Questioning the question

Indian society is advancing in leaps and bounds but the attitude towards women is rooted in the dark ages. I am a single woman and when I seen by friends at a Christian or social event or shopping place all by myself they ask me "Have you come alone?"

Its OK for them show their concern about my safety and well being but somehow they make it sound like an abuse in Hindi we call it gaali. It leaves you devoid of your minuscule ego and self esteem. One is already feeling rather lost in crowds of happy families when one is hit by this crippling salvo.

I am planning to answer their question like this:

Have you come alone?

No
With whom
If I am in a pious mood...I 'll say Jesus.

On a philosophical note I 'll say:
With my shadow

After playing VirtualCop, I 'll say
With my double barrel gun

If I 'm sick and depressed I can say
With my eyeglasses, hearing aid and orthopedic cane.

They 'll know I 'm kidding if i say
With my troop of bodyguards.

Friends any ideas?

Mercy Drops

On Sat April 28th we received a donation of Rs 2500 for our church roof repair fund. A drop in the ocean but I was able to pay the construction worker today and he will resume work tomorrow.

Mercy drops round us are falling

Desire

I want to post my photo on my blog, but don 't know how. If my nephew Ash 21 yrs. old doing Buusiness Management in NB were here he would have helped. What should I do?

Election Day

May 3rd is election Day for some districts of our state. since the past one month we are going through the slow process of electing a new governing body (called the state legislative assembly) for our state (Uttar Pradesh) headed by the Chief Minister or Governor. U.P. is the largest state of India and the most densely populated too, and our politics has a large role to play in the forming of the central or federal government.

Several political parties are in the fray. Some right wing religious fundamentalist, secular,leftist,backward caste supporters and independents. A good number of candidates have criminal backgrounds.
Our future is in the hands of the mafia to say the least.

Pray that the Lord may cause good, honest and just representatives to be elected. I will not be able to exercise my franchise as I was not issued an I-card. They took our photos 3 times and still no card. They do that to Christians as they know we vote for the secular Congress party.

Prayer Request

Please pray for our church court case hearing to be held on May 7th. This is the land grabbing case, which has been going on since the last 23 years. We have won 4 times at various levels, but the 'enemy" doesn 't give up easily. In India legal work is very slow ( people reading in the West will be shocked) You have to have infinite patience.

The opposite party is a rich and powerful so-called Christian (liberal )organization who is making false claims on our church property. They want to turn it into a business centre. With the Lord 's help we have been defending our land. My Dad fought for it and he died 3 years ago. I have taken over his job and our Pastor is also helping.

On May 7th the judge is giving the grabbers one last chance to present their witness. We know they have none, they just make up excuses.Pray that the judge may be firm and pass judgement based on our earlier victories. We are facing our Goliath on May 7th.

You can 't have a wedding without a band

Our house-help 's granddaughter is getting married today, she 's Muslim. In India this is the auspicious wedding season (like the open hunting season) fixed by the priests. Don 't know why the priests want to torture people in the heat.

They fixed the wedding party to arrive at noon, but had to change the time to later as the wedding band was booked at another place.

Lesson:Tune your wedding time to the band otherwise face the music!

Quote

Dr. Johnson wrote this to Boswell;"I"m sorry to have to write to you a long letter because I do not have the time to write a short one."

Bill Gates said;"I didn 't set out to achieve some level of wealth or size of company" What if he had man!

A Wedding!

Today is the engagement ceremony of our church night watchman, Rakesh, who is around 25 years old. He is a chauffeur by day and guards our campus at night.

A group of people from his bride 's house will arrive at his home this afternoon (sans the girl) bearing gifts. They will go through some Hindu rituals and later on have a vegetarian lunch and return. The wedding solemnizes on Sunday April 29th.

The groom"s party will go to the bride 's house on Sunday where a long and complicated wedding ceremony will take place sometime in the middle of the night, depending on the auspicious time determined by Hindu priests.The farewell takes place the next day.

The bride will stay in her new home for a couple of days and her brother or a male relative comes to take her back to her mother 's house where she will relax for a few days after which her husband will come to take her back. This takes place in the more traditional families, many modern couple skip all this.

In Rakesh 's case the initial coming and going will take place after which the bride will live with her parents for a year until the gonna. The gonna is the final settling down with the husband. This gives time to the couple to get used to the idea that they are married and the man to establish himself. The gonna procedure usually takes place among the peasants.

So we are congratulating Rakesh and I will send his wedding gift (cash).
Its too hot to attend the afternoon ceremony as the temp. is 110 or 45 degrees!

End of Canine Discrimination in our Home

I used to own two dogs till April 10, 2007. Jimmy my German Spitz died of unknown toxic poisoning on that day. now I 've got Sheeba my mixed Spitz and Lab.(Jimmy was 5.4 yrs, Sheeba is also the same)

My Mom adored Jimmy, Sheeba she just tolerated. Jim had a very distinct personality like a retired army general. Very staid and serious, extremely picky about food. Give him something new to eat and he would examine it forensically. He had his moments too. he would do the bamboo dance, when i would twirl a bamboo stick in front of him and he would jump up and down trying to grab it. Fate snatched him from us ans left us very lonely and sad.

Now my Mom has taken up Sheeba our frivolous, playful pooch.She pets Sheeba and allows her to lick her.Sheeba was my Dad 's darling until he passed away 3 years ago. Sigh, so now Sheeba you have found a friend in Mummy.

Watched Boris Yeltsin 's funeral on the Beeb. A historical man for Russia and the world

Quote

I read his quote in the newspaper "If atheism is a religion then bald is hair color"

Well i think some people do take atheism like a religion. Bald"s got skin right?

Large,Medium or Small

I love the current Airtel mob. service advertisement.It has individuals coming on and making statements like giving instructions to a particular place, a show and tell in school and inviting someone over. People with the large talktime overstate their thing and seem to go on forever, the medium folk elaborate their speech slightly and the smalltalk people express themselves in very concise and frugal sentences. I tend to fluctuate between the medium and small talktime. Don 't know what this blog will make me do.

Cry...cry while posting this entry i managed to scorch my stir fry veggie of cabbage and potatoes i was making for lunch.

A young life snuffed out

A young man from North East India died of drug overdose at the Seminary on Saturday April 21. His parents had sent him to bible school so that his life would be transformed. He studied here for a year and received counselling but nothing helped. maybe he should have gone to a drug rehab centre.

Pastor S and his wife invited us for Sunday dinner, they were celebrating the graduation of 2 of their friends. Both received Bachelor of Theology degrees. One of them Shyam Sharma is a Hindu convert.

It is very hot now...our Indian summer. Seems like the sun is only a mile away.Temps in the higher 100s. We cool our bedroom with a water run cooler.

Let me describe this contraption to you. Its the descendant of the steam engine LOL. It is an oblong metal box consisting of a water tank at the bottom and metal frames with coarse grass at the sides, fitted with an exhaust fan and a water pump . When the pump is switched on it circulates water on the top of the frames which wets and cools the grass. The powerful exhaust fans sucks cool air from the box into the area at which the cooler faces. Whew this is my very feeble attempt at describing an old fashioned, back to the future gizmo.Had fun? Maybe Google images has a photo.

A Prayer to Jesus

Our town is full of temples and mosques and places of worship for all kinds of faith. Some of these buildings are very beautiful are well maintained. So whenever I pass by one of these places i say a quick prayer to Jesus. "Lord look down from heaven and see this temple etc. where you are not honored. The enemy has given them resources to maintain and beautify their property, please provide help for Union Church too, so that we can worship you in a beautiful setting."

One day the Lord will fulfill the desire of my heart.

.Welcome to Yesu Garden

Hello friends I have just created a blog for Union Church ,Allahabad (India) in which I will be posting news, prayers requests, concerns and just talk about Union Church, India and life in general.I"ll try to be as regular as possible. So you, our dear friends can log on and find out what is happening.At the moment i don 't know how to post pictures, but in the future i will try and make an attempt.

UC (Union Church) is close to 200 years old. It has a 3 acre campus which houses the sanctuary and parsonage and servants block, very old buildings. There is the custodian 's house in which my mom and I live. it was constructed about 24 years ago. We are located in the prime business area of the town.Real estate here is very very expensive and so we have to save our precious land from the greedy eyes of land grabbers and swindlers. Very often we are approached by people who want to acquire our church land for their own interests. They are promptly turned down.
Please pray for our safety as many of these "hawks" are men of devious means, with mafia connections and political backing, they are also anti-Christian.

Three years ago the Lord gave me a fresh vision from Ezekiel 36, saying He will turn this wilderness into a garden of Eden as a testimony to the gentiles. I am holding on to the vision and we are seeing the Lord move.

The sanctuary is being repaired.A lot of hard labour, building materials and money has been invested into it. The 3 sided church porch (veranda)
has been partially renovated. The roof was first pulled down and we put up asbestos sheets on iron rods. Now the gaps between the sheets and the walls have to be filled up with concrete.

We are asking the Lord to provide the needed money for this work. We still have to pay off our construction workers.They are very patient in receiving their payments. Please pray for this.

Our land grabbing case hearing will take place on May 7th (if the on-coming state assembly (senate) elections allow it to happen).

Pray for a fair and just government and governor to be elected in Uttar Pradesh.

Pastor Shailendra has been busy at the Seminary. Today is Graduation day and 43 of his long distant students are graduating. Yesterday i went to the graduation dinner and met some of them.

Hope you find this posting interesting.
Amrita