Jul

Sunday In Warangal

By Alan

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.