Videos...

Hey, guys!  We're back!  However, i have a bunch of fun little videos that i'm going to upload that i couldn't (due to Internet speed) while i was on the field.  Hope to conclude the blog with a couple of other postst that i couldn't post while we were in transit.  Enjoy, and thanks for your interaction, comments and prayers while we were on the field!  -jack

Jimminy Cricket!

We were introduced to the Indian game of Cricket (sort of like baseball… but…uh… not really), and they graciously tolerated our awkwardness as we tried to figure out the various rules. Basically, as nearly as any of us can tell, you “bowl” the ball toward the batter, deliberately intending to bounce it before they hit it. The batter more “bunts” the ball than swings it baseball style, and can bat it in any direction (even behind him). You score “runs” by running back and forth between “wickets” (kind of like bases), and you carry the bat with you as you run rather than tossing it aside. Finally, you can score as many runs as you can rather than just being able to score one per bat. As it turns out, Marty and Ben both had mean bowls, and Ben even struck one of the Indian teens “out”.

Justice Team… Assemble!!!

I wanted to sort of apologize that I don’t have more to report on the Justice Team. They’ve been hard at work for the past two days in Vellavedu with our Super Pastor Anbuannan, and have been working with bonded slave laborers in that area. Most of the slaves work in brick factories, and the team has been going over a Justice-oriented Bible Study with them, as well as curriculum from International Justice Mission. I don’t have photos because we haven’t been proximal enough to them to get any, but to my knowledge, they are doing well. We will come back together with them tonight in Chennai as we begin our long trek home, and I will hope to have a couple of posts about them before we leave if I can manage it.

301

I had the privilege of teaching the 301 Core Class to our next batch of 50 church planters over two days, and am really enjoying this current wave. I taught 201 in July/August, and really connected with the group, and it was fun to get back together with them again, laugh, tell more stories, and enjoy what they’ve been learning as they have both implemented 201 successfully as well as start in on 301.

301 is always just a little bit tricky because of the massive diversity of opinion on the issue of Spiritual Gifts (particularly gifts such as Tongues, Interpretation and Prophecy), but this group enjoyed the back and forth from each other as members from all camps (cessationists (those who believe that those gifts ceased with the apostolic age), “conventional” charismatics, and even some Word-Faithers).

All in all, however, it was a fun class, Anandraj (one of our Life Mission International staff members, a great interpreter, and a good friend) and I actually finished on time and according to schedule, and everyone seemed to enjoy the time. This batch will now go back to their villages and implement CORE class 301 training in their churches. It’s awesome to help train these kinds of “leadership multipliers” for ministry!

Primal...

After working all day on New Year's Eve Day, the teams converged (minus the Justice Team, who were still farther away in Ranipet) at the Construction Team site for a bonfire to celebrate the coming of the new year. It was absolutely awesome (and hilarious) to watch as Raj gradually coaxed more and more of us to join him in various dances and songs around the campfire.

As soon as the air began to split with laughs and shouts, some of the villagers came to join us. Some of the younger girls especially twirled and spun to the tunes of old Tamil traditional songs hammered out by deft fingers on goat-skin drums or overturned aluminum pots. In addition to the pulsing blaze of the fire, the effect was both timeless and mesmerizing. Staring up at the crystal-clear sky at a blackness that was dotted with an unbelievable view of what must have been literally thousands upon thousands of visible stars, i was suddenly struck with the notion that we could have been doing this in 2008... or 2008 BC without much difference in overall effect or feeling. It was amazing!

Finally, one of the things that Americans learn very quickly when visiting here is that Indian culture has a massive and rich tradition of history and lore that is kept and "bottled" (if you will) through the medium of song and dance. Some of the songs that i've heard sung in these types of performances date back hundreds of years (or farther), and have a weight and "flavor" of the passage of time that contemporary pop will just never touch. I mean... can you picture Americans singing Katie Perry songs in two thousand years? I can't.

Construction Team: Villa De La Constructcione

This is the Construction and Media Team “tent village”. Because Dan Blacketor is leading them, and a good many of the team members are seasoned India Team veterans, they planned ahead well (notice the portable pooper stand behind the second tent from the right), and have been relatively comfortable sleeping in their little vinyl shelters each night. Except for the fact that the Hindu worship music starts loud at about 3 am, Muslim call to prayer starts at about 5 am, and the teams have been working HARD till just up to dusk, making each of them pretty battle-weary, though still in great spirits. They have been real troopers, have navigated some interesting challenges, and have done a fantastic job throughout. Way to go!!!

Water Team: Don “Journey to the Center of the Earth” Wolfram and Cleaning the Well…(Contributed by Jen Price)

Hello, from the Padu Colony in Kalavia, Tamil Nadu India! The water team officially began our work! Yesterday we cleared brush, grass, and weeds from around the village well. This is much more difficult without the assistance of lawn mowers and weed eaters! However, this team is ready for anything, so with shovel trowels in hand, we cleared a 3-5 foot border around the well. Our plan is to clean the well, inside and out, hopefully teaching the community to take care of it after we are gone. While the well will not be completely clean by safe drinking water standards, we will then install Hydraid Biosand Water Filters in their homes to purify the water.

Without this well, the people have very little access to water. This contaminated well supplies water to the “untouchables,” the members of the lowest caste called the dalits. Because these people are in this caste, no one else will help them. The government only provides 2 buckets of water per family, once every 5 days. The water is turned on from a small pipe at 3am! The villagers wait anxiously, and call for everyone when the water starts pumping.

We had the opportunity to meet many of the villagers. While we heard many stories of struggles and pain, we also were blessed by the smiles and joy within the people. They were so excited to see us! We offered prayer and a promise to return!

The remaining water in the well was pumped out during the night by using a motor and tapping in to the local electricity supply. We returned today to discover that the well was much deeper than expected. But in true GCC “can do” spirit, a few locals and a water team member, Don Wolfram, were lowered into the well to remove trash and the settled slime and grime from the surface of the water. While Don was busy at the bottom of the well, the rest of us met more of the villagers. While we hope to improve their health through safe drinking water, we also hope to relay to them that they matter to us, and most importantly, they matter to God. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have your entire country tell you that not only do you not matter, but that you are the lowest of the low, and that you do not even deserve the basic needs of life. We’re here to change that!

Our next steps will include installing the filters and providing health and hygiene education during a village meeting. Go team! We’ll keep you posted!

Media Team: Shooters!

Marty Friend and Ben Sanders have been rockin’ it all week! They have been sleeping in tents, gathering footage, interviewing team members, interviewing villagers, moving from team to team, seeing everything and missing nothing. They’re amazing. The difference between my amateur efforts on the last trip and their world-class “A-game” are simply not possible to overstate. I suspect that once the trip is over, we will be able to really cast vision for what we do here in India (both to the people of GCC as well as other churches and organizations) at a level that will simply not be possible without their careful dedication on this trip. In conjunction with the skills and abilities of Gene Ort and the GCC Tech and Creative Arts teams, giving India “skin and voice” is becoming all the more easier as we do this kind of thing more and more over time. Special thanks to all of you guys!

Construction Team: The Sky is Falling!

I left before Tech got to work this morning and bee-bopped over to visit the Construction Team to see what they were up to and how things went the night before. Aside from just enjoying seeing everyone and getting caught up on how they did with their first night of sleeping in tents in a remote village, Dan Blacketor walked me through the village and told me what they would be “up against” as they sought to work on some of the houses in the community. Here’s what I found out:

Most of the houses in the village (about 20-30 families) are in terrible shape. See, this community is comprised of very low cast people whose primary jobs are to hunt rats and snakes that plague villages. In return, they are allowed to sell the skins and do whatever they like with the carcasses (Barbeque, anyone?), and the government recently relocated many of these people to this little village (about 3 years ago). The government promised to build houses for each family, but the contractor to whom the government gave the money only used 1/3 of the necessary cement to build the homes. Result? The houses are less than 5 years old and already look like the pictures here. Because of their poverty, the families can’t fix their homes, so that’s where Pastor Sam and his trained planters are stepping in.
Currently, there is only one Christ-follower in the village (a radiant, delightful lady named Lilly), and as GCC teams engage building and renovating as many of the houses in the village as they can, they are showing the community that the God that we serve cares just as much about their “here and now” as He does about their “then and there”.

Update Note: Last night, one of the men from the village specifically came out to our little gathering and asked if he might speak with us. He said, “you know, my whole life I have never followed a god. I have never thought that they could help me. I have wanted my whole life to have a home. When I got this home and it fell in, it just confirmed to me that there must not be a god who cares for me. But now I see that you are here, and you are telling me about this Jesus. If this is what the people who follow Him do, then I will decide to serve Him. Thank you for helping me… I was start following Jesus today.”

Not Faking…

This is Mike Ryan. He’s one of the coolest and most compassionate people I have grown to know this trip, and he and his wife Elaine are having a blast being here. But see this? This isn’t Mike just dozing off. Seriously. This is the combined result of 80 hours of travel time, awkward sleeping conditions, early mornings, late nights, later nights, fantastic (but unusual) food, new sounds, new sights, language barriers, seeing out of control poverty, and 10 hour days full of manual labor with little climate control and sometimes scarce resources (like water). Result? It’s really not uncommon to just simply fall asleep in the middle of… erm… well… anything. I actually fell asleep with my eyes open last night. I have no idea how it happened. I was actually set to speak to a church full of people, was looking at Raj, remember what I was looking at, and then a little girl sitting at my feet nudged my foot and handed my Bible back to me with sort of a sheepish grin on her face. Apparently, I had actually fallen asleep with my eyes open, dropped my Bible without realizing it, and actually startled “awake” (or whatever it was) when she gave it back to me. It’s why we train our teams so hard before we come here… India teams are open to many, but are tough. No way around it.

Tech Team: Agape Service Station

One of our more “out there” objectives this trip is to try to see if we can help to start up a micro-business with appropriate technical training and expertise. We had a number of opportunities, but we also have some unique skills within the people who applied. Namely, we have Steve Holt. For those of you don’t know Steve (he’s Becky Callendar’s brother), he’s a professional motorcycle mechanic with Hoosier Harley Davidson in Elkhart, and said about a year ago, “hey, what would you think about seeing if we can help someone start up a motorcycle repair shop?” I ran the idea by Raj, and he said it was a great thought! Result?

You’re now looking at the Agape Service Center! It’s a rented store front where we are training 4 – 6 people the basics on motorcycle repair and maintenance. We’re not going “deep”, per se, into the technical specifics of cracking cases and grinding pistons, but we HAVE developed a “10 Point Checklist” (similar to a 14-point Jiffy Lube) for our new owners to use as they service motorcycles that come in off the street. We also brought about $300 worth of parts and technical gear that will start them on their way, and Life Mission International is providing them with an air compressor and a generator to help with electrical service and spray-washing.

Upon arrival, Steve, Mike, Katie Holt (yes, Steve and Becky’s sister… I tell you, those Holts… they’re adventurous people!) and myself set about the necessary technical training for the 6 new owners, breaking down inspection and basic repair into “chewable” categories. They were all quick studies, and we are now looking at a sort of “soft open” for this Saturday to allow the people of the community to meet, greet and get some free service by the new owners. Want to know what’s funny? Having 4 Americans huddled and involved around the shop has already been better advertising than a flock of billboards. Over the past 2 days, we’ve probably had 200 – 250 villagers wander by and stop to watch the training and interaction between the white skinned freaks and the new business owners. We’re excited about the prospects of this little venture, and have enjoyed being part of its opening and launch.

Record Breaker!

How many GCC team members can you fit in an auto-rickshaw? We found out. Check this… when the water team was ready to go to their field, a single lonely rickshaw pulled up outside Pastor Sam’s house, ready to take the team. We all sort of looked at each other quizzically, and then inquired if there were additional rickshaws on their way. Raj just chuckled and said that he was sure we would all fit. So, without further complaint, every one of the Water Team members, plus driver, Raj, Naveen and Princy, piled into the rickshaw. Photo attached.

New Friends: Naveen and Princy

Through our new friend Roger Schmigdal at EV Free in Illinois (Rog is collaborating with us on clean water initiatives through Hydraid), we met two amazing young people: Naveen and his wife Princy. Both are wonderful, beautiful people with amazing passion for Christ and a desire to see churches empowered to reach communities holistically in their given environments, and we have learned much with and from them as they have been hanging out with us. While they have been spending the bulk of their time with the Water Team, they have also observed our Construction and Technical Teams in action, asking questions and also providing insight when we have sought it. Their primary purpose in hanging with us has been to observe how other U.S. churches are partnering with Indian organizations to provide holistic community development initiatives in conjunction with Indian churches.

Pastor Sam & Family…

Aside from the Justice Team (which is working in Ranipet with Pastor Nermil) and the Construction Team (which is sleeping in tents in a remote village outside of the town of Kalavai), most of the rest of us are staying with another of our Super-Pastors named Sam. For those of us who have had the privilege to come to India often over the past 6 plus years, Pastor Sam and his entire family have been staples and pillars of strength for the church planting movement in Tamilnadu. In addition, they graciously offered to host us in their home, and have treated us like royalty throughout our time here. Shown here in this picture are Pastor Sam (tall guy in the middle), his wife Jayanthi (yellow sari to the left), their two daughters Rosie (left of Jayanthi) and Suganya (right of Sam), and their son Sarat (right of Suganya). Also pictured, of course, are Raj, and one of our other Life Mission staff.

You’ll notice that Pastor Sam is wearing Life Mission Department “colors” (i.e. a solid black T-shirt), so… you know… we’re tight.

Someone Should Tell Dean’s Dairy Producers…

This is one of those, “wow… you really don’t see this every day in the US” kinds of posts. See this tree? It’s a banyan tree. It’s remarkable. It grows tall and strong, then it drops a sort of vine and root from its branches down to the ground. Each of these vines forms a new tree of its own, but is still attached to the original, thus supporting each other and forming a gigantic mass of connected trees. That part is way cool.

But do you see the little burlap and plastic bags that are dangling from the vines and branches? Want to know what’s in them? Cow placentas. Yup. See, here’s how the belief works here in India. If you have a cow, and that cow gives birth, you have to tie the placenta up into a bag and hang it from a tree like this. If you do that, your cow will give healthy milk for its new calf, and will produce many more healthy calves. If you do not, however, and dogs eat the placenta, then your cow’s utter will dry up, the calf will die, and will be barren. So… in terms of rural Indian dairy farming, when your entire life depends on your cow continuing to give milk… you tie up the placenta and don’t take the risk.

Justice Team Send Off!

We knew that the Justice Team was going to be working in a village (Ranipet) first, and that it would be slightly farther away from where the rest of us were going to be working (in sort of a loose smattering of relatively proximal villages). As a result, about an hour before the rest of us, the bus pulled over to the side of the road, and like a group of Marines descending from a landed V-22 Osprey onto a “hot” Landing Zone, the Justice Team piled out, grabbed their gear, and were ready to rock! Pastor Nermil (one of our GCC “Super Pastors” and the pastor who is training church planters in the area of Ranipet) met the team and shook hands, and then motioned to a fleet of waiting auto-rickshaws (think stripped down riding lawnmower with a covered “pickup truck” cab) who were to whisk the team away. After the team loaded all their gear, the rickshaws peeled away and putted off down the street.

Now THAT’s Fresh!

En route, Raj suddenly asked the bus driver to pull over. When the bus stopped, he asked all of us to follow him off the bus, where we quickly surrounded a little man standing next to a bicycle that was laden with fresh coconuts. As Raj approached, the little man took a bladed tool (looks kind of like a scythe) and hacked off the end of one of the fresh, green, skull-sized fruits, plopped a straw into the little hole he had created, and then handed it to Raj. Raj removed the straw, then downed the entire contents of the coconut in about 5 seconds amidst cheers of “Chug! Chug! Chug!” from us (too many fraternity movies in the mid-80’s, I guess). Then, each of us received a coconut and had a refreshing little treat. Manda Harris pictured here with hers.

Sing Along with “The Raj”!

On our way out to our respective fields, we took a little time to “sing along with Raj”. See, in India, despite the influence of television and media from the West, traditional songs and dances are still very important to Indian culture. This has amazed me elsewhere. Short of “the chicken dance”, we Americans don’t really have any distinctly cultural dances that celebrate our history, or really, any songs that tell about our mythologies or oral tradition. It’s interesting to me, then, to see what happens when we collide with a culture that does have such a rich history, and still knows its roots and traditions as they are so jealously guarded in their singing and dancing. Anyway, because of the above, it’s very important for GCC India teams to be able to do at least a modicum of singing (and dancing… oooooh, what I wouldn’t give sometimes to be Baptist and be able to play the “we’re not supposed to dance” card… but more on that later), so we practiced with Raj for a few minutes as we were en route. As it turns out, we weren’t half bad, actually, especially after having Don Reynolds coach us with his superb voice skills, and had even managed to master one “of our own” (Dan Vukmirovich actually wrote a song for us to sing that translates very easily into Tamil with minimum turbulence for our English tongues… you rock, Dan!). Ted Bryant was singled out as the best and most enthusiastic of all of us, and so was coaxed to join Raj at the front of the bus to help the rest of us with our head banging (yeah, literally… you are supposed to create a personal mosh-pit of sorts when you sing) and hand-clapping.

St. Thomas: Apostle to India!

After lunch, we spent a good bit of the day being introduced to one of India’s national treasures:  St. Thomas, the Apostle.  You remember St. Thomas… he was the guy who is often called “Doubting Thomas” for his “lack of faith”, but who also was among the first after Jesus’ resurrection to proclaim “My Lord and my God” upon meeting the risen Savior.  Based on what most people can piece together, Thomas left Jerusalem after Pentacost and made his way to what is now present day India in about 52 AD.  For the better part of 2 decades, he proclaimed Jesus as Lord in this country, and was eventually killed by local rulers for that proclamation in about 72 – 75 AD. 

There are 3 spots in Chennai that are significant to where the apostle functioned, and we got to see all three of them.  They are outlined as follows:

St. Thomas Mount:  There is a small Catholic church and convent built on the spot where Thomas was finally killed at the point of a spear on top of a small mountain that overlooks the city of Chennai (and now is remarkably close to the international airport).  Pictures here include the inside of the chapel erected over the site of the murder, and feature an icon supposedly given to Thomas by the apostle Luke, a relic of Thomas (a vacuum sealed cross that contains a bone fragment of Thomas), and a cross carved by Thomas.

St. Thomas “Little” Mount:  While being hunted, Thomas took refuge in a small cave for several days.  There is now also a large church built over the cave, as well as a well that has given water for the better part of two thousand years.  According to legend, when Thomas needed water, he struck the rocks of the cave with his staff and, the rest is hydro-history.

Santhome Cathedral:  One of three of the world's cathedrals built over the bones of an apostle is in Chennai, India.  Santhome Cathedral is about 5 miles from both the Mount and the Little Mount, and is a beautiful structure constructed largely out of white marble.  

Like a Sleuth of Hungry Bears!!!

So we made it to the hotel, and were quickly (after being introduced to our rooms) treated to a fun "multi-cultural" meal for lunch.  I say "multi-cultural" because it was both Indian and also Chinese (great noodles!!!), and most of us were really hungry, so set to it with the ferocity of a sleuth of starved bears.

Featured here are a few of the tasty entrees.  There was Mushroom Curry, "Lollipop Chicken" (think General Tso's or a spicy version of Orange Chicken), mixed noodles, fried rice, and, of course, "Chicken 65"!