India Weeks 8 And 9

has been 2 weeks of recovery and Work Work Work. First of all to let you know I am totally recovered from my sickness. Totally I was sick for 8 days. Praise God that is behind me, as those were some very difficult days fore me. On Saturday March 22nd as planned I went to the HBI sponsored villages near Andre Pradesh. I was very sick that day, but I am glad I went. These villages were very different than the ones that I have visited here in the past, as they were farming communities and much porer than the coastal villages that I have visited in the past. The reason we visited these 3 villages was to get some video production to help raise funds for a child sponsorship for a new program that HBI has. Although I was sick I really was glad to have the opportunity to visit these places. My job was to take pictures and video of the kids and village while Samson took video of the kids in the HBI church that was being fed. While I was walking through the villages many people, Hindus and Christians came to me asking me to pray for them and for there children. This caught me by surprise, but it was such a blessing to pray with these people. Most of my past visits were so orderly because of the large group that I went with, but this time was great that I was alone (only white guy), because I was able to walk anywhere that I wanted for the videoing and taking photos. I had 3 boys that wanted to take me all over the place to take pictures of flowers and animals. This lasted for about 10 minutes before I finally told them that I was here to take photos of there village. The only drawback on that very long day was how sick I was. It must have been obvious too as a few villagers asked me if I was ok. The following Tuesday I was feeling and looking normal, which was a good thing as my life was about to get a whole lot busier.

Our first major production for the new Tricaster system was the following weekend and the week leading up to that weekend was my busiest and most stressful since I have come to India. In the week we installed temporary lighting and a temporary sound system for recording the 2 concerts that took place. (I will give more details in a moment on the concert) Also all the loose ends were cleaned up in all the wiring and in the video control room. We are completely done with this first phase and the next phase will be to install permanent lighting, move the church projector that was in the center to the side and add a second. We will also be running cabling to other buildings in the campus to provide video to those locations.

The Madras Musical association put on a 2 concerts to help raise funds for HBI's child sponsorship program and to draw an awareness to the program. The MMA choir is the most famous music choir in Chennai and possibly India. The British started the MMA music program in the 1800s to promote western music in India. The choir sang such songs a Mozart's Agnus Dei and Don Williams Your My Best Friend. These were outstanding musicians and I had a lot of fun working with them. The have also been invited me to get involved with them, which is an honor. If you would like to see the MMA choir they are going to be in Columbus I think in May, so email me and I will get you the info. Also the concert made the Chennai Paper and you can read the article at: http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2008/04/01/stories/2008040150390100.htm

The Friday night after the first Concert, we were asked to prepare 200 DVD's to be sold on the Saturday night concert, which was a lot of work, but with the help of the Tricaster system, it was possible, and accomplished. The week following we have been working on the video post production for the best of the 2 concerts and a mastered audio production to boot. After about40 hours of editing we are preparing to create an additional 100 DVD's for India and 200 DVD's to be sold in the US. It is good to see months of hard work come together successfully and to see the results.

I got a break in the middle of all the editing on Monday and got to goto one of the Tsunami Villages (Kokilamedu) that we went to in November of 2005. The trip to that village in 2005 was my most special memory of that missions trip for me, because of the day we had there. It was pouring rain that day in 05' and the villagers were so thankful that we came and that we prayed for them in spite of the fact that there was a full on monsoon going on that day. We got invited to go into peoples huts and homes which is not normally something foreigners get to do in a village. Memories... ok back to the hear and now. This time the village was mostly rebuilt although still after 3 and a half years after the tsunami they are still rebuilding.

We went to this village to witness and sponsor a Kabhadi Tournament (a very popular south Indian sport). My job was to take photos of the event and Robi was there to take video. I had a ball that afternoon with all the kids playing with them and taking pictures of all the hams there. The game was basically an organized version of "Tag your It", except you got points for tagging as many of your opponents and making it back to the center of the court and not getting tackled. It was so much organized that we had professional referees for the event and trophies, and new team jerseys for the players. After the game was over and all the awards were given out i spoke with a few of the fishermen there and also got to sit on the beach for about a half hour and watched the Sun go down (behind me). This day has to be the highlight of my time here in India so far. There will be another Kabhadi tournaments in the coming weeks at another village, and I was told to bring a change of clothing as they are going to let me go swimming in the Ocean.

I have had a few more outings in Chennai. One was with Josh and the other was with Colin. Monday of last week I went to a coffee shop and hung out with Colin for a few hours talking about ministry. Colin is someone who is not affiliated with HBI that I met at church. He will be starting to lead worship on Sundays at the second service. I have played keys a few times already and I am looking forward to the future and playing with him. He has a heart for young adult ministry and we talked in length about some of the young adult ministry stuff we have both been involved in. He has invited me to go to a camping trip at the end of April. That trip can't get here quick enough. We are going to be taking a train to Ooty, which is in the deep south and is about 7,000 feet above sea level and will be in a jungle. 4 days of cool weather, swimming, hiking, kayaking, mountain climbing, and diving off a waterfall. (not sure what I will participate in just yet). I is going to be nice to get to know Colin and get away for a few days also. I have also herd Ooty is one of the biggest tourist spots in South India and is spectacular. It is also good news that were are going to be in a very remote place and away from all the tourism hot spots.

As I mentioned, I went out with Josh on Thursday. We first went to, what i would call Chennai's Central Park. There was a 13 story tower there and you could overlook the whole city there. After that we went to his house and visited his sister and brother. His sister cooked a very tasty meal for us and we had a good time. When we first got there, his sister asked me if I wanted tea, coffee, or juice. I responded with a no thank you and maybe later I may have some. My thought was that she spoke really good English when she asked me if I wanted anything. I found out later that those 3 words were just about all the English she knew and she did not have a clue what my response was.

A couple of prayer requests. First the money situation is still not that great. If you are able to help please goto http://globalpartners.org and donate some money to me. Just click on the donate text on the left and make sure that you say that the donation is for me. I hate asking for money, but until the radio work comes in I am going to have to rely on my friends and family to help me in my mission here. The second prayer request I would have, is I am praying if it is a good thing to get a bike here and start to learn the city and get out on my own. It is looking more and more like I am going to be a long time and if so I am going to need some wheels (2 of them). Of course I don't have the money for that either, but I figure if God wants me to drive here, he will find the $800 that I need to get a used bike. The third prayer request is a big one. The mega long term goal for my time here is to help HBI start a FM radio station here in Chennai. It would be an amazing opportunity to reach this city of 15,000,000 people with the gospel. There are alot of details to work out and I am just now starting in the research portion of the goal. Please pray for God's Favor with the Indian government and pray for the estimated $2,000,000 dollars we will need to pull this opportunity off. As I said it has been a very busy few weeks, but Praise God it seems I am truly being used here. Thanks for reading and thanks for caring about what is going on in my life and what is going on in India.