Negombo News 10
This edition of
Negombo News is being written in two parts.
Part One brings us up to date with news to Good Friday and then we’ll
provide a further update on about 30 April before sending it to Cathie to post
to the web site. Why? Well, we are planning to be travelling to Nuwara Eliya, Kandy
and Anuradhapura, leaving Negombo on Saturday 19th April and
returning on the 26th. We envisage
that we’ll be pretty busy when we get back and it’ll be a few days before
Negombo News 10 “goes to press”
The Mission Matters
Ozzie Faces
During
the last ten days we’ve enjoyed the company of Rajasheker (Raj) from Perth
and Jenny Poole from Melbourne. Raj
arrived in the wee small hours of Friday 5th and Jenny in the wee small hours
of Tuesday 8th. Raj’s
visit to Sri Lanka was short and sweet as he left for home on Wednesday 16th.
Raj spent most of his time travelling to far flung places, visiting
brethren and sisters and others who at this stage are interested in God’s
word. So we didn’t see a great
deal of him. Jenny is with us
until Tuesday 29th.
The See-Saw Ride Continues
The
last few weeks have held more highs and lows for us than the big-dipper.
We’ve had an ongoing run of disappointments interspersed with some
much, much brighter momentsJ. We seem
to have made numerous plans only to have them dashed one after another.
Sometimes this has left us temporarily twiddling our thumbs while
recovering mentally and emotionally and constantly re-arranging our program.
Poor Jenny has seen the tougher side of Mission life with many of the
activities we had planned while she was here falling overL. It’s
a long way to come to be caught up in frustration.
However fortunately there have also been some highlights along the way.
The On Again, Off Again BTC
We
have been planning a Bible Truth Conference (BTC) for sometime.
It was to be held over the long weekend of the 12th to 14th
April (Tamil/Sinhala New Year). Suitable
accommodation here in Negombo had been found and tentatively booked and the
concept was run past those contacts who we considered were sufficiently
advanced to benefit from the planned weekend.
Disappointment No 1: However
we just could not get sufficient numbers to go ahead.
As this three day break is a great opportunity for families and friends
to visit one another many of the people we invited had prior commitments and
eventually it was decided to cancel.
Hurrah: There was a late surge of interest which had us all
enthused and ready to resurrect the concept a week before the event …
Disappointment No 2: …
but then Ken came down with a fever and again our plans had to be put on hold. Sadly we mentally said “good-bye” to the BTC.
Happily Ken is fully recovered from the fever though it left him a bit
flat for a few days.
Life goes on:
We had a busy day out and about on Friday 11th
April making a business call in Colombo, visiting Laurinda on the south side
of Colombo and another contact close to the Colombo CBD. We arrived home hot and tired at about 6.00 pm only to
receive a phone call from one of the people to whom we had mentioned the
proposed BTC. He and his family
were hoping that there was a program that they could attend!
Hurrah: So by the time this Friday 11th (pm) conversation
between the gentleman and Ken was over yes, indeed we did have a program
planned for Monday 14th commencing at 10.00am and concluding at 6.00pm! It
was our very first “Bible Truth Study Day”.
This of course meant a bit of “seat-of-the-pants planning”
and a flurry of preparatory activity.
Hurrah: It turned out to be a very successful day with a total
of 12 people present. The program
included a couple of presentations, a one-hour workshop activity, plenty of
discussion, lots of activities for seven year old Zenomy and a home cooked
meal or rice and curry for 12. We had intended to buy in the meal but as it was New Years
Day all the shops were closed. The
cuisine, 3 curries prepared by Raj, Dorothy and Ken, must have been acceptable
to the locals as some went back for seconds!
However,
even though the day was very worthwhile it too held its disappointments.
Disappointment No 3: Late
on the Sunday evening the gentleman whose keenness had us resurrect the
program (albeit a one-day program instead of a three-day program) advised Ken
that his family would not be able to come, though he could.
Something had cropped up and we feared that he too would be caught up
and, at the last moment, would not be able to come.
We went to bed late that evening filled with a sense of pending doom.
Disappointment No 5: Sure
enough, first thing on Monday he rang to say that he would not be able to come
either!
Disappointment No 4: This
phone call came hot on the tail of a similar call from someone else cancelling
Wednesday 16th’s long standing arrangements which would have had us visiting
them. At times it is hard
not to ask “what are we doing here”.
So there we were in the depths of despair.
Hurrah: Shortly afterwards, Wednesday appeared to be saved as
a result of an invitation by one of the people attending Monday’s seminar
inviting us to his home to meet his wife and family and to further discuss the
Bible and its message!
Disappointment No 6: However
it was not to be. The plans
changed again on Tuesday 15th as his wife had broken a tooth and they needed
to see the dentist on Wednesday rather than us.
Life goes on: By
this stage we were very conscious that our plans are indeed only our plans and
not necessarily God’s plans. But
even with this knowledge and acknowledgement it is at times very hard to stay
positive.
Hurrah: Within an hour of Disappointment No 6 we received
another phone call from a gentleman (Mr Tissa de Abrew) who has been
in contact (on and off) with Christadelphians for the last 18 years.
We had not met this gentleman before but we were aware that he had
completed the Bible Correspondence Course, received numerous booklets on an
array of Bible topics and has been visited by a number of fieldworkers over
the last few years. We had written to him a number of times and did in fact have
plans to visit him in the coming week. He
wanted to know if he could visit us Wednesday morning arriving between 9.00 am
and 10.00 am. Well of course
we’d be home – ALL
of our other plans had fallen in a heap!
Tissa
lives about 60 kms from Negombo and his employment makes it difficult for him
to visit us, even on weekends, but as he was on holidays he was able to come.
By
10.15 am we had that sinking feeling once again, Tissa hadn’t arrivedL. But
then at 10.30 am there was a knock on the door. It was Poya Day and the buses were not running on time and
hence Tissa was late. Tissa
came in and told us that he had a particular question regarding the serpent in
the Garden of Eden, was the serpent a literal serpent or a figurative story.
The matter was discussed and the question answered to his satisfaction.
Then
in response to Ken’s question whether there were any other Bible issues
which he particularly wanted to discuss he said “no, I consider that what
the Christadelphians believe and preach is 100% Bible truth and I would like
to be baptised”. Suddenly we
felt as if we knew why each of our plans for that day had come to nought.
We
are now looking forward to visiting him on Saturday, on our way to Nuwara
Eliya and meeting his wife, two daughters and son.
We’ll be there for breakfast so that could be a culinary adventure in
itself. God willing, by the time
this edition of NN is on the web-site it will also include news of Tissa’s
baptism or the arrangements for suchJ.
How Big is Sri Lanka?
We
haven’t got definite figures but we spotted a world map recently and the
visual comparison suggests that SL is marginally smaller than Tassie!
However the population of SL and Oz are also much the same!
As we travel around we find we are almost always within sight of people
or houses – no wonder.
Language Lessons
One
to Five
While
we were visiting Laurinda her four year old grand-daughter was busy colouring
her book in which she had to identify small and large shapes, a given number
of specific objects, etc. Ken was
sitting near her and thought he would participate in the activities.
He pointed to a row of mangoes and in Sinhala, yes, he has been
learning some Sinhala numbers counted “ekka, dekka, toona, hutthera”
(1,2,3,4) and then asked “what comes next?”.
He was expecting a reply in Sinhala.
Without missing a beat the little girl just said “five”.
It was the first English word we had heard her come out with and had a
very funny effect; especially in the look on Ken’s face.
By the way the Sinhala word for five is “pah hah”.
Who?
Another
funny incident occurred while we were in India at Moinabad.
One of the children asked “Aunty, uncle, do you know Jacqueline?”.
We both scratched our heads and said “no, we don’t know
Jacqueline”. “Jacqueline from
Australia!” No, we still
couldn’t work out who Jacqueline might be.
But then the next sentence revealed all.
The girl said “Jacqueline Uncle!”.
Oh yes, we know Jack Glenn Uncle!
Mouldy
Fish!
In
Sri Lanka a very popular accompaniment to a meal of rice and curry is
“mouldy fish”, or so we thought. We were
first introduced to it by Indra when he brought string hoppers for our
breakfast together with onion chutney and coconut gravy.
The chutney had little dark, chewy, salty things in it and when we
asked what it was he told us “mouldy fish” – or so we thought.
Well mouldy or otherwise it’s very tasty.
We’ve been offered and eaten it on a number of occasions since.
When
visiting Laurinda we asked about mouldy fish and found out that it is a sambol
made from fish from the Maldives – “Maldives fish”!
The name has become abbreviated and that, together with the
accent, had us thinking that its name is mouldy fish!
We feel lots better about eating it now. The locals certainly laugh at us when we tell them of our
misunderstanding, but no matter how often they say the words all we can hear
is “mouldy fish”.
Meantime
Tyres
We
hired a 4 cylinder Toyota Corolla for the trip to the hill country as we had
quite a few people to see and some of them live in out-of-the-way places.
When picking up the car from the hirer Ken asked to see the spare tyre.
The chappie opened the boot and there was a tyre that did not match the
ones on the vehicle. When Ken
commented on it the man explained that no, it is not a “spare tyre”, it is
a “meantime tyre”. If you get
a puncture/flat you take the faulty tyre off and put this other one on and it
will enable you to get to where-ever you need to go to get the proper tyre
fixed – it is the one you use in the “meantime”.
The other insightful events associated with car hire is that the car
hire firm, when they realised we wanted a car for a total of 12 days, decided
they’d have two new tyres installed on the front.
They must have thought the tread was a bit low for 12 days use but it
would have been okay for use for a shorter duration!
How much tread do you use in 12 days when compared to five or any other
number between one and twelve?
Unfortunately
they weren’t so diligent in regard to the brake pads – even though they
knew we were travelling to the hill country (which of course is hilly and the
roads have lots of very tight bends). The
brakes were very squeaky and when we had them checked in Kandy we found out
that the pads were sufficiently worn to warrant new ones!
By this time we’d done most of our “hilly” travelling but it was
good to get rid of the noise and to know that in all likelihood the brakes
would work each time they were applied.
Short
eats
A
snack; e.g. a sausage roll or similar – or in the case here in SL a curried
fish bun, curried chicken bun or curried egg bun, or curried …..
Take
in eats
The
opposite to “take away”.
Where is the kettle, the milk, the toaster,
the butter, the …?
In
earlier editions we’ve commented on the facilities in the house including
the fact that originally we only had one power point in the kitchen.
This changed in February when Dennis connected up a number of power
boards and we enjoyed the luxury of a full suite of power point designs from
which we could select the right shape plug for the appliance.
Sri Lanka alone works with three different point designs (and we have
some Australian appliances which of course have yet a further plug design) so
we have to be selective. Well the
multiple power points gradually fell into non-use as often the fuses blew,
even though we were aware of trying to not overload the switch - and then we
never had sufficient supply of fuses! So
we’ve been back to having only one kitchen power point.
This
week it burnt out so now we have the gas cooker in the kitchen together with a
very effective freezer and not so effective fridge. However the upstairs fridge is great so we keep all the more
perishable items in it. This of
course means that we are forever running up and down the stairs as even when
preparing something as simple as a cup of tea the necessary components are
split between the kitchen and upstairs. But
now that the kitchen power point has gone we have spread our cooking
facilities even further with the toaster and kettle now residing in the
lounge-room! It was a real
bugbear, but oddly enough it is one of those things that we now just accept as
a normal part of life!
SARS
We
have been keeping our eyes on the newspaper reports regarding SARS and are
pleased that there have not been any confirmed cases in SL. There was a scare about 2 weeks ago when a Japanese sailor
was taken off his ship and admitted to the 25 bed infectious diseases hospital
– he had a fever and a cough. This
admission occurred at the same time as an airhostess with a Japanese airline
was also scanned for the virus and, as she had a cough, she too was admitted.
This
caused panic amongst the staff and other “infectious diseases patients”
who bolted! The hospital emptied
itself, with the exception of one patient!!
All bar one of the staff also walked out.
Then the two SARS suspects also discharged themselves (it was later
confirmed that they did not have SARS). So
we guess yellow fever, small pox and all those nasties are on the rise in SL.
The
last two weeks have been fairly busy. We
had quite a successful trip to the hill country, despite Ken picking up a
tummy bug in Kandy and spending one day in bed and another up and about but
feeling “off”. He’s better
again now.
Behind
the Wheel
It
was great being able to travel around in the car rather than relying on public
transport. The down-side to
having the car is it made us realise just how appalling the road conditions
are and even more aware than we were of how manic the drivers are.
When on previous occasions we’ve gone to the hill country we’ve
travelled by bus. When sitting in
the body of the bus you don’t get the same perspective as you do when in the
car. The condition of the roads
is so much worse than we had previously realised.
They are extraordinarily narrow, incredibly rough with patched areas
having no relationship to the surface they abut.
The edges are a joke and the height difference between the edges and
the bitumen is ludicrous. The bus
drivers appear to be suicidal – some of the buses we travelled behind or
passed going in the opposite direction were travelling at a speed well beyond
the point of safety and they take amazing risks passing other vehicles etc.
Again a perspective you are not fully aware of as a bus passenger.
The suspension is shot on many of them and one bus in particular, which
we saw as it passed in the opposite direction, had a tilt of about 40 degrees.
It is hard to imagine how
the passengers stayed in their seats let alone how the vehicle itself
negotiated the many bends and traffic. Ken
did all of the driving as Dorothy did not get an international licence before
leaving home – not that Dorothy has any particular ambition to drive here in
SL but it does mean that Ken has to do the lot.
We
are advised that the speed limit here is 58kmph! Not 60, not 55 but 58. This
limit applies island wide whether in the city or the country.
The amazing thing is that it is usually much faster than needed.
We have found that regardless of where we are travelling we can only
average about 35kmph. In the
country the roads are poor and at times very, very windy; there are also manic
drivers who seem bent on destruction. In
the city the roads are still bad, the drivers manic and the roads so, so
congested.
Toot-toot
No
matter where you are travelling there is a never ending tooting of horns.
It is necessary to use the horn not only in response to danger but also
to alert cars, buses, tuk-tuks, lorries, pedestrians, bullock carts, motor
bikes, cyclists and all that you are approaching.
The horn seems to be as important a part of the car’s facilities as
the brakes (and a/c).
“God
saw all that He had made and it was very good”
Our
travels took us to a couple of places we had not been to before and again we
have seen some absolutely magnificent scenery.
Rugged mountain ranges covered with lush green vegetation and a number
of waterfalls gushing down the precipices.
Unfortunately it is impossible to capture it on camera as the camera
does not do it justice. The
scenery just flattens out.
Mongoose
and Monkeys
Dorothy
and Jenny saw their first mongoose as it dashed across the road.
Ken has seen them in India many times before.
We saw quite a few monkeys – some on the roadside, some in Kandy near
the lake and some more in the botanical gardens where there is a Fig tree (Ficus
benjamani) that is so big its spread of branches covers 1,600 sq metres.
Elephantis
Maximus
Excuse
the Latin if we’ve got it wrong but we think these are the correct Latin
words and the correct spelling. We
saw these Latin words on the back of a t-shirt and immediately understood its
meaning. It was directly
underneath a sketch of the rear end of an elephant.
While
in Kandy we did a day trip to the elephant orphanage. There are about 60 or so elephants living there and about six
of them are still babies – the youngest is only four months old.
Dinner
Time
These
little ones are still being bottle-fed and watching them is a captivating
experience. The five or so older
nursery elephants are chained at the ankle at feed time so that the keepers
can maintain control. They are
fed in a barn like structure but are free to roam for the rest of the time.
Each baby elephant is given (our guess is) approximately 20 litres of
milk per feed (three feeds a day). They are
fed by a bottle that has an attachment that looks more like a funnel than a
teat and the elephants hardly spill a drop.
The milk appears to be poured down their throats – there is no
visible sign that they are actually swallowing!
The youngest of these nursery elephants (four months old) wasn’t
chained up and spent the feeding hour hot on the heels of the keepers as they
fed each elephant in turn hoping to get an extra bottle or two.
He had the funniest, most determined expression on his face as he
walked to and fro following the keepers and swinging his trunk up on to the
table where they refilled the bottles – hoping to find a wee bit extra.
Check out the “video” on the web-site, with a bit of luck you’ll
also hear the sound of him trumpeting when he was feeling a bit left out.
The four-month elephant stands about 1.2 metres tall; he came up to
about Ken’s waist. The other
babies stood about 1.5 metres high. There
are also quite a few mature elephants at the orphanage.
Unfortunately there is little information made available to visitors
(no leaflets etc) and the keepers speak almost no English.
However some of the mature elephants are working elephants used to do
the heavy work involved in running an elephant orphanage.
We do not know if any of the elephants are released into the wild once
they have matured or what happens to them.
Bath
Time
When
we arrived most of the elephants were down in the very muddy dam either
squirting themselves with the muddy water, showering themselves with dirt/mud
or lying down having a good long soak. After
the babies had been fed most of the elephants were taken to the relatively
clean and fast flowing river (500m away) where they stood around and/or bathed
for the next two hours. We
visited the orphanage when we were here 4½ years ago.
It still has the same fascination for us (particularly for me –
Dorothy). Check out the photos.
Other
Elephants
We
occasionally see working elephants as we travel around.
There are also a number of wild elephants in SL.
They are under threat given the decreasing amount of natural habitat.
Every so often a wild elephant will go on a rampage undertaking a bit of house
demolition or vegetable patch destruction so occasionally they make the news
in the local paper. Recently
there were several newspaper articles that expressed concern for elephants.
This followed the electrocution of two elephants.
One working elephant had touched an overhead wire and died.
The other elephant (not sure whether it was a working elephant or wild
elephant) died when it decided to pull out a power pole!
Creepy
Crawlies
We
are told there is a Symes family of little boys who like to read about the
animals we see, particularly the cold-blooded creatures.
So especially for their benefit here is a little bit more information
about the geckos, which inhabit the house in abundance and often frighten the
living daylights out of us popping out of bags or drawers etc when we least
expect them. These little lizard
type critters vary in length from about 2 cm to 10cm.
It would appear that they are capable of changing colour depending on
the surface that they are on as we only ever see dark ones on the dark floor,
and beige ones on the beige kitchen tiles and interior pink/beige walls.
Some of the beige ones are so pale that they are transparent! You can see through their skin and spot major blood vessels
and organs. We can’t see the
details of the organs but we do see dark masses.
They are also quite noisy at times making a loud sound like a
high-pitched chuckle! It only
lasts for a few seconds but as we have a houseful of geckos it becomes a
frequent background noise.
The
Visit to Tissa’s
On
the first day of our trip we (Jenny, Ken and Dorothy) visited Tissa and his
family as planned. They are a
delightful, happy and hospitable family.
Tissa is very fluent in English. Manel
his wife does not speak English. Aloka
his 17 year old daughter has reasonably good English though she was a bit
hesitant to speak in front of us; Needra the 19 year old daughter and Yohan
the 15 year old son have very little English.
After
a one and a half-hour trip from Negombo and a further one-hour hunt for the
house we arrived at 9.30 am and enjoyed a chat and a yummy breakfast of
string hoppers and curry. Tissa
then gave a comprehensive confession of his faith over the next two hours and
demonstrated a mature understanding of God’s word.
Update
1 May
Tissa de Abrew was baptised into the saving name of
our Lord Jesus on Thursday 1 May at the beach at Negombo.
There were nine people who witnessed this event; Bro Indra, Bro Dunstan,
ourselves and five others; Margaret and Zenomy (Dunstan’s wife and daughter)
Sritharan, his wife Thanalakshmi and Sharlinee their daughter.
Sritharan and Thanalakshmi are aware of the need for baptism but not
quite yet ready to enter into this covenant relationship with the Almighty
God.
Following the baptism we all returned here to the
house and had a breaking of bread meeting and thanksgiving service and then
all enjoyed a meal together – lunch packs comprised of either rice and egg
curry; or rice and fish curry; or rice and chicken curry or rice and vegetable
curry. Given the success of the
earlier catering exercise we had thought of again self-catering but as the
numbers attending could have been up to 25 we decided it was easier to buy-in
lunch. In hindsight we are really
glad we did as it meant that we weren’t trying to be involved in both the
baptism and memorial service and catering for lunch.
This
is truly a case of “others have laboured and we have entered into their
labours” as Jesus said to his disciples when he sent them out to preach. A
sister in Perth has faithfully maintained contact with Tissa on and off over a
period of approximately 20 years and her labour has now, by God’s grace,
born fruit.
The
Ever-Changing Plans
We
had hoped to travel from Kandy, north to Anuradhapura and catch up with Tyrell
and Analyn, the couple whom we reported on in an earlier edition of NN who
recite Psalm 91 every morning. But
again our plans evaporated. Tyrell
and Analyn are currently trying to get all the permits etc required to enable
them to build their home. A
frustrating experience anywhere but especially so here.
They had to be in Kandy when we were due in Anuradhapura so there was
little point in us heading north. We
then made arrangements to spend time with them after their appointments in
Kandy were concluded but as their appointments dragged on throughout the day
we only managed to see Analyn very briefly.
So now we are hoping to visit them at Anuradhapura during the next two
weeks.
Home
Again
We
left Kandy on Saturday 26th and drove west for about two hours to
Kurunegala to visit another person who is currently undertaking the
correspondence course. We spent
about two hours there and then headed south-west back to Negombo again
covering territory we hadn’t seen before.
By now we’d dropped altitude and were heading back to the coast
travelling on flat terrain and into the hot humid weather.
It was an uneventful trip home; the visual highlight was probably the
lorries we passed that were packed to the hilt and beyond with empty coconut
shells. We presume they were
being taken somewhere for processing with coir mats or similar being the end
product. The lorries had coconut
husks stacked well above the roof-line of the vehicles and protruding probably
about a metre beyond the open tailgates.
They were held on by what appeared to be an inadequate number of ropes
but each load was steady. It was
obvious that those who had loaded the trucks had done it before – almost a
piece of art.
Goodbye
Jenny
Jenny
returned home to her family in Oz leaving here on Tuesday 29th
April. It’s been good to have
her company and we hope, despite the disappointments, that Jenny has enjoyed
her time here. Jenny has
certainly seen some of the more stressful aspects of Mission work (i.e. when
it doesn’t appear to be working). However
Jenny has been great, reminding us that it is our Heavenly Father’s work,
that He is in control and that He determines whether our plans are to be
carried out or whether, for reasons at times totally beyond our understanding,
our plans are to be put on hold.
We’ve
passed the half-way mark!
Yes,
we’ve been away for seven months and now only have five months left before
returning to Oz … and there’s so, so much to do.
There
are still many people that we need to visit but many of these people are only
available on Saturdays or Sundays and of course our Sunday’s are tied up
here at the residence.
[back]