Negombo News –
September/October ’04
The
Mission Matters
Welcome
Home ~ party time J
We had a wonderful celebration on Saturday
October 9th. Sis Pathma, the wife of bro Rajah in Nuwara
Eliya and mother of Dhileep (16), Suresh the budding artist (14) and
dear little Praveen (5) returned home from Kuwait. Pathma took a
two-year contract as a housemaid there about three and a half years
ago and returned to SL on 1st April 2003. However neither
she nor Rajah had employment so they decided Pathma would return for a
further two years – she left again for Kuwait on 1st
October 2003. The decision to go (on both occasions) must have been
so, so tough.
Rajah has struggled with this second period of
separation as, we suspect, have the boys. The boys speak little/no
English so it is very difficult for us to communicate with them on any
level more advanced that “would you like a cup of tea?”. Pathma has
found that this second contract just too tough and her employer agreed
to release her from her contract so she could return home.
Sounds simple enough but not so. The last six or eight months has
been an extremely traumatic time for Pathma and her family. We’ve
been caught up in some of the drama and have had a pretty harrowing
time as well. It is lovely to have her safely back home.
Rajah and the boys arrived from N’Eliya on the
Friday morning and we spent part of Friday decorating the lounge-room
with streamers and balloons and a banner Suresh had made which read
“welcome to mother”. Suresh did all the up and down the ladder work
while Praveen helped Dorothy staple the streamers together to make
them long enough to reach from banister to light fittings etc. Not
such an easy task when the operation of the stapler is controlled by
an excited Tamil speaking 5 year old boy and “co-ordinated” by a (not
telling how old) English speaking woman whose fingers were in danger
of being stapled to the streamers. Praveen has a wonderful way of
showing his excitement. He literally jumps up and down on the spot.
He seemed to spend half his time in mid air while the decorations were
being put up.
So the family had some time together on Saturday
and we had a “special dinner” that evening (rice and curry …. and
ice-cream). The boys LOVE ice cream and even Pathma’s eyes light up
at the mention of the word – it is quite comical. On Sunday a number
of bre’n and sisters made a special effort to all come together for
the meeting and everyone stayed and enjoyed lunch together afterwards
(rice and curry … and ice cream!)
J. Monday evening saw the reunited family hop on the train and
head home to N’Eliya.
The next challenge will be to try to help
either/both Rajah and Pathma to find employment … and that is a big
challenge. The unemployment rate here is about 25% so jobs are a bit
like hens’ teeth. There are no unemployment benefits so life without a
job is hard.
But we’ve put a CV together for Pathma and will
send it to a number of the larger hotels in N”Eliya in the hope that
someone will give her a job as a housemaid or similar. This is a
lovely little family that certainly needs your prayers.
On a couple of occasions since we’ve been here we
discovered that some of the people we have come to know actually know
one another. We had another surprise when Pathma returned from
Kuwait. There is a family who live about 4km from us whose two young
children come to Sunday School. On the Sunday Pathma was here, Ajith,
the father of the two SS children came to drop them off and he and
Pathma recognised one another. Ajith and his family used to live in
N’Eliya and Ajith came to a study that was held in N’Eliya about six
years ago. He met Pathma then and also saw her around the town from
time to time! Even though Ajith and Rajah have seen one another here
in Negombo they haven’t recognised one another.
Busy at
the desk
We’ve recently made a literature offer for
“Israel and the Purpose of God” and had an advertisement in one of the
English language Sunday papers again for “After Death – What?”.
So again there are lots of letters and booklets being sent to either
existing contacts who have responded to the literature offer or to new
contacts who have written in response to the newspaper advert.
There are about 70 or so new contacts from this last advertisement and
we anticipate that the responses will continue for some time yet. We
even got another response to the May advertisement this week!
To date we haven’t advertised in any of the
Sinhala papers as we haven’t had a range of Sinhala booklets
available. But now that there are 12 Sinhala booklets on the shelves
and a further eight or so either with the printer or nearly ready for
printing we believe that it would now be appropriate to try a Sinhala
language advert for a Sinhala language publication in a Sinhala
newspaper. Once this happens it will be the first time that a direct
approach to the 17+ million Sinhala speaking Sri Lankans will have
occurred. It is probably something which we won’t be here to see but
Rob and Rachelle will organise and, with Tissa’s help will manage the
responses.
Bible
Truth Study Day – September
September’s BTSD was we felt, one of the best to
date. The attendance varies a bit from month to month both in terms
of numbers and faces. In September we had a great roll-up and all of
the keenest contacts who come regularly all made it – so the numbers
were good, the best of the best were there, the participation was good
and the atmosphere great. J
The gentleman who came from Kandy for the first
time in August came again and we had three new faces – Mohinlal and
Priscilla (a couple in their late 40s/early 50s) and Sarah their six
year old daughter. Zenomy was delighted to have a playmate and
included “God bless Sarah” as one of the things to be included in the
Sunday School prayer the following week.
The program covered:
o
The First Century Church – what did it believe and
practise? (The first of two or three programs in which we look at 1st
Century Christianity and how we
can know what the Church should teach.);
o
Powerful Reasons for Believing – “The Future of the
World in a Dream!”
o
Suffering (a discussion group again using notes from
“The Way of Life”);
o
The Apostles’ Fellowship - What was it? What did it
mean to the 1st century believers?
Out and
about
We’ve spent a bit more time on the road this
month visiting a number of contacts and brethren and sisters. We’ve
had a couple of multiple visits to some of our best contacts with some
great discussions. We met another lady for the first time and came
away feeling quite excited about her. She told us that before our
arrival she had prayed to God asking Him to ensure that we believed in
the trinity; so perhaps she wasn’t as excited about us as we were
about her! But she is a lady who reads, listens and thinks and seems
keen to know more and more about Bible teachings. We’ve had one phone
call from her since our visit so hopefully she’s come to grips with
her disappointment that we believe “the Lord, He is One”.
We had a quick trip to N’Eliya to see Rajah and
the boys (just prior to Pathma’s return). On the way back to the
coast we took a different route home to the one we normally take as we
wanted to get to Mt Lavinia – about 15kms south of Colombo rather than
back to Negombo which is 40 km north of Colombo. So we travelled a
different route (via Hatton) and saw some stunning scenery. The
scenery on our usual route is quite special but we’re so used to it we
probably don’t appreciate it as much as we should. The route through
Hatton took us past more beautiful mountains and waterfalls. It took
us past Adam’s Peak and Land’s End which are famous mountains/mountain
areas here in SL. We didn’t have time to go exploring but we
certainly enjoyed what we did manage to see from the car. We also saw
even more tea ladies – but this time we saw them sorting their
pickings, having them weighed etc.
Other
Stuff
“And the
rain came tumbling down. The
rain came down and the floods
came up, the rain came down and the floods came up …”
During our first year here we saw a lot of rain.
But during this second year we’ve had almost no rain – a short period
with some heavy rain in April but not much other than that. The early
(April/May) monsoon failed and the country has been pretty dry.
However when it does rain here it
really knows how to do it well. And on about 21st
September everything changed and the change was that abrupt. No rain
for months and months and then one day the rains started and it
subsequently rained pretty well everyday for the next three weeks.
Much of the rain was quite heavy – the sort of rain that if you take
just one step out into it you are immediately drenched to the skin.
The frogs love it J.
They were back to their old tricks of croaking for hours on end.
Not just an hour or two but up to eight/ten hours at a time; and they
make quite a din! It literally sounds like an idling chain saw (for
those who haven’t seen our earlier descriptions last year or who don’t
remember what we said then!).
After a week of heavy rain, on and off, followed
by hours of heavy rain on the one day the roads soon flooded and we
were stuck at home. It put an end to some planned visits – flooded
roads mean hidden potholes especially once you leave the main roads.
The potholes can be pretty challenging even when you know they are
there. When they are hidden with a layer of water they are quite
treacherous. We often have to slow right down just to navigate our
way around/through potholes and the car bottoms out frequently. To
try to move around at any reasonable speed when you can’t see the road
surface would be lunacy on many of the roads around here.
The bags
are packed!
Well, not quite but we’ve started! Having been
here for two years we aren’t quite sure how much stuff we’ve
accumulated! The airline gave us each an extra 10kg luggage allowance
on both trips from Oz to SL so we are hoping that they’ll honour that
on the way home, but we’re not sure as they didn’t honour it in
September last year when we went home for eight weeks. There are of
course lots and lots of things we brought with us that won’t be going
home. Lots of books for the library here, lots of treats (e.g.
homemade jam) which we’ve eaten J,
some very tired and worn out clothes and a few other bits and pieces
that are now household items here. But how much extra have we
purchased? Don’t think it’ll amount to much but we’ve made an early
start just to avoid a nasty surprise the week we are due to leave. We
also need to move bedrooms in anticipation of the arrival of the
Oosthuizens from NZ so that the four children and mum and dad can all
sleep in the 3 bedrooms upstairs. That means we’ve had to clear out
our bedroom cupboard and the second bedroom which we’ve used as the
junk room/overflow room and now have to restrict ourselves to about ¼
of the space we’ve had the exclusive use of for the past two yearsL.
All the Sunday School materials have had to be moved out of the third
upstairs bedroom and relocated and the rooms given a good old clean
out.
We are sort of prepared for the Oosthuzien’s
arrival. Their bedrooms are nearly cleaned out, we’ve bought extra
cutlery and pillows, the sheets have been washed so they’re nice and
fresh and the kids’ favourite spreads are in the kitchen cupboards.
A day
off
On Tuesday 12th October we headed off
late afternoon and drove about three hours north east to a place
called Dambulla where we stayed overnight. The next morning had us up
bright and early and after a breakfast of fruit, hoppers, dahl curry
and pol-sambal we were off to see the tourist attractions Sigiriya.
Hoppers are pancake like goodies (very light) made out of rice flour
based batter and cooked to form a bowl shape. Dahl – as many will
know is a dish made out of chic peas and cooked with tomato, garlic,
onions, curry leaves and lots of spicy things. Pol-sambol is a dish
of freshly scraped coconut to which lots of spices, especially chilli,
have been added. Quite yummy really
J.
We headed off at about 9.00 am to climb Sigiriya.
Sigiriya is an amazing oblong rock about 200-250m high and which
sticks straight up out of the ground. It is set in the middle of a
plain! At the base of the rock are large gardens the design of which
appears to be Persian influenced. There is a large moat and a number
of smaller nooks with gardens at the beginning of the ascent. But it
soon becomes a climb up a series of very rusted 20th
century staircases – many of the steps have rusted right through – up
the side of sheer walls. Once you get to the top it is really flat
and it is here that King some-one-or-other had his wet-season palace
and fortress back in the 5th century AD. All that is left
of it at the top of the rock are a number of broken down walls, a big
pool and the remnants of gardens and massive rock carved garden
seats. On the way up there are remnants of other garden areas, seats,
walls and fountains … and about a dozen or so frescos. These are
paintings of voluptuous ladies. It must have been wash day the day
they sat for their portraits as none of them have their tops on! They
are the only paintings in SL that are part of the antiquities and are
not objects of worship. Just nearby the paintings (which are painted
directly onto the walls of the rock-face in an area where there is a
bit of a recess in the rock-face so the paintings are protected a
little from the wind and rain etc) is a 3m high wall. It is call the
“mirror wall” and it was originally covered with some sort of
reflective polish/paint and used as a “graffiti wall” where guests
could write about their impression of the paintings. The writing was
actually scratched into the rock surface. Some of this 5th
century graffiti is still visible! If you see the paintings in the
late afternoon they apparently glow with the light of the sun.
Another lovely sight we saw while we were on top
of the rock was a pair of very big herons or storks riding the
thermals! Of course birds of prey doing so are a fairly common sight
but neither of us have ever seen any other sort of bird doing so,
particularly a waterbird.
We poked around Sigiriya for about four hours
before heading back home. Finding this major tourist attraction was
quite an experience. We travelled a couple of kms straight down the
sealed road from where we were staying until we came upon a sign
“Sigiriya” pointing to the left. We followed this unmade,
non-maintained, dirt track about 3kms and found the ticket office –
bought our tickets and asked where we had to go next … we couldn’t see
any rock. We were pointed back in the direction we had just come
from. So we drove the 3kms back down the dirt track, turned left onto
the bitumen road and 3 kms later found the entrance to Sigiriya.
There were guards at the entrance gate who directed us left again
along a well maintained gravel road which led around the base of the
Sigiriya rock following the route of the moat. After 500 m we found
another guard in a little office and were told we had to present our
tickets. The tickets were torn in half and a scrap of butcher’s paper
was given to us with a rubber stamp on it. We were then told to
return to the “entrance” where our tickets were again checked and the
bit of butcher’s paper was taken off us. The latter turned out to be
our “car park ticket”!! Then we directed through the entrance to the
car park. Easy when you know how! Why couldn’t they just have a
ticket office at the entrance? We don’t know … any ideas?
This country is not geared for tourists.
Dambulla, the town we stayed in the night before we climbed Sigiriya
is a bit of a hub. There are two major tourist attractions close-by
and it is the junction of a number of major highways that lead to
other regional cities and touristy places but not one sign pointing
you in the right direction. You have to stumble across what you’re
looking for. And this is quite common across the Island.
Trinco
again
This coming week we are planning to head to
Trincomalee again. We were there about a month ago and met a chap who
is involved with a Dutch church organisation that is assisting with
the re-establishment of displaced persons and re-establishment of
villages and their communities. All of these needs have arisen as a
result of the civil war. We are hoping to spend a day out and about
with him seeing first hand some of the work he is involved in. After
that we’ll head for the beach for a short break before our dash home
to meet the Oosthuizens on 23rd October and our last month
before we head HOME for Oz. This last month looks like it’s going to
be pretty hectic. Lots to do; lots of people to see and lots of
goodbyes to be said L and
there a couple of things on our “wish list” that we’d like to do
including a trip to Jaffna, right up in the north. There are a couple
of contacts we hope to visit on the way and when we get there and it
is an area we haven’t been into yet. But from reports we hear it’s
the area MOST ravaged by war so we’re not sure what we’re going to
see.
We hope to get one further edition of NN on-line
before we head home but no promises.
Bye till
next time,
Love
from Ken & Dorothy