India Update Weeks 17 to 21

Can you believe I have been here 5 Months?! This has been an experience that is reshaping my life and I can't wait to see the person that I will be when I come home. It has been a very productive few weeks of ministry and planning here. Most of my time here since my last update has been visiting a few of the local Slums and producing a video about the people there. The video was for the Academic Department on a program they have here that trains pastors to minister specifically to the urban poor. We went out on a Sunday morning and visited 2 slum churches, and interviewed the pastors. Those were 2 services I will never forget. The first church was in a building that was still being built. The steps we used to get to the church were newly poured concrete and had no guards on either side so you could easily fall off the sides. With their 50 dollar keyboard, bongos, and little drum machine, they worshiped our God with all their mite. The second service we went to was held in the pastor’s home. There had to be 60 people crammed into a living room space for 10 to 15 people. At that church when it came to offering time many gave money as normal, but some gave fruit and flowers as offerings. We were provided lunch there in was able to spend some time with the pastor’s family. We had a great time in both churches and got some great footage of how a church service goes in the poorest of poor areas of Chennai. Now that we had some footage we spent the next 2 weeks having meetings with the Academic office to figure out what kind of video they wanted and producing the video. The project was completed and the video was shown in a meeting in the Philippines last week. I have included the video here so you can view it (you may need to go to http://swaggsupdates.blogspot.com to view the video).

After Bobby Gupta’s visit to the US, we sat down in a series of meetings to discuss my future here in India and the projects that are needed to be completed while I am here. After the discussion, there seems to be enough work here to keep me busy until at least July of 2009. Here is a list of some of the projects that we feel like I can help accomplish over the next year:

1. Tie up some loose ends on the Tricaster system and provide training to run the system.

2. Redesign and upgrade the audio system in the New Calvary Church.

3. The IT department has many projects to complete and one will be to install a new Firewall and make some major changes to their computer network infrastructure.

4. Provide training to the HBI staff to use Microsoft Outlook and train them on how to use the calendar functions and the interoffice communication functions.

5. Over the next year there will be a number of video, materials and promotional content that will be produced for each department of HBI. Through these projects, I will take footage from all over India and learn about every area of the Hindustan Bible Institute

6. I will be producing videos for Bobby Gupta as well as others for the use of promoting HBI in the USA and other places around the world

7. HBI wants a backup server and exchange server installed and configured

8. They want me to do research on what it would take to have online college courses as well as provide a lot of the college materials online. Once the research is complete, I will help them implement the needed infrastructure

9. Long term goal would be to start a Christian Radio Station in Chennai. It will take 2 to 3 Million Dollars to start this Christian radio station for the 15 million people in this Chennai city. (We are looking for donations)

This list will continue to develop and I am sure will change as we go, but I am pleased that I will surely be used for a long time to come here. If we get the money for the radio station, I will be here probably 5 years or more, but for now I will be here for 1 more year.

This may scare those that have been to India, but I have purchased a new vehicle. It was a toss between getting an auto rickshaw or a Scooter (Honda Active) . I decided to go with the scooter and am now driving in Chennai. I want to thank the members of Ekklesia Church in Columbus for their generous donation for this Scooter. Ken Dillman, the lead pastor, emailed me a few months ago and asked if I had any specific needs and I listed several along with the scooter. One week before the email came from Ken, I prayed to God saying if it is your will for me to start to drive in Chennai, you will have to provide the money for me to purchase the bike. Praise God He provided the money through Ekklesia. I will use the scooter while I am in India, and when I leave India, the scooter will be donated to one of HBI’s needy Missionaries. Now let’s pray that God keeps me safe in Chennai traffic.

Purchasing the scooter was not your normal American vehicle purchase. First of all, the price was set. I was given a printout of the cost and all the available accessories. The other major difference was, after the 15 days that it took to get the scooter; they took me to the second floor of this dealership to meet the man that will be painting the license plate. Yes, I had to witness the painting of my Tamil-Nadu Number plate. It was also up to the dealership to take care of all the registration paperwork with the state. That was kind of nice.

Driving has been good so far. I have been slowly learning to drive and learning to balance. Also it has been a learning experience to learn to drive on the left side of the road. I went out at 5 am one morning and it was me and 4 other vehicles on the road, and I was scared to death. I also have been driving around Campus here. One afternoon I went to lunch with Colin and he was on his bike and I was on mine. That helped a lot because I was in control, but he showed me where to go and what to do and not to do. It was a great help. I got really serious one day and looked at the Indian driving rules. That was a great laugh… Let’s see, it is a Rs.100 fine for not staying in your lane, it is a Rs.100 fine for driving on the sidewalk, and it is a Rs.500 fine for talking on your cell phone or listening to music. The reason it is funny is no one follows the rules here and… well here is another video to help you see Indian traffic. The video, believe it or not, is pretty close to a normal intersection without a signal. The Indian traffic rule is there are no rules but you can get fined for not following the rules.



I have been playing a lot of music outside HBI lately for various activities. I played at my first wedding a few days ago. That was a good time, mainly because it was a good friend and the service was actually in English. Colin, his friend, and myself all led worship and I played my keyboard throughout the ceremony. I was pleased I did not make too many mistakes.

I have also been playing music with some of the students again as well as some friends from outside HBI. There is a local band that was opening for a concert that was being held here in Chennai and they asked me to come and sit in with the band during one of their practices to listen to the keyboardist. They played good Christian rock and it was cool to sit in with the band. Here is a photo of the concert. I took a few of the kids that live on the HBI campus to the concert. I also took 2 kids that were staying here while there father and mother were training at HBI. Their father also came to the show with us. Afterwords we all went to Abriami Mega Mall and had fried chicken and played some games.

Another event I recently played at was a WAC reunion. WAC is the organization that I went to camp with and lately in some of the evenings I have been helping them out in different areas. WAC (We Amplify Christ) is a ministry here in Chennai for young adults. Colin leads the organization and it has been good to get into some ministry outside of HBI that is safe for me to minister without drawing too much attention to myself. The reunion was to see and follow up with the campers that went to the camp and see how our lives have been or transformed since the encounter we had with God at the camp. We had a lot of fun as well. Colin has a talent for finding the strangest games to play. One of them we played, we split up into 2 teams and was handed a stack of newspapers. We were told to pick someone on each team and we had 10 minutes to dress them in the best newspaper wedding clothes we could come up with. I will let you decide who won. This event also marked a first for me as I was asked to sing a solo for one of the songs that we did. Let’s just say that I am glad it was not recorded.

If you are getting the photos, you are seeing me in the picture in a Cincinnati Baseball jersey. I bought that jersey 3 years ago. When I bought it did not fit me, but I was hoping one day I would lose enough weight that I could wear it. When I came to India it did not fit, and as of a month ago, it did not fit, Praise God I have lost a significant amount of weight sweating in the Indian heat and I can finally see the results with the Jersey. If I have lost this much in 5 months, I can’t wait to see how much I have lost when I come home to visit in November.

A few of the people that I got to know at the camp were from Ireland and England. They have been ministering for the last 9 months in Andhra Pradesh with a group called India Quest (http://www.india-quest.net/). Before they headed home, I got a chance to hang out with them and have a pizza. A fun group of people and I hope to see them again soon. I was given an invite to visit them in London, and Louise, I may take you up on the offer in January when I return to India.

One of the other events I have gotten into outside of HBI is a church service on Friday nights. The church has a come as you are attitude and is geared to reach the IT sector type people and the younger generations. The church is also staying on course with the younger culture without compromising on Christian values, and I have really enjoyed worshiping at this church (Word of Life Chennai) http://www.wordoflife.in . I may be getting involved there in there service through music or helping out in Sound. I would love the opportunity to play keyboard there as they are the best musicians I have heard here so far and the Electric guitarist may be the best I have ever heard outside a concert I paid to get into. The first week I went there after the service I was talking with the band and as they found out I could play they went into this Jazz funk sound that I joined in and we jammed for the next 20 minutes or so. Good times :)

One of the things I enjoy each year is Memorial Day weekend and watching the Memorial Tournament and I was sad to miss the weekend, but I did get to watch the Tournament. It was cool to see such a green lush and cool place. It was good to see pictures from home. The picture shows the flowers that New Life missionaries helped plant to go on their respected trips and I thought it was cool to see them on my TV in the field where some of you are coming in October. I know the team that is on their way to Uganda as I am writing this helped plant those flowers to help with their ministry fund. Apart from the memorial tournament, I have seen Ice hockey, Basketball and Baseball on TV, so it has been nice to see some familiar sports on the tube other than cricket.

Speaking of Cricket, The Chennai Super Kings, the local team, made into the finals of the Indian Premier League, and let’s just say it was a really big deal here. I was finally able to use my Projector that I brought from home and share it with many people by projecting the game on the inner side of my apartment wall. We had about 35 come to watch Chennai Lose to Rajasthan by 1 run (164runs to 163runs). It was a fun but sad night as the everyone's favorite team lost. There were even a few tears I saw after the match was over. The screen was huge though as one of my friends had a banner that they used for their brothers wedding and we used the back side of it for the screen (18ft by 16ft). I don’t know if I will be allowed to do it again or not, but that was a great place to hold a movie night.


A few prayer requests…. As I mentioned earlier, I am now driving in ciaos, so pray for my safety while I drive. Second, I am going to Sri Lanka in a few weeks (July 24th to 28th) to comply with India Visa laws. Pray for my safety while I am there, as Sri Lanka is in a minor civil war. I was told that I should be safe, but to go find a beach for a few days and stay there and away from crowds. It seems July will be my busiest month here so far so pray for my strength to get through all that is going on. Pray that Radio work comes. I am going to Mumbai either towards the end of this month or early next month for 4 days for work praise God. Pray more of that kind of work comes. Please pray that God continues to supply my monthly monetary needs as well; money has been tight, but praise God I have not gone without anything so far. If you would like to give, please go to https://secure.hostdepot.com/11/067/donate.asp and say the gift is for me. I love you all and miss you all. See you on Facebook or in an email soon.