India Reflections

When is the time to write about an experience such as this trip to India has provided?  Is it immediately, when the images, names, and memories are fresh?  Or is it after a longer period of reflection, when it has become clear; the difference between those things that are impressive and those that are important?  I hope to do some of both.

One might ask, But why bother?  Who cares?  I write, oddly, for those who best know already: For God, as a means of thanksgiving and in hope that someone might profit from it to His honor; and for me, in order to attempt to bring some order and organization to this dusty-attic-jumble of mental images and thoughts.  There are also those who have given sacrificially to enable me to make this trip; people who believed that God might do something useful in and/or through me.  I owe these people a report on the return on investment.  And, of course, there are others who care about me, as well, but who were not able, or moved, to assist.  They, too, for friendship sake alone, deserve to hear of the outcome.  And beyond these there may be many others.  So, I hope, again, that someone else may stumble upon this or that bit of bric-a-brak and discover a hidden gem. 

Overall Impressions -- The Impressive
India is a remarkable place.  There is a vitality that is almost palpable.  It springs partly from the fact that there seem to be people everywhere.  Even small villages are full of them.  As you drive through the towns you see great mobs of people, mostly scurrying to and fro, some standing waiting for a break in the interminable traffic to get across the road.  On the major thoroughfares there are people walking on the sidewalks and in the streets, there are bikes, sometimes with as many as three people, and 100cc motorcycles or scooters -- "two-wheelers" in local parlance -- sometimes with four or five people, and "auto rickshaws", little three-wheeled scooter-like taxis, sometimes with five or six people, all of these mingling in a chaotic frenzy with cars large and small, trucks, busses, tour vans, etc.  Oh, and cows wandering blithely through the streets of the major cities with no regard for the mechanical beasts buzzing around them.  And above it all is the constant jingle-jangle of vehicle horns tooting as drivers proclaim to all around, "Look out I'm coming through so keep out of my way."  In a city block, in heavy traffic, our driver might have honked his horn a hundred or more times.  So there is activity and action everywhere you look; a constant buzz.

It is at once a drab and colorful place.  The streets are often dirty and muddy and pot-holed, the buildings in the city are mostly dingy, dirty-white stucco or concrete or perhaps a once-bright coral or turquoise, now dimmed with dirt.  Sidewalks are a jumble of levels and surfaces and broken concrete seems the norm.  Power poles sprout along the streets and are festooned with hundreds of wires and cables carrying the modern modes of communication into tired old buildings that strain to contain the vibrancy of the commerce that bustles everywhere.  And in the trees and along the rooftops you occasionally seem the random bird of prey looking for sparrows, or monkeys looking for a piece of fruit hanging in the trees.  Through all of this seem to float the Indian women dressed in their saris; a wispy explosion of light and color amid a heavy, drab setting.  Golds, greens, reds, blues, whites, yellows....every color of the rainbow rendered in a froth of silk draped about the women who proceed serenely, if purposefully, through it all.  And, of course, the unending traffic and horns are the symphonic score for this fashion show.

And then there are the villages.  Unlike my previous trip, we spent a lot of time, at least half or our waking, non-traveling hours, in village settings.  These are, frankly, indescribable.  In some respects life seems unchanged from 500 years ago.  Homes have no plumbing; water is carried from the well.  The well may be newer, or not, but it still must be transported by women or children toting large pots.  The houses may have brick walls, or not, but most still have thatch roofs.  Some now have concrete floors, others have floors of dirt covered with woven straw mats.  Most do seem to have electric light....coming from bare bulbs dangling from exposed wires strung from ceiling and walls.  (OSHA would have a field day!)  But even here there are the beautiful colors of the women's saris and the warmth of the flashing smiles of children.

The country side is lovely.  We took a 5 or 6 hour train ride from Bangalore to Chennai, and a number of bus trips out from the cities to see village sites.  There are parts of India that are as beautiful as anything Hawaii has to offer.  (Hawaii is at about 20 degrees north latitude and Bangalore and Chennai are at about 12 or 13 degrees north latitude, so the area is definitely tropical.)  In places forests of palms and tropical hardwoods abound.  Old, but still magnificent, volcanic mountains and rock formations are around the area.  And, in some of the village areas, the beaches are reminiscent of Hawaii....except for the omnipresent cows grazing the beach plants or resting in the sand.

In one of these villages we had a chance to go out on a traditional fishing boat with the men and a few boys and watch as they demonstrated how they fish.  The water of Lake Pulicat -- using Google Earth, fly to "Chennai", zoom to an elevation of 100 miles, and Pulicat Lake is a very large body of water right on the coast due north of the city, Vadagodi village is on the south end of the largest island -- is brackish and shallow.  The men motor out from shore, take their net with a man on each end, wade out, walk through the water and then close a circle entrapping the fish.  After the demonstration, the boys jumped overboard and began to play in the water.  Being very hot, Dave and I went in after them and played with the boys for a few minutes.  Children are the same everywhere: fun.

Impacts -- The Important
Probably the most important thing that impressed me is that God is at work.  Everywhere.  And He definitely doesn't need me to help Him accomplish what He intends to do.  He has people all over that are hard at work doing those things that He has placed upon their hearts.  But, He does have places where I can work, and things I can do, if I want to have the joy and the blessings of being a part of His work in the world.  We heard amazing stories of how God is using the missionaries of India to go into places with His message of love.  And not merely a message in words, though that, too, but also a message of His love expressed in building of community facilities, of training and providing educational and work skills to underprivileged women and children, of providing health training and medical care to communities.  It is very hard work, sometimes dangerous -- people have been martyred or injured, homes destroyed -- and in very challenging circumstances.  Most westerners would faint at the challenge, I think.  But the people there are used to those circumstances and, even having found their own way out, go back in in order that they might lead others out.  We met some amazing saints of God who are hard at work and ask only for prayers that they might be more effective.

There were personal lessons for me, as well.  Probably the most important one is that God has, indeed, created me with a purpose in life and has given me tasks to do.  You recall that Jesus said, ""Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  A yoke is not a horse-collar; a yoke is for two necks.  I take it that Jesus is saying, "If you join me, you will have work to do.  But it will be work that you will find satisfying in the deepest part of your soul.  And you will discover that working alongside me is a gentle process."  I don't think that God's call to me is to be a missionary to India; He obviously has people there already.  And He may call some.  But my work is here.  And so I must be about the tasks He has given me to do.  I must take from the brothers and sisters in India the faithfulness, the prayerfulness, the work ethic that they demonstrate, and then get busy with doing my own tasks here.

And, of course, as always in situations in which we encounter new and different stresses, there were the reminders that the Christian life is more about "doing" than about "knowing."  After Jesus washed the disciples' feet, and explained what He had done, He said, "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."  And so I had some opportunities to practice some of these deeds in settings where weariness and fatigue joined with strangeness and unfamiliarity to see if I could remember how to practice what I was learning.

And, again, of course, it is never all about me.  The trip provided opportunities for me to watch as God used others: Dave preaching, Angel or Patrick translating, Larry filming or praying.  It provided opportunities to see that sometimes I didn't even have to actually do anything unusual, I could just "be me being me", and God could use that -- playing with the children in Vadagodi or Ullalul.  And it provided opportunities to see that sometimes I didn't even have to do anything at all; that the mere presence of a person who had come halfway around the world to learn about God's work in India could be a source of encouragement that the Holy Spirit would use to encourage and strengthen someone working hard in challenging circumstances.

And it was great to see that there are common desires and passions that unite people everywhere.  There were people asking for prayer for family members and friends that don't know God.  There were people asking for prayer for economic stress.  There were also people asking for prayers for marriages that were under stress.  In a little village outside Bangalore we came and worshipped with a small group of people who are suffering social persecution because the area is mostly Hindu and they don't want their neighbors turning to Christ.  One woman came with a symbolic bag of sand and bottle of water and asked us to pray over them.  She and her husband were going to be building a home and they wanted to have God's blessing on their home; partly as a light in the village and partly for protection from persecution and from cobras and other dangers.  I was able to share that Lorie and I, similarly, when we built our home, prayed for our home, and told her of Psalm 127:1, that we had prayed -- "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it..." -- when our home was being built.  (By the way, we have never had any cobras in our home. ;-) )  So, the trip was a potent reminder that the image of God in mankind is something that ought to unite hears across all cultures and that the love God has for all mankind ought to serve as a motivator for us on a daily basis.

So, again, my profound thanks to all of you who helped me to participate in this trip both through gifts and prayers.  God bless you.  You have been an inspiration to me.

Tom Lindholtz
Sent from my desktop computer at home....praise the Lord!  ;-)