Bihu and Other Fun Stuff

When I last wrote to you I was on that wonderful six hour bus ride. However, that was two weeks ago and I have been slack, once again, on my blog entries. The reason is that not much has happened, but a lot has happened. No big events, but several small yet still noteworthy ones.
When we returned from Tezpur on Wendesday, the rest of the week was Rongali Bihu. From what I understand its one of three throughout the year, this Bihu is the beginning of the Assamese new year and signifies the beginning of their planting season. Its also the Bihu of love... This is their biggest holiday; I mean it takes three days to celebrate! Many of the shops were closed, people invite their friends over for dinner, and they also had what they called programs where they celebrated with dance and music. All the dancers dress in traditional gold and red silk outfits and know the routines that I guess they have been taught since birth. It’s a very festive time. However, no one that I am associated with was interested in celebrating. I really wanted to see some of the celebrations though, not often you are here to celebrate Bihu! The weekend passed and it was soon Saturday night and still no Bihu. Everything would return to normal on Sunday. We had discussed at HC that night about how everyone had celebrated. The girls went out of town to a friend’s house to stay, Brian wasn’t too interested, and I had sat around asking everyone if they knew where to see some Bihu. Little did I know that while the night was coming to an end, or so I thought, our landlords were hosting their own Bihu bash! So when I walked up to the gate about 10:00 that Saturday night to go to bed, I big smile came across my face when I heard the drums and chanting going on in the courtyard area! Looking around the corner there it was, hired dancers in the gold and red dress and all. About 30 people enjoying the private Bihu program (our landlords are from a royal bloodline, that’s how they roll). They welcomed me warmly, tied a gimosa around my head, and encouraged (shoved) me to join the dancing. When Brian got back he joined in also. It was much fun! The guest got a kick out of it as well; I guess it is not often that Americans get involved in celebrating Bihu. The festivities were just getting started, they invited us in to eat and have snacks. By this time it was already after 11 so we just ate our snacks and slipped out to the flat. I was satisfied though, I got to experience the Bihu celebration after all!
During Bihu, when I was at the office alone I decided I would go out and try to meet some national English speakers. I had been disappointed before this time that I had not really met any nationals outside the team and was getting a little discouraged. After sitting at the flat one night, Brian told me that you just have to go out and talk to people. If you know me, you know that is not really my comfort zone, especially when I am halfway around the world. I decided that it would beat sitting at home and the office all the time waiting for them to come find me though. Now I find myself in shock that I have actually met people and have visited with them several times. I have even been invited to the home of a father and son that I have met. It’s actually pretty cool. This is also the way that we get the opportunity to share with them, by building relationships. They may just be interested in me because I’m American, but it definitely opens some doors. So if you guys want to be lifting me up in any way, let it be for growth and opportunities in these relationships.
Another event that was really interesting was a ceremony for one of the team members a couple Saturday’s ago. It was a traditional H1ndu ceremony that is supposed to take place when they are a teenager; however, this guy is 38. This time it was like a reconciliation ceremony to mend relationships with his family and community that were broken when became a believer. I do not understand fully what all took place and why, but I do know that by mending these relationships it opened countless doors for him to share the Truth with his community. I know I also said that it was a H1ndu ceremony, but I have learned that H1nduism is more of a community than it is a religion. It’s just a different culture. I wish I could tell more about it and I wish I know more, but this was a really big deal; this was one of the first times it had ever been done and was supposedly very groundbreaking.
Other than this, we did some traveling. By train this time which is about ten times better than the bus. I just got to sit in on some meetings that some of the other team members had. There was not much English spoken that day, I found myself with a lot of time to ponder life. Including pondering what they were talking about, haha. I was still a good trip; we got to visit a village and some more rural areas so it was good to take in the scenery. We did have to ride the bus for several hours again though…
This week I will be traveling again, but will be conducting some surveys this time. I’m excited to meet some more people at these different organizations to talk about needs and how we can bring them some help. I also love just talking to them and just getting to know their heart and why they do what they do. Their strength is always an encouragement.
Hopefully some more exciting stuff will happen this week that I can share, I will have plenty of time to write on the train. I hope everyone at home is having a great spring. Thanks again for reading!

Kamakhya

As I am writing this blog, I am sitting on the bus headed for the town pronounced Tez-por. Brian is taking me up there today to do a survey with a good friend of his at the hospital. However, it's seems that we have broken down or there is some problem with the bus. We have been sitting just north of the river on the side of very busy main road for about 30 minutes now. I'm talking serious traffic jam southbound, buses FULL of people and then as many as can fit on top. Brian said it is the lifeline to south of the river into the city. It's a very large river too, I would say close to as wide as the Mississippi or wider is some spots, so they don't have bridges everywhere. Next closest is about 3 hours upstream where we are headed. Maybe we were waiting on someone, we just got two new passengers from a car that pulled up. That's how they roll in 1nd1a! Oh well, we are moving again so it's all good. Wait, now we are off-roading IN THE BUS! Haha! I'm sure you can imagine what shape this bus is in and understand why I thought it had broken down, I mean they did have to push start it...

The bus ride is not what I wanted to blog about, I threw that in for free. : ) What I really wanted to talk about was our visit to Kamakhya temple last week. This is one of the oldest temples in this area; I think Konkon said it was 800-1000 years old. This was our day to learn about H1nduism. Brian, who is mostly H1ndu focus, told us to just go in there and explore, ask questions, and find out the story behind why they worship here at Kamakhya. So we split up into groups of 3 or 4, with a national in each, and set out to learn the story. As we walked around there were people everywhere, many of them worshipping the images of gods carved in stone on the outside of the temple, others reading the holy book, and some more lighting dias, small candle, incense type things. We also saw the alter where they make daily sacrifices of goats. The goats were roaming freely around the temple area, as well as some cows. Then there was this caged line, like something you would see at Disney World, where you had to pay to get into the inter part of the temple to get blessings. As we were taking in all the sights, we stepped into one of the outer chambers just for exploration's sake but there found a couple of priest who were willing to share the story with us and answer some questions. To make a long and kind of complicated story shorter, one of the main gs, shiva, got mad at his wife, if I remember correctly, and cut her up into pieces and Kamakhya happens to be where her female reproductive organs fell. That is why they built a temple and worship here. Bet you weren't expecting that huh? We asked the priest many questions about what he became a priest, why they sacrifice, among a few other things. The two priests we talked to were multigenerational priest. I don't know if I termed that correctly but meaning they are part of a line of priests in their family. There are so many other things; it was just like an information overload. Everything seemed so complex. Some worship many gs, some worship a main g for a certain reason. They have around 33,000 gs if I understood that right. One of the priests told us that he liked Kamakhya because she gave fast blessings, like a mother would a child. That priest was not from here, he had made the trip from another town somewhere far off. The 12th was the main pooja, worship for the year or this phase of the moon. He said he would be there and fast for 9 days and on the 12th many young girls would come to the temple and he would feed them and give them blessings. That would be the pooja and then he would return home. Pretty interesting. There is so much more and I wish I could recall all of it right now and help understand. One thing about it though, all these people here paying for blessings, sacrificing animals, paying respects to these gs, fasting, and worshipping are so far off from knowing the 1 TRUE G and the sav10r JC...that's the heartbreaking part. Many have never even heard the story of J. It's a different world folks. So please continue to lift up these people so that the HS will raise up seekers who know there is something missing in their lives and are searching for the Truth. Brian said that every 1.5 seconds someone dies in SE A, only a fraction know JC.

Jumping Right In

So many things to tell, I am just going to start at the beginning and work day by day. I think that will be easiest to get caught up. Thursday- My first full day in the city was spent exploring and getting used to the flow of things here. I went out with Jonathan, a national M that works with the H1ndus here in the city. He took me out get a taste of all the forms of transportation and show me around to a few places. Here there are 4 forms of transport; walking, bicycle rickshaw, auto rickshaw, and the city bus. That is unless you have your own vehicle (motorcycles are popular, easier to get through traffic), but most of us don’t so these are our options. We tried out each one and they all have their advantages depending on where you are going. Bus rides cost about a quarter/Rs.10 and rickshaws about a dollar/Rs. 40 depending on how far you are going of course. Yes, traffic is kinda crazy. Its every man for himself, so if you want to get past someone just blow your horn and go. Nobody even gets angry when they are cut off, its just normal. I have learned that its not as bad as it looks and sounds. Anyway we traveled around a good part of the city, went to the zoo (a nice break from all the noise and congestion), a couple of bazaars (markets), and just saw a lot of the sights. It seems like everyone has a shop of some kind. There are H1ndu temples everywhere and a few mosques too. Some people even have temples in their houses, in fact, my landlord does. It’s an eerie reminder everyday of the darkness that we are surrounded by. Other than that, there are people everywhere! This city is home to 2 million people in, give or take a few a hundred thousand. I’m not sure the land area, but its crowded to say the least. The census results just came out and 1nd1a has now reached over 1.2 billion officially. Also, I’m sure some of you are wondering if it is dirty and if it smells bad. Yes, but you get used to it. : ) The Weekend- I am just going to lump the entire weekend together because it was not too eventfully even though it was nice. A group from Andrea’s hometown came in on Thursday, so I was able to spend some time with them doing some orientation stuff. We learned some about the culture, how to share the Truth with the nationals, a little about what they believe, and some other things about this area. I really enjoyed the morning we spend learning the story of Legion from the Word and acting it out. People here are oral learners so stories like this are easy for them to follow, remember, and to share with others. Also during the weekend we got to eat some authentic 1nd1an food, and it was delicious! A lot of rice and fresh veggies. So I will not be malnourished when I return, plenty of good food! We also learned how to eat 1nd1an style, that is, with your right hand and you use your thumb as a little shovel sort of to push the food in. The left hand is traditionally unclean, that’s your “washing” hand. I was at the flat by myself all weekend; Brian had to go out of town. Saturday night was the big World Cup final between Ind. and Sri Lanka. I say Saturday night, more like all day Saturday. Cricket matches last forever. This one started at 1:30pm and last until after 11pm! I stayed at the office that night to watch 1nd1a bring home the cup for the first time in 28 years. They were lead by a solid performance by their captain MS Dhoni who hit a 6 run to end the match. GO 1ND1A! There was serious celebration in the streets; I’m talking music, dancing, fireworks, cheering, chanting, and who knows what else! For that reason they would not let me leave the office and go home since all that was going on and it was 12am. I slept at the office and got up early the next morning to return to the flat and try to get some rest. On Sunday I was alone all day, so I decided to try the restaurant down the street that Brian had showed me for lunch. The food was great, chicken fry (not to be confused with fried chicken) and france fries. However, no one spoke any English…because of this I got no answers to any of my questions, like is tip included. I found out later that it is not and VAT is tax. So maybe next time a will leave the guy a little extra. I spend the rest of the day trying to prepare my surveys that were to start on Monday. The Week- This is getting pretty long and I’m sure all of you are tired of reading. I am typing up a sweat anyway, haha! The joys of no A/C. This week I was to start my business profiles and surveys for the Chick-fil-A leadership conference at the end of the year. These are just to give them a snapshot of the current state of these organizations before they come to teach their leadership model in the fall. I did six surveys this past week and got to meet some really great people along the way. Every survey I did was in a Ch1$t1an organization. Talking to some of these people was so encouraging because there fa1th is so strong and they are so passionate about what they are doing. I know this isn’t all about me getting anything, but I am truly thankful that I was able to cross paths with some of these people. After I do my surveys, I make up a report so that all the information that I gather is in order and easy to be evaluated. This takes a little time, so I spend a good bit of time in the office working on that too. During the weeks I also spent some more time with the Cedar Creek group. We visited Kamakhya temple on Tuesday; I’m not going to talk much about that now because I want to make another post about that later. It was at the lookout on the way down from the temple where my FB profile picture was made. On Wednesday, we had a guest speaker, Joshua. He is a Musl1m follower of J. He shared with us his story and how he is now working in a village not too far from here doing d1sc1plesh1p training and how these new bel1evers are starting CP’s in many other Musl1m communities and how they are growing. It is so obvious that G is moving and working over here, especially among the national followers of J. It was so interesting how they are able to bring them to the Truth by contextualization. They are using the Musl1m’s own holy book to bring them to J, how awesome! I am going to stop here, I’m sure I missed some things but I will cover them later hopefully. I thank all of you for reading. I hope that I am relaying some of what life is like over here and my experiences. I also ask that you continue to be lifting us and the people of SE A up every day that the Sp1r1t continues moving throughout this land and the team so that we can find these persons of peace who are searching for the truth and will be receptive and become a light for their community in the midst of this darkness.

A Long Journey to a Land Far, Far Away

I know it has been over a week since I arrived and no more blog posting yet, I do apologize. However, it seems that life in SE A is as wide open as it is in the States. So, I am just going to start from the beginning and make a few entries in the next couple of days and maybe, just maybe, I will remember and take the time to sit down more frequently to write. So, now to where we left off. Packing didn’t go so well on Sunday night, washing did not go as planned and I didn’t feel like venturing out in the rain to retrieve my suitcase out of the building. I did, however, lay my clothes out nice, neat and rolled so they would be easy to pack in the morning. Everything went smoothly on Monday morning; I got packed, told Matthew goodbye and saw him off to school in my car and was able to leave in time to hit the bank and my favorite breakfast spot, Libby’s Catfish, with Mom, Dad, and Drew. My grandparents and Bro. Jack met us at the airport to say goodbye, which was harder than I expected it to be. I was not doubt excited about getting over here but we were all going to miss each other for the couple of months. My parents were especially tough. However, to lighten the mood some, Drew did buy me a nice new Auburn shirt for my trip that I could show off to the nationals and teach them about the best American football team in all the land! (He told me not to tell that, oops…) So, after all the hugs and goodbyes it was time to get through security and to the gate. When I headed through, the security girl said she just had to know where I was going because of all the commotion, I told her and she wished me luck. Now through security I waved my last goodbyes to my family on the other side of the glass wall and then I was gone. From here it is a just a little boring. I did enjoy my last burger in Charlotte before hopping the pond to Frankfurt. Transcontinental flights are very painful for me; I have a terrible time trying to sleep on an airplane. After a couple of delays, I ended up spending about 10 hours in the Frankfurt airport feeling like a zombie. It had now been about 24 hours since I had woke up on Monday and I had about 2-3 fifteen minute naps on the plane. I spent the day lying around pretending to read and dosing off. Longest day of my life! I was able to manage getting my own row on the flight to 1ndia, but did not get much more rest. So, now after about 30 hours I have arrived in D3lh1 and it is 3am. There is supposed to be a car waiting for me at outside the airport to take me to the hotel, but since I was 2.5 hours late that had been cancelled. However, by miracle I think, my team leader had been delayed and he was at the airport to meet me! What a relief! We got a couple hours of rest and then off again to head home, well temporary home, in Goo-ah-hot-ee (for those wondering about pronunciation) where I was received very nicely. I met Steve’s family, my roommate, and then some of the other M’s over a homey meal at KFC, and yes that is Kentucky Fried Chicken. Finally to end the night off right, we celebrated a huge 1nd1an win over Pak in the semifinal of the Cricket World Cup! That was a HUGE deal! They do love their cricket over here. By now I am at a new level of tired and it was great to lie down to get a full night of sleep. Happy to finally be here and settled, it was a great first afternoon in 1nd1a! More to come soon!

Carrying the Name into the Unknown

About 12 hours from now I will be sitting on a plane ready to begin my journey to carry the Name of J to India! I have been waiting on this day for months and cannot believe that it is finally here. I am excited, expectant, but also a little nervous in anticipation to the culture shock. I have no idea what it is going to be like to land right in the middle of a completely different world than what I have always know. However, I trust completely that these anxieties will be calmed and I will be able to fit right into this world so that I may carry out my work that I have been called to do. This will probably be my primary form of communication with most of you, and I thank all of you so much for all the love and support that you have always shown and continue to show as I am ready to depart on my journey. I am going to try to blog at least once a week, however, I am not sure what my schedule or my internet situation is going to be like. Just bear with me, I will do what I can! Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers! Talk to you soon!