Once Upon a Cyclone

A cyclone called Aila hit West Bengal this Monday. It has taken me 3 days to just get back online and our plastic table went over the edge of our 13-story balcony. Thank God no-one was on the ground floor outside! Of course with 100 km per hour winds and fallen trees, most people were trying to find a shelter in the storm. Even as the storm was raging, my heart was breaking for the millions of people who will be left homeless. I mean homeless. There are no storm shelters here. No provision by relief agencies for these natural disasters. Where will they find safe water for drinking? When will the waters recede from their HOUSES? Yes, Houses. What about their houses anyway?
Two of the ladies who work for us have lost their homes. The roofs were sheet metal and the walls were bamboo overlaid with concrete. Not real strong. SO glad we received two special gifts so we have funds to help them rebuild. Their houses cost around 5,000 rupees each for materials and labor. And they have good jobs with Christians who are showing love and concern. What about those are not as fortunate?
What a great opportunity for acts of service and the love of Christ.

God's on the Move

"Greater things are yet to be done in this city" is a line from a worship song we sang tonight at the closing of the youth conference held at our church here in India. This was a 5 hour service! We are awestruck by the sweet yet powerful presence of the Spirit of God, of His manifestations of healing and power that have happened over the past 4 days of this event. The video clip shows the wife of the young adults' pastor as she led prayer with the Indian flag held aloft across the altar. We prayed for God to help us as we all do our part to bring in a harvest of souls for Jesus Christ. All revivals can be traced back to prayer so that's where we started-bathing India in prayer. Prayer for revival. Prayer for deliverance. Prayer for a move of God.

McFamily: Super-sized!

We are learning so much about the cultural similarities and differences between us and Indians. When we first arrived, we wondered why families here consisted of parents and usually only one, or, at most, two children. We felt out of place. We thought all kinds of things based on our Western and American mindset: Did they not value children? Did they think they were too bothersome? We came to realize that we were ignorant to the situation of life in the city: it is extremely expensive on Indian salary to care and provide for even one child, much less two or three. Yes, there is a growing middle class, but it's really expensive.
Now, it's expensive somewhat in the States, too, but the clincher is education. You see, here educational success is paramount and so one should send their child to the best school possible and that costs a bunch. And that's ANOTHER difference: we are homeschoolers. How odd we must seem!
In the villages, many families have multiple children as the parents need as many hands to work the land as possible AND the infant mortality rate due to malnutrition/disease is high. So we must be considered a real anomaly: a family with four children who school at home living in the big city! We are often stared at for this reason and others that those of you who know us can guess. We just smile and sometimes stare back! We are OK in the taxis and use up a whole autorickshaw, but have to take two bicycle rickshaws, or even three! We are really super-sized here!

Brishti

We have been having a real dry spell/heat wave here. For over 4 weeks, temperatures have soared into the 100's, reaching 107 degrees F last week. Then they came. The Nor'easter storms that normally bring relief to this area of India at this time of year. What refreshing rains, or "brishti", we have had! This morning at 4 a.m., I heard the thunder rolling that signalled the onset of a refreshing storm. Yes, it makes drying our laundry for the six of us very challenging! I'm thankful for ceiling fans!

Anyway, some time in worship last night and a little reflection today made me think of songs of the Lord relating to rain.

Send down the rain
Send down the rain
Let the shower of Your Spirit drench my soul.
O LORD, send the rain.
-Mr. Gabriel, my husband, wrote this years ago.

Then there's this one:

Let it rain! Let it rain!
Open the floodgates of heaven!
-Michael W. Smith

I still need the rain of God's Spirit in my soul today! Don't you?

Can They REALLY do that?

Yes, the government in our state can take away the very car you are driving! Tomorrow is election day in our city for India's nationwide elections going on since mid April until end of May. It takes that long to cover the whole country, county by county in every state. This means that all the policitally-connected people need to get around town, and there are more of them than available, luxury vehicles. So they have legalized temporary, private vehicle seizure. Usually they want the bigger cars, so compact and subcompacts are safe. Since we use taxiz and transport from the office, we have no problem. Well, except that the car they send is sometimes not AC. Did I mention that it was 107 degrees F a few days ago?

Anyway, the police can pull you over and write up an order for your vehicle. They do return it, but no gurantees on its condition.

All this makes life here even more of an adventure!

Pray for the elections, ok? Thanks.

What a Mothers' Day!

What an unusual day! First, I woke up at 3 a.m. because I fell out last night at 7:30! Then I emailed all you Moms out there. Pretty hum-drum so far, huh? Then I made breakfast, sent Mr. Gabriel with 2 kids off to early service, and prepared to go to a local language-speaking church to be the Mother's Day special guest! Special guest means that I sit up front, and, after the sermon, I presented the mother's with a special gift and a blessing. With the songs and preaching in the language, and the lack of Western church trappings (we removed our shoes and I covered my head out of respect), I felt more cross-cultural at church than I have for a long time! They are running 80% women so there were a lot of Moms!

That's the good news. I made 3 mistakes:

1. I was overdressed: I wore a fancy salwar kameez (see blog Women in India: East meets West-Sunday April 5, 2009) with shiny jewelry that my hubby bought me. Shoulda' been more low key. But then again, I did not want to look too plain because they may have interpreted that as an insult-they were not good enough for me to dress up...
2. I forgot to take my shoes off at first. Oops! Pastor reminded me and all was well.
3. I did not wait for the interpreter when I spoke a word of encouragement! Just not used to that delayed speaking technique. Shows how ethnocentric I am!

Even so, it went well and I was able to get personal with a few ladies where language allowed. Well, I have learned that even a jet setter like myself (LOL!) needs to be sensitive to my host culture.

Hope you had a blessed Mother's Day wherever you are!

Starting Over

The problem with technology is that once you figure it out (esp. at my age), it turns on its head and karate kicks you to the moon! OK, I accidently lost our first blog, India Melodies, in cyberspace, so we are starting over. You can read the most recent posts there still, but the old ones are lost so...I am going to re-enter all of them eventually. Hey, keep moving forward, right?

We are starting over in other ways, too. Although we are still here in India, we are contemplating what the Lord has for us in the future. These deep thoughts were precipitated by Mr. Gabriel's attendance at a conference on impact. Are we in the right place at the right time doing the right thing and achieving maximum impact? And, since we are OK for now, what about the future? A more remote area would definitely challenge our comfort zone (and you are thinking,"Aren't you ALREADY challenged enough in that area?").

Right now, we have water delivered to our door. We have AC (when we have electricity). Our church is English-speaking (hey, that's how it was when it was founded 50+ years ago). What if we started over in a more remote area, a village where no one spoke much English, with wells or rationed water, and no AC (it was 107 degrees on Friday)? I know that the Lord would give us the grace to bloom wherever He planted us. Besides, we would DEFINITELY learn the language then! We will see where the second half of our term here leads us. Pray with us for His leading in His great adventure.
"He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Psalm 23
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understnading, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path." Proverbs 3