Glenn, "Second Donny," and Shibu

Well, we had to say goodbye today. After 3 _ days at the orphanage in Raipura, releasing the grasp of some of those bonds proved more difficult than expected. It seemed as though everyone made contact with one or two “special” friends on the first day, and those same kids sort of gravitated toward you the entire time. My two were “Second” Donny (on the left) and Shibu (on the right). Shibu was my English-speaking pal and followed me around the entire time practicing his English and helping me learn Hindu. I’m actually not that bad, if I do say so myself. I’ve got the basics, “What is your name” “How are you” “Good Morning” “Good Night” etc. not to mention, I can count to ten backwards and forwards. “Second” Donny was like my sidekick the entire time. He introduced me around (I met “First” Donny and “Third” Donny as well, even though “Third” Donny claimed he was actually the rightful heir to the surname “Second” Donny. They didn’t seem to mind sharing names, though). Every time I would appear in public, “Second” Donny pop up out of nowhere asking “What is my name!?!” He was thrilled when I shot back, “SECOND DONNY!” Last night, our last night, we got to tuck them in to their beds and say goodbye as we would be leaving the next morning while they were in school. Weston, Justin, and Austin led a little impromptu prayer session slash send off, as all 300 or so of the orphans pilled out into the main hall of their hostel and we all prayed together. Then we said our good-byes, and I played a final game of chess with Raul. He beat me the previous night (badly) and I vowed to purchase him a new set. So I was able to deliver the set we got in town, and they were elated. With a little help from the peanut gallery, I was able to avenge my previous loss, and felt I could walk away with a bit of dignity beating a 12-year-old boy at least once… and Raul wasn’t even the orphanage “champion.” I got to give away the hats I made on the trip including some I had brought with me, and I received several thank you letters from the kids. The previous night, I walked into one of the rooms and they were rehearsing for a talent show that would occur the upcoming Wednesday, and they gladly “performed” the sections they had rehearsed. They needed some candles as props for their choreography, so I was able to get some while in town, and delivered those as well. It was incredible to see how appreciative they were because I brought them 10 candles that cost less than a dollar. Yet they all sat down as the room leader led them in a “thank-you” session and asked me to pray over them as a room. What a moment.
As it turned out, we had to say goodbye twice because while we were loading our luggage into the bus, school released for a morning break, and the children flooded us as we gathered our things. After more tears, we were off, but certainly not forgotten.

Cultural Tastes

Well, we've been experiencing some fun bartering on the road. Here, we had some aggressive shop owners when we stopped the bus to use the restroom, and they wanted to dress up all the ladies, so we figured it would at least make for a good photo op. We ate Pizza today at a restaurant that also serves Baskin Robbins, so we couldn't resist. I got a kick out of their dinner mints. They have an interesting set up where they have a bowl of like rock-sugar and a bowl of like mint seeds that taste sort of like black licorice. You scoop a little bit of sugar and a little bit of the mint seeds in the palm of your hand, and then pop it in your mouth and chew. I had a fun-time forcing some of the girls to try it. They weren't as adventurous. Oh well. We brought Simon and George along. George (pictured here) is a nurse at the clinic next to the orphanage in Raipura. He's awesome and takes good care of the children giving them checkups and taking care of medicine for them. He cam along with us so that he could help Sandra at the pharmacy. Keep praying for our health. Ansley's fever is gone, and Sandra's broke last night and they are both feeling much better.

Going to Kota

On our way to Kota, we stopped in Tonk to visit an Emmanuel School (and use the facilities). “Baby” Thomas is the pastor here and they have facilities for 700 students and about 35 orphans. I say, “they have the facilities for…” because even though they had that many in the past, due to the problems this past year (see the post from my trip in January), many students and orphans left. Currently, they have 350 students and 10 orphans, but they are expecting 10 more orphans to return within the month. Slowly as confidence rebuilds, hopefully the school will fill back up. Traveling through northern India, we’ve seen several Emmanuel Schools spread out, and upon arriving in Kota, we met Alex who works in the main office of Emmanuel Ministries who told us they have around 50 Emmanuel Schools all over the country. What an amazing ministry to raise up orphans and send them out to plant schools. “Baby” Thomas was another example of an orphan raised up through the ministry and put through Bible School to begin again multiply the ministry. Cool stuff!
When we arrived in Kota, we met Dr. M.A. Thomas and his son, Dr. Sam Thomas at the Bishop House. The Bishop House is where the Thomas’ live, but it also serves as like a missionary hotel for guests. Several of the orphan girls who have come through the ministry run the hospitality, and Rose’s beaming face met us with a wonderful meal. I can’t even count how many times Mrs. Bowen said, “She is SOOO cute!” They truly were joyful servants.
After a meal, we headed out to the tailor to check out the clothes. Ashok (the owner of the store) met us and was actually very involved in helping us get our measurements and find just the right materials. He even showed us a DVD of his son’s wedding (just happened 3 weeks ago). Although, he only showed us clips since he had 8 HOURS of footage. It was quite an ordeal… these traditional Hindi weddings. Just to give you a small idea, he reserved the Umet Palace in Kota for two days… all of the rooms… AND had another hotel on top of that reserved for two days for all of the guests. Needless to say, they go all out.

Cultural Driving Lessons and Skype

Spent a lot of time on the bus Thursday. Driving through the country-side, we saw several different perspectives of how the people lived. We went through a brick manufacturing village where they sun-dried mud then burned them in these tall furnaces to make them solid and red. Then they’d load them on a cart and a camel would cart them off to be sold/delivered. Speaking of furnaces, it felt like we were walking through Bible times. The furnaces reminded of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo. We saw shepherds herding their flocks, women drawing water from wells, fields of wheat being gleaned, and then children and poor mothers going through the fields gathering the leftovers… just like passages we’ve read about in the Bible. I could just picture Ruth out there in Boaz’s field. With the lepers and orphans, it was sort of surreal… like walking through a time-warp. At one point, it was easy to blame the government for not progressing and for poor leadership keeping the country in poverty. It was easy to feel sorry for the woman trudging through town with a water jug on her head. With a little technology, I thought, they could improve things, get running water, … something. But then you think that as easy it is for us to judge and say, “I would be miserable living like this” in the dirt and dust. But they’ve been living like this for centuries. Our civilization may have running water and electricity but we also have divorce, depression, suicide, etc. In the words of P. Diddy, “the more money we come across, the more problems we see.” To see these orphans happy with just a cricket ball, or kids on the side of the road playing in the mud makes you wonder if you really need an Xbox to be happy. These were some of the thoughts/feelings/discussions that came out of our devotion time that Joelle led after the trip on Thursday.
It was a pretty full day all in all with the driving, so we were exhausted when we finally got to the hotel. Jon and Veer risked their lives in a taxi ride to retrieve us Pizza Hut for dinner. We got our second wind as the whole team crowded into our room to eat pizza and video conference with school chapel on Skype. Lots of parents came to the school and some people on the team here in India got to see and talk to their families on the internet. What a great end to the day!

Elephants and Palaces

We made our way to Jaipur today and stopped in Amber (pronounced "ahhm-bear") to visit the palace there. To get up to the palace, which is set up in the hills, we rode elephants! Weston and I shared an elephant, and were only a little nervous when the "driver" kept telling us to 'scoot back for balance." We were certain death loomed on numerous occasions. Needless to say, we all survived and enjoyed a tour of the palace there atop Amber. There was an interesting wall (12 miles long) surrounding the palace much like the Great Wall of China. In the group shot, you can see us in front of the gate of the palace. While the Taj Mahal had stone inlaid into the marble, here the gate was decorated with frescoes-meaning they plastered the gate and painted designs.

How Big Is It?

Thanks to my students for posting questions about the Taj Mahal. We had a fun time "scavengering" for answers. Some of the questions warranted responses on the blogs, while some of them got us some strange looks from the tour guide. I'll tackle a few here and see if I can't answer more when I return.

1. How many stones were used? We weren't sure if you meant how many different types or physically how many rocks. To answer the first, the main stone is white marble, though black onyx was prevalent in the decorative inlay work as well as several other semi-precious stones. To answer the second, our tour guide Ramesh laughingly skirted it by saying, "It took 10,000 elephants" to carry the marble from Jaipur (about 165 miles away) to Agra. He rounded it off to about 1.4 million tons. That's a lot of stones. It took 20,000 craftsmen working 24 hours a day 22 years to complete it. So, yes, it is pretty impressive that Mr. Brooks was able to hold the entire structure in his hands (per the picture).

2. What would it cost if it were built today? We had fun doing some math on this one. This is how we broke it down. In the 17th century when it was built, a gram of gold was worth 5 rupies. Today, a gram of gold is 10,000 rupies. That's 2,000 times the value. The Taj Mahal cost 40 million rupies back then. The exchange rate is about 43 rupies to 1 US dollar. So if you do the math, that would mean that to build another Taj Mahal today, it would cost roughly 1.9 BILLION dollars.

You can see some more pictures from our trip if you visit the Team India blog at http://fcsindia.blogspot.com. When I return, I'll try and tackle some more questions such as "How old do you have to be to be a securiy guard there?" and "Do they have wifi?"

Our first Orphanage

Tuesday was probably a great sampling of what our trip is all about. We spent the morning and early afternoon at the Chawla Orphanage in Delhi. For the most part, we just hung out and played with the kids. That simple time we spent throwing a football and swinging a cricket bat lightened up the faces of those kids. You could just read it in their eyes: "Someone cares about me."
We rounded out the day with a bit of shopping - visiting a rug store and getting a feel for the culture and history.
The highlight of the day, though, was meeting Tannu, Aliyash, and Hardeep. They sort of "claimed" me and christened me "uncle." Tannu made it his personal duty to introduce me, or rather, introduce everyone else to me (like I was his best friend he was showing off). I also received the full guided tour. Tannu and Aliyash wanted to show me where they are learning to preach. They showed me their pulpit, and even gave me an impromptu sermon. It was touching to hear them share Psalm 27:10 - "Though my father and mother abandon me, The Lord will receive me."
Wow. They embraced it and shared it with me like it was part of them.
Hardeep ran and brought me his testimony he had written out in English. The three of us huddled around as Hardeep shared how his father squandered their family's money on drugs and ended up dying young leaving he and his two brothers fatherless. he came to Christ as the church embraced him and he saw Christ heal his sick brother (he used the words "raised from the dead"). It was incredible to see his passion to become a preacher and share his story.
I found this picture Mr. Brooks happened to snap of Hardeep sharing his testimony with myself as Tannu and Aliyash peered in.

Patience. I'm not there yet. I'm just getting some things in order. One of the things I'm looking forward to is visiting the Taj Mahal. For my students back in Texas, they'll be watching a video about the Taj Mahal while I'm there! (Here's an excerpt from the video if you're curious) So I thought I would make a pre-emptive post so my students can leave a comment on this blog entry with any questions. STUDENTS: What questions or notes do you have for me to find out when I visit the Taj Mahal? I'll check this post before I go, so post your questions or things you want me to check out. Is there something I MUST investigate closer while I'm there? leave a comment so I can have some things to look for while I'm there. Then check back to this blog, and I'll post my findings. Have fun without me!

Ready to Return!

Well, we're finalizing preparations for our return trip. This time, Jon Brooks and I will return with 14 students and another adult sponsor. We will leave on March 4th, and will return on the 16th. I'm excited to go back and work with some of the kids in the orphanages, and to meet back up with Veer and help him get his school building set up. On my list of things to do is to actually play some cricket! Last time, we were all-business with the teachers conference and meeting with pastors and such. We'll get to spend more time with orphans, and visiting a leper colony. Keep checking back here as I plan to post updates while we are there.

Jodhpur to Delhi to Newark to Dallas

Friday, 1:30pm – After lunch with Joseph and his family at another 5-star in hotel in Jodhpur (this whole “scouting” business is rough!), we said goodbye to Veer and boarded a plane for Delhi. The 1-hour plane ride sure beat the alternative 12-hour drive. Sam Thomas met up with us in Delhi and took us around the city and to dinner since we had 5 hours until our flight for the states boarded. Morrison also accompanied us (he runs the orphanage in Delhi). Morrison and I had a fun time running around the city-center while Jon and Ed shopped for shoes. We counted 3 Nike stores, 2 Addidas stores, a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, etc. This culture-contrast amazed me. He also educated me on the reason for all of the city name-changes. “Bombay” was changed to “Mombai” and “Calcutta” was changed to “Kalkota,” because, according to Morrison, the Parliament had nothing better to do, and wanted to stay in news. Bombay and Calcutta were British names, and the new names were Indian names.

Saturday 1:30am – 15 hours from Delhi to Newark, 3 hour layover in Newark, New Jersey, and a 3 hour flight to DFW, and somehow with the time-change, we show up Saturday at noon. It’s good to be home. After eating every form of chicken (curry, tikka, Tandouri, etc), I’m ready for some of Shatrine’s home-cooking.

The Maharajah's Palace: Jodphur, India

Thursday 1/11 6:00pm – Before we spent our second night at Ajit Bahwan, we had dinner “across the street” at the Palace of Umit Bahwan. This is where the Maharajah (the King of Jodhpur) lives. While India is now a democracy, the Kings are still very wealthy, prominent figures. The maharajah still lives on part of the grounds, and the other part of the palace operates as a 5-star hotel. Though we were dressed casually and were initially turned away from the restaurant because they were “booked full” (despite the many obviously open tables), Veer worked his magic, insisting that they serve us. He casually, yet firmly, mentioned that we were coming back with a group of 25, and wouldn’t if they don’t take care of us. Needless to say, they quickly prepared a table for us (go Veer!). Joseph also joined us and showed us around the town. He is the pastor of the church in Jodhpur and also has a school there.

Pali Autograph Session

I just realized I haven't introduced the folks travelling with me. It was just three of us. Dr. Ed Smith (the president of Faith Christian School in Grapevine) and Jon Brooks (the campus pastor) and myself braved the trip together primarily to scout out the locations and sites for our trip in March with about 20 students.

Thursday 11:00am – We headed out to Pali (about two hours from Jodhpur) to visit another Emmanuel School and orphanage. While we were there, it was lunch time, and we got mobbed by all the students wanting autographs from the Americans. I must have shook over 300 hands. Pictured above is Jon getting mobbed.

Veer's Family

Wednesday 1/10 1:00pm At Veer’s home, his wife, Blessie, prepared our best meal of the trip. Even though they have a city wide power-outage everyday from 8:00am-Noon, she got up early, went to the market, and had it all ready for us. It was fabulous. We got to meet their three-year-old son, Jeremiah, and the one-year old daughter, Joanna Grace. We also met their two adopted sons, Makasa, and David (what great older brothers they are! And such servants).

6:00pm About a two-hour drive from Veer’s in Beawar, we stayed at Ajit Bahwan in Jodphur. The hotel actually belongs to the Maharajah, and is where his close relatives stayed. It was the first place we had high speed internet, but even that was sketchy. The hotel accommodations were very nice, though. It’s amazing to go from people barefoot in the streets with cows and dust to a palace with hot water, electricity, and extravagant art on the walls.

New Building in Beawar

Wednesday 1/10 – Off to Beawar to visit with Veer’s family and check out the land where they are building their new school. Right now they meet in a rented building (and the lease is up in May).
Brief political background: There are two major political parties in India: BJP (a Hindi religious political party which is currently in power in the state of Rajasthan), Congress (a secular party who tends to be more on the “free democracy”-spectrum). Coincidentally, the political party most in support of Christianity is called the “Marxist Party” although they are very much a minority (of the 200-some seats in Parliament, they hold only one). Back in February, the BJP party (who was in control in Rajasthan), persecuted the Emmanuel School Society, claiming they were publishing anti-Hindi books. They imprisoned the President of the organization and held him in prison for about 3 months before releasing him due to political pressure from outside of Rajasthan. During that time, there was damage done to many of the Emmanuel Schools around Rajasthan, and many of the students un-enrolled.

Veer’s school took quite a hit, and actually closed for about a month. When they re-opened, many of their students enrolled in other schools. Many of the families are leery to enroll their students in the Emmanuel school because of the bad press they’ve received, however, as they continue to offer excellent education, hopefully families won’t be able to ignore it, and will begin to become attracted to the school once again. Veer’s ministry owns 2 acres of land, and is in construction to build a new school building on the property that will hopefully be ready for the next term of school. That will bring a lot of credibility to the program. We were able to visit the school (we even got a full-on greeting with flowers, and an all-school song presentation) and we also went to check out the new school site. It was neat seeing the plans, and many of the walls completed already.

Raipura Orphanage

Tuesday 1/9 4:00pm – We visited the orphanage in Raipura (30 minutes from Kota where we were staying). They were doing their daily “prayer and song time” when we got there, so it was neat to see all of the kids singing the songs (some in English). The most amazing thing to me was that the orphanage was run by orphans. When the children grow up and “graduate,” some of them elect to stay and become leaders. The students are divided into rooms, and each room has a leader and a co-leader. The leader is about 16, and the co-leader is 15. When the 16-year-old graduates, the 15-year-old becomes the leader, and they continue to move on. Students then graduate study to become nurses, teachers, or pastors and begin ministries of their own. There is a hospital just down the street from the orphanage where students study medicine, and they also offer services to the community. A majority of the nursing staff there are actually orphans that came through the program there.

It’s an amazing model, and we saw evidence of it in Veer. Veer grew up in the orphanage in Raipura going to school there, and then went to Bible college. He is now 28 and he runs a school of 300 students in Beawar as well as pastors a church there. He is beginning an orphanage as well (he has already adopted two boys of his own). He truly is one of the most amazing individuals I’ve ever met, and yet he remains such a humble servant. Veer came and met up with us Tuesday night in Kota, and then sort of became our tour guide for the rest of the trip. I can’t imagine traveling in India without him.

Thomas Family

Tuesday 1/9 7:30am – While in Kota, we stayed at “The Bishop House” which is where Sam and M.A Thomas live, as well as where the Emmanuel Bible College is located. They have nice living areas for guests (with hot water), but the best part is the food. Sheila cooks all of the meals, and really runs the whole place. She walks around holding a cordless phone like a monarch’s scepter, directing people and making sure everything is in order. We had pancakes and omelets for breakfast, and for lunch, she sprinkles in some traditional Indian food (but she knows how to cook for Americans… not too spicy). Dinner was also exciting as we ate with M.A., and were joined by his brother (visiting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates) and their father (a ripe, 98-years of age). After the meal, the three of them broke out the hymn book and sang. It was pretty incredible to hear them sing “When the roll is called up yonder” in Hindi. The father also prayed over us before heading to bed. Sam came and joined us as well, and it was incredible to see the three generations living there together. We had an interesting conversation about how this is rare for us to see and how typically in American cultures, people often send off elderly to retirement homes, and visit them once a week. Sam explained it like this, “Why would I want to send off the Ark of the Covenant from my home?” It’s incredible how they treasure him even though he requires a lot of care.

1:00pm – At the conference, we made some interesting connections. I was given a tour of the Talwandi School in Kota (where the conference was held), and I got to see their computer lab. They have about 15 computers even though they don’t have Internet access. The students learn Microsoft programs, and build websites off-line. It will be interesting if we can help them get set up with Internet connection and begin to do some exchange with them. I met Ira and Indu: the Social Studies teachers at the Emmanuel School – Talwandi. They were very savvy (Ira already has her students do History projects using the computer lab, and Indu has an email address, so we will hopefully be able to be in contact), and we may be able to do some sort of dialogue with our classes.

Sunday 1/7 9:00pm - We arrive in Delhi, and instead of staying in a hotel for the night, and catching a morning train to Kota, we had to rent a vehicle and drive through the night to make it to the conference in the morning. What would have been a 3 _ hour express-train ride, took 11 hours through the trafficked/pot-holed roads. We slept a bit on the drive, but we had no choice since we missed the train we reserved and the next train was booked solid.

Monday 1/8 11:00am - We arrive in Kota at 11:00am with enough time to grab some lunch, shower, and head to the conference to teach 5-sessions. Even though we were exhausted (an all-night drive through bumpy roads, and horns honking every 30-seconds allowed for little sleep), the presentations went well. We brought a video projector because Dr. Smith's presentations required one, and we thought I would be able to use the projector as well for my sessions. However, when we got there, we realized that we would be teaching at the same time, and what I thought would only be one time teaching, I found out I would present 10 times in all (twice to some groups, three times to other groups). Luckily, they had a video projector, so I was able to use the projector we brought to teach my sessions. We also lucked out, because we found this out at the airport before we left, and Shatrine brought her laptop to the airport for me to bring and use (thank you, SHATRINE!).

Travel Diary

Well, I'm back safely, and though I didn't have Internet access much while I was there, I took a journal, and thought I'd post them here:

Friday 1/5 11:15am – Off to the airport (DFW). We arrive with plenty of time (you never know when you fly international), but had no problems getting our tickets and through security. In fact, we were standing in front of our gate at 11:30, even though our flight wasn’t to leave until 1:45. We had barbecue, and did some strategizing/talking about our expectations for the trip. 1:45 came and went. The flight was delayed. 2:30, they said we could leave. 2:30 came and they said, “3:00pm” Because of bad weather in New Jersey (where we would connect with a flight to Delhi), air traffic control wouldn’t even clear us to leave Dallas until 5:00pm. By that time, we would not be able to make our connecting flight. So we went home, and figured we’d try again the next day (this time catching an earlier flight out of Dallas). After quite a while with Lisa (manager for Continental), we tried every other possibility, but very few flights go direct to Delhi, so we’d have to settle for the same flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi the next day.

Saturday 1/6 5:30am – Off to the airport (DFW)… again. This time, we got off without a hitch. We enjoyed our emergency aisle seats (thank you, LISA!)… and it was almost worth it; especially considering that our 14-hour flight from Newark to Delhi would also be in the emergency aisle. So I enjoyed the comfortable seat… awake. I did all of the math, and figured that I had to adjust my schedule so that I could be on “India-time” by the time I arrived. I planned ahead and only slept one hour Friday night. So I stayed up for the entire flight (24 hours with only one hour of sleep). Then I crashed at the airport (thank you, Ambien). I got 3 hours in Newark, and then we boarded our flight at 8:50pm (US-time) and I slept the first 6 hours.

Raipura Orphanage

I found a wireless signal in the lobby of our hotel in Jodhpur, so I'm posting some pictures of what we did earlier in the week. Here is the orphanage in Raipura, just 30 minutes from Kota where we did the conference.

Teacher's Conference: Kota, India

Here I am giving my presentation at the Teacher's Conference. It was neat to be able to share some of the things that are happening with technology in education. Many of the schools have computer labs, and learn html, java, etc, but because of costs, they have to work offline. They rarely get to navigate the web, and post their work.