India-Week2

This has been a great week. I learned a valuable lesson Sunday. The lesson is to let New Calvary Church know that you play the keyboard after a service and not before. Bobby the director of HBI introduced me the the band leader for the evening service and the next thing I know I am being handed a 7 song set list while he is scribbling down the keys that they are playing the songs in and said that I am playing the piano. Out of the 7 songs I had only had herd one of them in the past and the rest were new to me. Wow, I was nervous, but praise God he helped me through the service and I was able to play with the band once they started and I herd how the song went. They are asking me to start playing Sundays during there 11am service, and I will most likely start in the next few weeks.
The work that was started in November began this week as we have been getting cabling quotes together and are now in the process of getting the materials to begin the Tricaster project for their church. For those who don't know, Tricaster is a professional video system that was purchased and is being installed to record sermons, training sessions for their students, training sessions for there field churches and training centers, and has the ability to broadcast live events to the internet. We have a goal to complete a Control studio and redo a lot of the technical infrastructure for New Calvary Church by Easter, so there is a lot of work to be completed by then and that is my main focus right now. It was a very productive week and I am excited that we have resumed the work that was started when I was here in November.
I got things finalized this week to have my shipment of my personal goods from my apartment in the US to be shipped here and the shipment should be here my tomorrow. Please pray that it makes it without problems. Also this week I got my apartment here prepared for my things to arrive, so I am looking forward to having a little bit of home around me.
I took some significant leaps forward this week in the area of food. On Tuesday I decided to take a plate of my Americanized Indian food and join the guys that I have been working with and join them for lunch. In doing that I ended up eating there food that was takeout from a local shop. It was really really good! Very spicy, which made me very happy and the guys were relieved that I was able to eat their food. The rice came in a newspaper and the chicken and the different sauces all came in little pouches along with a soup. Now that they saw that I was willing to try their foods, it was decided that the guys were going to cook me lunch the next day. Wow was it good. Yes I am using my hands in the picture. That is the normal custom to eat with your hand and not a fork or spoon. The following day I was invited to go to a house dedication lunch, which was very similar to a house warming party. The day starts out with a pastor praying over the house, and the family having a family only worship service. After that friends and family are invited to come and see the house and have lunch. I hopped on the back of Josh's motorcycle and went off the the house, which was about a 15 minute ride on the bike. He said i was much more conformable riding than the last time that I rode with him, and I was. I enjoyed the ride. Ok, back to the food, we had Chicken Biryani and other dishes. That was my favorite meal up to that point, because it was very good and everyone was so pleased I was there. I got in trouble there though, as I was caught using my left hand for eating and someone asked Josh if he was teaching me how to properly eat. Oops, and I thought I was being good. By the way, it is the custom to only eat with your right hand, and the left hand is for other purposes. The person in the right of the picture, (above right) Shela, and her family are the ones that the house was being dedicated for. If you are wondering what a new house in India looks like here are some photos. By the way you can click on any picture that I post and you can see them in there original full size.

I had dinner with my friends after Bible study on Friday night, which was the best food i have had so far! It was a beef fried rice. Wow, nothing like the fried rice we have at home, but many more ingredients and very spicy. Still reading, good I have not bored you to death yet.
Saturday I ventured off campus by my self for the first time just across the street to buy a laundry bucket and some string. Since I am doing laundry in a bucket, I figured I would get 2 buckets and get it done in half the time (the cloths have to soak in the bucket for a half hour before rinsing and drying). 5 buckets later I am finally caught up on my laundry.
Saturday night was my first evening out in Chennai for fun. Josh and his wife, along with his brother-in-law and wife went to probably Chennai's nicest mall. It was a huge place with lots of stores. I bought a couple of computer magazines there (which this morning I saw they were from FEB of 2004 not 2008) , another lesson for me. After that we went to KFC for some American food. We had crispy chicken which was defiantly not KFC's "original recipe". It was the spiciest chicken I have ever had, but was very good. We walked around exploring waiting for National Treasure to start. There was a restaurant on the roof that I will have to try it looked really good. The movie was good, just like home minus the the fact that we had assigned seating in the theater and the 10 minute tea break in the middle of the movie. There is no wonder there are more diabetics in this country than in any other country in the world, as there tea is mostly sugar, and they have tea at least 3 times a day that I have seen. No tea for Bob :(
I think I will stop now, as I could go on for ever on all that has happened this week, but I won't. I will say it was Bobby's birthday on Tuesday and each department gave him a cake. 10 cakes in 2 hours. And I could go into detail about the work that I am doing, but that is for a later post. Please keep in touch, and when I have internet and Email, I would love to talk to you. Please keep me in your prayers. Speaking of prayers, I have been having Nightmares almost every night that I have been here. I think someone is not happy that I am here, so please pray for that. Also please pray for a possible opportunity to start a Christian radio station in Chennai that has presented itself this week. More details to come as that unfolds, but pray for God's favor in that opportunity. I am really going to stop now, so I will talk to you soon.

-Bob