The
Mission Matters
Here we are on 1st March (well we were!
It’s now the 10th March – sorry for the delay between
editions) with a program in front of us that has us feeling quite daunted.
The amount of work that needs to be done is growing rather than
diminishing and the demands on our time are increasing.
At times we feel quite excited by the challenges and the apparent
responsiveness of some individuals. At
other times we are quite despondent when we feel there is not the response we
were anticipating or that the job is too big for us.
Catching
Up
As we reported in the previous Negombo News the fieldworkers who were here in January and early
February visited lots and lots of people.
As a result we have been kept busy capturing all the information that
they’ve left us in their reports, entering it into the database and
identifying those people who we are going to concentrate on over the next
eight months.
We’ve again split the contacts into three groups.
As you know we wrote to over 850 people during the October/December
period, some of whom were also receiving other correspondence from tutors in
Perth etc. There are about 600 of
these people who we haven’t heard back from so we’ve put them in the
“inactive” category. Of the
other 250 we’ve identified what appears to be the absolute cream of the crop
(about 30 people) and we will really focus on working with them as they are
the ones we feel are more likely to respond to God’s Word.
We will continue to write to the other 200 plus and send them booklets,
answer queries etc but unless they personally seek a greater degree of
involvement that’s all we are able to do.
Sunday’s
Acts of the Apostles Class
The Sunday afternoon program recommenced on the 23rd
February. The class
focussed on the Acts of the Apostles,
their doctrine and fellowship; with the aim of stripping away the traditions,
mythology and philosophies of men and identifying simple, primitive
Christianity as believed and taught by Jesus and his apostles.
In doing so of course we address a number of 1st principles,
identifying the impact these concepts must have on our faith and alerting
people to the way in which the Church has strayed so far from Bible teaching
and the teachings of its founder. About
18 people were invited to the class, some are people who attended the LTRBE
course last year and the others are contacts identified as a result of the
mail out we did between October and December and the visits to contacts made
by fieldworkers who were here during January/February. We of course were hoping for some new faces but only the
“old” ones returned so as a result we were both feeling a bit flat for a
day or two. However we still do
have three promising contacts attending.
Ten days have now elapsed since commencing this edition of Negombo News
(!) so of course we have now had three “Acts” classes and we are delighted
that a further person has now also attended.
The
Bible Truth Conference
The plans for a Bible Truth Conference here in Negombo in
mid April are progressing – cautiously. We have tentatively booked
accommodation and now intend to invite the best of the best of the contacts
for the weekend and work intensively with them, again focusing on first
principles. The Conference is to
be held God willing from Saturday 12th to Monday 14th
April. The Monday is a public
holiday here as it is Sinhala/Tamil New Year.
We need to know that we have sufficient people interested in coming and
that their motives are genuine.
Travelling
to and fro
Hopefully we will be hiring a car on and off over the
next few months that we are here and planning routes which will allow us to
maximise the number of people we can visit in a three or four day trip.
This will save us a huge amount of time as travelling everywhere by
public transport is very time consuming and tiring; it also usually has us
getting out of bed at most inconvenient times (e.g. 4.00 am) so that we can be
get the better bus connections throughout the day.
However car hire of course too has its draw backs.
A very much more expensive way to travel and given the lack of road
rules, or the randomness with which they are applied, being behind the wheel
will at times be a challenging experience.
For some of these, we’ll be hiring car AND driver.
Kandy
here we come
On Wednesday 26th February we did a round trip
to Kandy and back. We caught a
bus at 7.30 am in Negombo and arrived in Kandy at about 10.30 am.
We used the day to investigate and book accommodation for our March
visit (11th to 15th -
four nights only) and also managed to catch up with Analyn the lady whom we
reported on in an earlier Negombo News who, with her husband, recites Psalm 91
every morning. Unfortunately it
was a very brief catch up as Analyn was with her mother-in-law who was unwell
and they had to head off.
The March visit to Kandy will have us meeting up with a
number of the contacts the fieldworkers met in the January/February period and
having discussion classes on each of the four evenings.
The trip there was very uneventful; the trip back a
little more hair-raising as the bus we were travelling in clipped a motor bike
knocking
the rider off his bike! Fortunately
no major damage was done (to the bike, the rider or the bus) and the chap
happily hopped back on his bike and road away.
Update – 10
March: The plans for this
visit are well progressed and Ken is putting the finishing touches to the
notes he has prepared for all those who attend the classes.
So we’ll hopefully head off to bed early to night (joke – it never
works out that way) with our bags packed ready to be up bright and early to
head off to Kandy until Saturday. Back
into the malaria zone so back onto more tablets L.
The
Big Spring Clean
Four of the five fieldworkers who were here when we
returned from India stayed on for about ten days after we “got home”; a
couple from the UK and their son and daughter-in-law from Perth. It was great to have their company and they made a fantastic
contribution around the house on the days when they didn’t have contacts to
visit. One day Dennis (the dad),
Barbara (the mum), Miriam (the daughter in law) and I (Dorothy) got stuck into
the cleaning that you otherwise never seem to get around to and by the time
the day was over most of the very
ornate window grills had all been scrubbed – they were very dirty; most
of the windows had been cleaned and the curtains washed.
The timber banisters had all been washed; the stairs scrubbed; the
flyscreens washed/dusted; hooks put on
walls; squeaky doors fixed ….. and the list goes on.
Dennis also installed a better light in the kitchen so we can now see
when we are working at the sink and he installed power boards in the kitchen
with right sort of plugs (there are three different shapes!).
And Andy (the son) is a computer guru and was thankfully here the day
the computer crashed and put about three hours work into getting it up and
running again.
Time
Out
We’ve
included in our program a one day break every week and a three day break in
the fourth week so hopefully that will give us a bit of a breather and keep us
out of the nut house. When we
have a day off we leave the house. On the one day breaks we’ll head to a nearby hotel on the
beach, have lunch and a swim in the pool or head into Colombo and do stuff
there. On the three day
breaks we are planning on getting out of Negombo/Colombo and finding nice
spots to visit. If we hang around
the house there really isn’t anything to do so we end up working anyway! But we put our illnesses in India down to being simply
overworked and tired out, so we’re not taking any risks this time around.
Update – 10
March: Well the proof of the
pudding is in the eating! Since
we’ve been back from India we’ve only managed one and a half days off! So much for the good intentions. However, hopefully, once
this Kandy trip is out of the way ……. and the Bible Truth Conference has
concluded ……. and …….
Back
to India in August!
After a frustrating couple
of hours in the office of the Dept of Immigration in late February we were
both given extension to our visas which now take us through to until early
August. We will then head back
into India for a couple of weeks, return to SL at the end of August to get a
one month visa (free 30 day visa on entry to the country – all visa
extensions involve a fee) and then leave here at the end of September to head
for home. We’re booked to leave
here on 25th September with a stopover of a couple of days in
Singapore to relax and get ready for HOME!!
How
hot is it?
Not as bad as it was. J
Over the last few weeks we’ve had some “pleasant” weather.
There have been a couple of days when we’ve had a breeze that nearly
fitted the description of refreshing! It
is actually the humidity which is lower rather than the temperature as, as
we’ve reported previously, the temperature here in the Colombo/Negombo
region only varies a couple of degrees 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
We have the fans running 24 hours a day; as soon as the air is
still it is quite muggy.
The first of the two
monsoon seasons for the year are on their way so we must make the most of the
“pleasant” weather while we can. There
has been a lovely breeze most evenings – from about 6.00pm onwards.
Unfortunately this coincides with “mozzie hour” when we need to
shut all doors and windows to minimise the invasion L.
We are about 1km from the coast as the crow flies and the upstairs part
of the house catches a wee bit of a breeze during the day.
It would be a lovely breeze if we were closer to the ocean.
We’ve been at the beach a few times in the evenings and the breeze is
delightful. The sky becomes light
at about 6.40 am and the sun sets around 6.45 pm.
By 7.00 pm it is dark.
Update
– 10 March: We haven’t had much rain
since about November last year. Well
that all changed on Friday night when we had the first decent rain in months,
accompanied of course by thunder and lightening. It was followed by an almost deafening chorus of frogs.
The
noise they were making would have been in breach of “noise control” laws
at home. It was incredibly
wonderful to hear them chorusing so, so loudly and for hours and hours.
And there were quite a variety of calls, not just one repeated croak
but a range, some of them a deep drumming sort of sounds and others with a
more tinkling tone. We wished we
could record it and add it to the web page and emails as it is impossible to
fully describe. Have you ever
thought about that? Why do
animals make noise when happy? Communication? Or praise? If
the writer of the Psalms can say “Let everything that has breathe praise the
LORD”, then surely the chorus of frogs after the first rains, providing them
with a lovely renewed habitat, can certainly be their voice of thanks and
praise to their Creator for the good things he has provided!
So when did you (or we) last say “thank you” to Him for His
wonderful blessings.
Ken’s
Feet
We still get the
occasional enquiry about Ken’s feet – they were giving him heaps of
trouble when he first arrived. Thanks
to all those who have asked. Thankfully
the problem was overcome in November once he started wearing good quality Nike
walking shoes day in, day out. His
feet are now fine.
Update
– 10 March: However now Dorothy is in
the wars L.
Over the past few weeks Dorothy has been troubled with a really stiff
neck, sore shoulders, stiffness between the shoulder blades and a sore left
arm. Things went from bad to
worse and we ended up heading off to see a doctor.
We chose to go to a hospital which is on the other side of Colombo as
it has an excellent reputation. Anyway,
to cut a long story short they took x-rays and Dorothy is now having a course
of physio. It is a real hassle as it involves a daily appointment during
which they provide ultra sound treatment which last all of eight minutes
(exactly). So it means Dorothy
has to leave here at 8.15 am to catch the 8.30 bus which takes her to the city
(Petta) bus station and then a further 15 minutes in a tuk-tuk to the Apollo
Hospital arriving at 9.50 in time for the 10.00 am appointment.
Then of course it all happens in reverse and Dorothy walks back into
the house at about 12.30 pm – all for eight minutes of treatment!!
But the doctors haven’t been able to locate a physio closer to
“home” that has the equipment to administer the treatment.
However the back, shoulder, neck and arm are vastly improved so who’s
complaining?
The physio and doctor have
also said that I (Dorothy) must do specific exercises twice daily after I have
applied HOT pack to my neck/shoulders for 10 minutes.
Why didn’t they recommend a good lie down in an air-conditioned room?
The hot pack is to warm and relax the muscles – as if they aren’t
warm enough already. I’ve also
been told “no reaching out with the arms above the head”.
Hence no hanging of the washing – Ken has to do it.
Again I ask the question WHY. Why didn’t they say, no ironing, no cooking, no cleaning.
I’m sure recovery would be much quicker under those conditions J
Jenny’s
on her way J
Ken’s cousin Jenny Poole is planning on visiting us for
three weeks in April. Jenny is
due to arrive on Monday 7th April and will be with us until the wee
small hours of Tuesday 29th April.
It will be lovely to have her company.
Hopefully she’ll be kept busy with activities associated with the
planned Bible Truth Conference and with a number of visits we plan to make to
various people scattered between here and Colombo, in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and
perhaps Anuradhapura. The list of
goodies we are requesting her to
bring grows daily (some of which she doesn’t know about yet) and she’ll
end up looking like our pack horse!
That’s it for this edition; we’ve lots of things to
do this afternoon before heading for Kandy tomorrow.
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