Negombo News #7
WE’RE
BACK
The 2nd February saw our
last night in India and we returned back to our SL “home” on Monday 3rd
flying from Chennai to SL. A very uneventful trip after a busy and enjoyable
though at times, trying six weeks. On
the flight from Chennai to SL there was a camera mounted at the front of the
plane and one underneath. Every
passenger had a personal screen mounted on the rear of the seat in front and
we were able to tune into the cameras and watch the take off and landing and
watch the ground as we flew over. There
was nothing to see mid flight as we were over the ocean but watching the take
off and landing via the front camera was good. J
WHERE
HAVE WE BEEN?
Since the last edition of “not” Negombo
News we’ve been moving around the south of India.
We headed to Bangalore from Hyderabad on 3rd January
and then left Bangalore a couple of days later than we originally planned on
about 9th January. We had intended to travel by train as we
made our way south but there were no seats available over quite an extended
period so we had to fly. Both of
us had been plagued by colds over the Christmas/New Year period and, as
Dorothy’s hadn’t cleared up, we delayed our trip south for a couple of
days to ensure Dorothy didn’t end up with bad ears from flying.
Our
Sojourn in Adimali
After arriving in Cochin (a one hour
flight from Bangalore) we took a 3 hour bus ride to Adimali, a village in the
back blocks of central Kerala. Adimali
was our home for the next 12 days and while at times our sense of humor was
stretched to the limits it was also a really rewarding fortnight in that we
got to know some wonderful people and share the lessons that the Epistle of
James and the prophet Malachi provide.
Ken was still slowly recuperating from
a tummy-bug he picked up in Hyderabad; it was a persistent one which took
about three weeks to clear up 100% and Dorothy came down with a similar bug
the day we arrived in Adimali. Much to
our horror, and equipped with only one roll toilet paper between us, we found
that none of the shops in Adimali stocked either toilet paper or face tissues.
Now there’s a challenge for you all!
Ken also ended up with the cold, which he hadn’t really shaken since
we’d left Hyderabad, flaring up again.
Our “home away from home”
comprised a room of about 4m x 2.5m (including the bathroom – eastern
toilet, hand basin and bucket). The
bed and mattress the hardest either of us has ever slept on and the pillows
were no softer. We
woke often throughout each of the 12 long nights with sore bodies from the
hardness of the beds and sore ears as they got squashed between the pillow and
skull.
We were able to get a bucket of hot
water brought up from the kitchen each morning so we could at least wash in
warm water. But one bucket
doesn’t go far between two people and the mornings were quite cool so we
resorted to using our portable water immersion heater (which is designed to
heat enough water for one cup of tea) to heat the first bucket and would then
ring for the second bucket of hot water.
This meant Ken J
had to get out of bed about 90 minutes before we had to get up to turn the
element on!
The Adimali ecclesia has approximately
12 members. The purpose of our
visit was to provide pastoral support to the brethren and sisters.
During our stay Ken led a study of the Epistle of James.
There was a study every night bar one (when Dorothy was not well and we
needed a “day off”) and Sundays involved the memorial meeting and two
further studies. Once the series
of James studies concluded Ken then developed a short set of studies (4)
considering Malachi. It was
a very busy time and set a pace in terms of talks for Ken which he’s never,
ever done before, even at the three Bible Weeks at which he’s spoken.
We were pleased that a core of the
brethren and sisters was able to attend all of the studies. It was great that they made the most of the opportunity
for Bible study and it was wonderful that we were able to get to know a number
of them reasonably well.
Jayan,
Nisha, Karuna and Krupa
We were ever so blessed with the
fantastic support given to us by the only brother and sister who live right in
the village (the others live between 20 minutes and 1.5 hours away). Jayan and Nisha
and their daughters Karuna (6½ ) and Krupa (3½)
constantly welcomed us into their home, often provided our evening meal
(rice and curry but very, very nice), let us do our washing in the twin tub
and dry it at their place and dearest Nisha wouldn’t let us any where near
the iron; she ironed for us for the whole fortnight. Nisha even often cooked our breakfast which Jayan dropped
off! He walks past the lodge at
which we were staying on his way to work.
Jayan is a medical doctor and he dosed us up with all sorts of
medicines to help us overcome our tummy troubles and to help Ken when his cold
flared up again.
Jayan’s English is very good.
Nisha’s and Karuna’s is limited and Krupa’s is almost
non-existent however dear little Krupa chattered to us non-stop whenever we
were there. It didn’t seem to
either occur to her or worry her that we didn’t understand a word!
She ran around busy dancing for us, showing us things, telling us
goodness knows what and playing with us.
Eating
in Adimali
The meal options in Adimali were
fairly limited. As neither of us
were particularly well we were not feeling very adventurous food wise.
We were only game to go to one restaurant – the one which looked to
us to be the cleanest and the only one that attempted any western cooking.
But the western options were very limited and pretty uninspiring
and the eastern options did not appeal at all, especially at breakfast time,
as we were recuperating from tummy troublesL.
What we would have given for toast and vegemite!!
The
Surrounds
Adimali is set in the hill country of
Kerala and is small, long skinny town that stretches for about 2km along the
main road. Like all Indian
towns/villages is chock a block with an amazing number of shops and roadside
stalls which sell an odd assortment of bits and pieces.
It sits along side a ridge of very rocky and fairly sparsely vegetated
hills.
There is some quite pretty scenery in
the surrounding area; mountain ranges heading way off into the distance.
Because it is has a higher altitude it does at times get quite cold
there. We are told that Munnar
(which is a little higher than Adimali and about an hour’s drive further
inland) “gets minus temperatures” sometimes!
We enjoyed overnight temperatures of about 20 and up to about 26 during
the day. It was not humid; so it
was quite comfortable.
All of India seems to be very, very
dry at the moment. All the
vegetation everywhere is very heavily
coated with dust. Tim and Sarah
in Hyderabad are living with water restrictions – they have one hours tap
water available to them every second day!
A
Holiday at Calicut
On leaving Adimali we headed to
Angamali (about 3 hours on two buses) and stayed overnight visiting one family
and then on to Ollur (a further 1 hour away) to again stay overnight at the
home of Bro Tom and Sis Suzie Kanady.
So two days after leaving Adimali we arrived at Calicut on the coast
and enjoyed four nights at a comfortable hotel and did little other than laze
around the pool. It was a great
battery recharge. The weather was
in the mid to high twenties; warm enough for a swim and cool enough to be
comfortable when buzzing around. Despite
our best efforts we both ended up with sunburn!!
But not enough to upset our restful recuperation.
On the last day of our Calicut holiday
the hotel maintenance men were busy cleaning the pool. The equipment was pretty old and dodgy. It consisted of a brush on a long extendable metal handle.
The brush was about 1.5 m wide and to enable it to clean the bottom of
the pool it could both twirl around and suck.
All in all a good idea but it was powered by an electric cord that was
connected into the brush head under the water and, above the water, was
plugged into a very old timber power board which almost fell into the water as
the men were pushing the sweeper to and fro!
Needless to say we decided to keep out of the pool while all this was
going on and we were distracted from our reading wondering when a loud bang
and “bzzzt” would mean a fried pool cleaner!!
Another bus trip, this time overnight,
had us back in Bangalore on 28th January. In summary, the
bus trip had all the characteristics
of sitting on a jack hammer all night. The
two buses we travelled in were fairly new and the seats reasonably comfortable
but the suspension is very different to the suspension of Ozzie buses – it
has to be or it would fall apart after one trip.
Many sections of the road were badly broken and full of potholes and it
was often only one lane wide which meant the driver had to go off the bitumen
on to the corrugated edge whenever there were oncoming vehicles which was
pretty frequent. It was a
relief to arrive safely in Bangalore at 7.00 am and escape the never ending
shaking, bumps and vibrations.
Bangalore
We stayed in the Mission residence at
Bangalore and again had a fairly relaxing week. Sis Sandra Taylor (Tasmania) is the current resident
fieldworker managing the office so we were not required to involve ourselves
in the Mission operations while in Bangalore. The two more notable things that
we did were to visit the nearby “national park” and spend an evening at
Sis Martha and Bro Ashok’s.
Lions,
tigers and creepy crawlies
The nearby national park is actually a
zoo which includes an open-range lion and tiger park. We took a 2 hour “safari” through the park and saw
some beautiful tigers and lions, including cubs.
We were both amazed at how big some of these animals are.
Of course we’ve seen them at the Melbourne zoo but these beasts were
bigger – more the height of a cow and about half as long again.
They are such handsome and powerful animals.
But the zoo itself was sad with animals in cages on concrete floors.
We didn’t stay for long at the zoo, it was too sad to see the animals
in such awful enclosures. However
we did get a good look at quite a range of snakes including hooded and king
cobras and rat snakes. Several of
the hooded cobras had puffed up their “necks” and were displaying the
face like pattern. The king
cobras are just big brown snakes but when we say big, we mean BIG.
They grow up to 18 feet long! We
also saw a rat snake having lunch
– a live 2/3 day old chicken that was struggling in a futile attempt to
escape. I guess the snake has to
eat something but do they have to feed it something as cute as a fluffy
chicken which was still chirping? The
last bit down the hatch was the feet.
Ken was reminded of the Master’s
words in Luke 21 v 25 that men would be “in perplexity” at the events in
the earth, prior to his coming. Perplexity
means of course, “no way out” and for these chickens that was literally
true. Well there was a way out,
but that was only by the rat snakes crawling over the top of the box and
grabbing one of them for its lunch. Plaintive
cheeps sounded even sadder!
Ken has had a previous experience with
a rat snake in Sri Lanka about seven years ago.
He was in Colombo on business and decided to visit the Colombo Hilton
for lunch. Walking up the drive
into one of Colombo’s 5 star hotels he literally walked into the back of a
Sri Lankan man who simply stopped in the middle of the sweeping driveway up to
the hotel entrance. The Sri
Lankan man stepped sideways leaving Ken confronting a 7 or 8 foot long rat
snake slithering off down the main driveway as if it had just checked out!!
Ken also moved quickly sideways and allowed it to continue on its way.
Sunday
School Prize Giving at Martha and Ashok’s
Sis Martha runs a Sunday School (on
Saturdays!) at her home for the local children. There are about 40 who attend and of these only about five
come from Christadelphian families. The children range in age from about
4 to 14. On the Saturday evening when we there it was the “prize giving”
evening at which the children enthusiastically sang quite a few songs,
clamoured to answer Bible quiz questions and presented poems, recited verses
and Psalms. All of them recited
Psalm 27 as a chorus and a number of them recited other bits and pieces.
One little chappie whose name is Moses
is one of the younger ones – about 4 years old – and has been coming to
Sunday for about 6 months. He
lives near Martha with his mother; his father is dead.
When his turn came to make his presentation he confidently stood up in
front of us all and proceeded to recite all of 1 Corinthians 13 without any
help whatsoever from anyone else. His presentation
included lots of hand actions to demonstrate the messages contained in the
chapter. He was confident and relaxed and didn’t realize how amazed we all
were. What an astounding little
man. It was one of those events
in life which will stay with us both for a long, long time.
The children headed off home at about
8.30 pm with their Sunday School presents safely tucked under their arms.
Faces
from Home
It was great to see Linus and Susan
(nee Fotheringham) Daniel. We saw
them about three of four times while in Bangalore and enjoyed lunch at their
place on Saturday 1st February.
Negombo
Revisited
Since we have been in India there has
been about twelve short term fieldworkers (from Australia and England) staying
here in the Mission residence, traveling around the island and visiting
contacts and brethren and sisters.
They have identified quite a number of
contacts who appear to be keen to discuss the truths of God’s Word and we
have a huge challenge in front of us over the next 8 months to meet with as
many of these people as possible and spread the Gospel – the good news
concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.
Over the next ten days we will have
the company of Bro Andrew and Sis Miriam Meakin (Perth), Andrew’s parents
Bro Dennis and Sis Barbara (UK) and Bro Jacob Morgan (Sydney).
The Meakins have been here for several days and Jacob for several
weeks. Jacob will actually have
left for home by the time this web entry is available – he leaves during the
wee small hours of 7 February.
A
Big “Thankyou”
Thanks again to those who have emailed
us while we’ve been in India. Email
access has been limited and extraordinarily slow so we haven’t yet managed
to respond to all who sent us emails … but we’re planning to catch up over
the next week or two.
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