so there is a good opportunity when we meet with them. This morning we had around 100 in attendance at the schoolhouse where they meet situated in a slum area of Mumbai.

Now David and I have the Long Wait until we get on the airplane. We have kept David’s room through the early evening (checkout at 6), then we will eat at the hotel restaurant followed by waiting until around 9 PM to go to the airport (which is virtually within sight of the hotel). Our plane leaves at 12:25 AM (~2 PM Sunday CDT) and 17 hours later we’ll touch down in Atlanta (let’s hope they get that fuel tank filled all the way).

The trip has been fruitful and satisfying, but it’s certainly time to come home. And the wait certainly is long…

Sunday Morning With the Mumbai Church

2009 -

It’s been a very busy week, which has led to fewer posts. Last Saturday I flew to the southern city of Madurai where I spoke at morning and evening services on Sunday. We try to cover as much ground as possible on the weekends in order to make the most of our time here. There is a small church of about 50 people meeting in the city. They meet in a rented upper room, although they have purchased land and hope to build a building in the future. (Dr. Harrell has raised funds from individuals over the past several years to help Indian churches build that otherwise would not be able to. Of course, demand for such funds always exceeds supply.) Their preacher is named Roy Ebenezer, a young man in his late 20s who married a lovely girl named Juliet less than a week prior to my arrival. Roy served as my translator, and, between services, as my tour guide.

Madurai is a smaller city so flying in and out is more difficult. As a result I spent most of the day Monday flying to Chennai (Madras) then on to Hyderabad where I joined in the teaching of classes on Tuesday. We ran four classes simultaneously, three at Moula Ali and one at Balanager, with the teachers rotating between them. We had a total attendance of approximately 170 in the four classes. The three classes at Moula Ali were divided by language, a native Telugu class, a Tamil class and then a class for the preachers from the Northeast, which was conducted in English as most of them speak English well (or at least understand it). On Tuesday Ed Harrell and Tom Kinzel both left for the US (due to previously scheduled engagements), which cut down on our available teachers.

Classes ended on Thursday, and Bill Robinson, Rod Amonett and David Barnes all left for their return flights to the US. That left only David Owen and me to fly to Mumbai on Friday morning for a brief session of classes and a weekend meeting with the Telugu speaking church here. The church in Mumbai is very young. It was started through contacts bro. Surender of Balanager had among Telugu speakers who had moved from the Hyderabad area. We are meeting with those of the church who can attend during the day. The classes are pitched at a more elementary level since we are not dealing with preachers and teachers, but often Christians very immature in the faith.

At this point, of course, I am very eager to finish the work here and fly back to the US to see Traci and the girls. The trip has been a very busy one; a lot of ground has been covered. The churches continue to be strengthened in India, and we have been blessed to be a part of that.

Roy & Juliet in Madurai

At Balanager with Surender translating

Benson being translated in four different languages

2009 -

With the first week of Hyderabad classes over, our team is splitting into four groups for Sunday preaching. While Tom Kinzel and David Owen stay in Hyderabad, Ed Harrell, Bill Robinson and Rod Amonett travel to Bangalore. David Barnes will be speaking in Chennai and I am going to the southern city of Madurai this evening. I’ve never been to Madurai, and am very much looking forward to the trip.

Last night Bill Robinson preached at the first night of a weekend meeting at the Moula Ali church (David Owen continues it tonight). Following the services one of the young men was baptized by Ed Harrell.

We also took our ‘official’ group photo of the trip. Thankfully, my camera made it through without breaking!

2009 -

Today is the final full day of classes in our first week in Hyderabad (Friday is a half-day so the students can travel back home). We have two classes going simultaneously, a preachers and a non-preachers class. Those in attendance are almost all from the area around Hyderabad so they are Telegu speaking classes. I taught both Tuesday and Wednesday. I spoke on Hebrews 11 and Abraham to the classes. We had around 80 people total for the two classes.

Starting tomorrow night we will begin a weekend meeting at the Moula Ali church then on Saturday a group will travel to Bangalore for Sunday while I travel by myself to the far southern city of Madurai. I will speak there on Sunday morning then travel back for our second weeks of classes in Hyderabad. That will be a much busier week as we will have 3 classes–in three different languages–running in at the Moula Ali church plus an additional Telugu speaking class at the Balanager church at the same time.

Teaching at Moula Ali

2009 -

Benson, Tom Kinzel, Rod Amonett and I touched down at the new Hyderabad airport at around 8 PM on Sunday night bringing an end to our trip to Manipur. We had originally been booked to return on Monday, however our travel permits were only granted through Sunday. In order to stay longer we would have had to reapply. There was also the threat of a bandh (or city wide strike in which everything is forcibly shut down) so we decided it was prudent to leave.

Manipur borders Burma (or Myanmar, controlled by a military dictatorship ), and is politically unstable. I was aware of that, but not prepared for the very, very strong presence of Indian military forces. Soldiers with machine guns were everywhere. We were stopped a couple of times at military check points traveling between Imphal and Lamka. The brethren have complained that they are often shaken down at such checkpoints at the rate of Rs 100 per person (100 rupees, or about $2). That’s not an insignificant amount of money for most of them.

The Lamka and New Lamka congregations are about 2 hours south of Imphal, the capital. We stayed at the hotel in Imphal on Thursday and Friday, commuting for the lessons with the brethren. Both congregations have very fine buildings by Indian standards, and both congregations have 125-150 in attendance. Because of our visit everyone gathered together for our sessions, plus a number of people came in from the rural areas. There were even several brethren from Burma. We can’t go to them, but the borders are pretty porous for them as the Burmese and the Manipuris are ethnically the same.

We had three sessions–morning, afternoon, and evening–on Friday and Saturday. We were originally scheduled for three sessions on Sunday, but circumstances (as discussed above) forced us to leave on Sunday. We had around 300 people in attendance on Sunday morning when I spoke at the New Lamka church.

Preaching at New Lamka on Sunday

Friday evening, at the strong request of the brethren, we agreed to stay in Lamka as opposed to Imphal. This allowed us to participate in the evening sessions. Rod Amonett stayed Friday night, speaking that night and Saturday morning, while Tom and I transferred down on Saturday. One of the main issues was finding a suitable place to stay. There was a new hotel in Lamka, the Venus Hotel, that had only been open for a month. This is important as Indian facilities tend to deteriorate rather rapidly. Also important was that the hotel was built with six rooms having Western bathroom facilities. The downside: no air conditioning or even electricity at night to run the ceiling fan. Furthermore we couldn’t leave the windows open because of mosquitoes. Price per night: Rs 500, or about $10 (cash only, no credit cards). It was probably priced pretty accurately.

Morning services on Sunday had to be moved from 10:30 AM to 9 AM in order for us to make our 1:30 PM flight out of Imphal. Imphal has very few flights, and we had to be out of the state that day. After a 90 minute drive to the airport we flew to Guwahati (the capital of Assam state) then on to Kolkata (Calcutta). From there we flew to Hyderabad, arriving at around 8 PM. Benson had to spend about an hour discussing our flight changes (from Monday to Sunday) with Kingfisher Airlines in hopes of getting some of the money refunded. As you might imagine, not much was forthcoming.

The new Hyderabad international airport, though, is a wonder to behold. India has traditionally had very poor airport facilities. This airport was opened just last spring, and is as nice of an airport as you could imagine. It’s a very impressive structure.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Hyderabad last night, thrilled to have not only electricity (amusingly as I typed that the electricity just went off!), but a soft bed and hot water. Thankfully, today (Monday) is an off day so we can recover before beginning classes at the Moula Ali congregation tomorrow.

2009 -

After a dreary rainy day in Mumbai, Tom and I fly out at 6:30 AM to Kolkata to rendezvous with Bill Robinson, Rod Amonett and Benson on the way to Imphal, India in the far Northeast. It’s the capital of the Manipur state, and is over agains Burma (aka, Myanmar–some brethren from Burma likely will travel over while we’re there). We have never been able to go there before, although some of the Christians there have traveled out to us when we visited nearby Shillong. It’s a restricted access area for foreigners, and we had to apply for special permission from the government in order to get in.

We will be speaking at the New Lamka and the Lamka congregations Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’m not sure how far of drive it will be between Imphal, where we’ll be staying, and New Lamka, but at least one hour, and probably more like two. They don’t have Interstates in Manipur, either! The church in New Lamka is fairly sizeable, around 150. I’m not sure how big the Lamka church is.

It’s likely I will have limited–or possibly no–Internet access while in the Northeast. If so, I should resurface sometime on Monday when we travel to Hyderabad where we’ll spend most of our time while in India.