Jet Blog

Hey Everyone -

The time draws nigh, actually the nigh already came and now its gone. I'm back in the US, but I wanted to tell you all about my adventures during my last week in India.

A week from last saturday I got on a train and headed down to Tamil Nadu to visit my friend Noah who is an evangelist down there. In case I haven't mentionned this before, I met Noah through our India prayer group at Biola last fall, and he stayed at my apartment for a week. It was probably the most intense week yet, simply because every day was pretty unique and different. Village that he lives in is much smaller than the others I had visited (only about 300,000) and they don't get too many white people there. As a result, I was given almost celebrity status. Everywhere we went I got introduced to the most important people there. Not only that but I was also given the opportunity/had to speak everywhere we went. Some of those places included house churches, universities, street preaching, orphanages, sunday schools and regular churches.





Let me give you one example of how this looked. On friday we drove about 40 minutes to a smaller, more rural community outside Noah's village to do some gospel outreach. Normally what we would do is drive to the center of the village, set up a pa system, and start talking/playing with the kids and singing until a crowd gathered. Then we would share the gospel. In this village, however, there was a hindu celebration going on in the town center when we arrived. So went to the town's school and found a worship service going on. We gathered all the believers from inside, and proceeded to walk through the streets of the town singing until we had found a lighted street and had enough people gathered. Then Noah talked for a bit, and handed the mic to me saying, "share the gospel." Most places we went it looked something like that.



After a week with Noah, I traveled by train back up north to catch my plane in Hyderabad. I had some difficulty getting home, but it worked out pretty well in the end. I had to catch a connecting flight in Mumbai, but that flight was cancelled on August 10th. The next flight didn't leave for two days on August 12th. Originally I was pretty frustrated, but then I found out that they were putting up in a 5 star hotel and paying for all my meals. So instead of leaving exhausted for the US, I was able rest up a bit first. Not only that, but I was able to visit the guys I lived with for 5 weeks that saturday and say goodbye one last time. Just another small example of the goodness of our Shepherd's leading.

I am planning on sending out one last update after this one kind of recapping the summer. So you can start preparing yourselves now for the sadness that will come when you no longer have a new message from Kyle popping up in you inbox on a regular basis.

Kyle

Boxers or Debriefs?

Greetings -

Well, I'm back in Hyderabad again. We took the train all wednesday afternoon/night and arrived hear early thursday morning. This part of my trip is almost over. We finished the debriefing session for the OM interns today and I have got my train ticket down to Tamil Nadu to visit my friend Noah, which leaves saturday night. The debriefing has been helpful in guiding my reflection process, although I am approaching it slightly differently from the rest of the interns since I am not going back to the states yet (the rest of the interns are).

Probably one of the most impactful experiences thaat I have had so far has been my time in the classroom. Getting thrown into a class where I can hardly communicate has been both humbling and frustrating. Since my ability to teach was severely hampered, all that I could really communicate effectively was love. Even that was difficult. Each day I had to make a conscious decision to display the love of Christ to these children even if I could teach them nothing else. It forced me to be intentional about loving. I began to realize the weight of Jesus' command to love my neighbor as myself and my horrific failures to do so. Fortunately the greatest command is the basis for my love for others. It is by loving God with everything that I am only that I am able to love others. Loving is supernature. Please pray that I would abound more and more in it.

I am going to be doing quite a bit of traveling this weekend, as there is no direct train to Madurai. Because of this I will be doing a bit of train switching in the process. This is going to be made slightly more difficult because I am still experiencing some lingering effects from my ear infection, basically I just can't hear out of my right ear right now. It's supposed to get better soon, but it might make travel a little more difficult. Hopefully you will "hear" from me when I get to Madurai.

Kyle

AUI #5

My hair was getting a little shaggy so I decided to go to an Indian Saloon (that's how they spell it here) and get a trim. Once I got there I figured I would go the whole nine yards and get a shave too. What a great experience! Most of the haircut was what you would expect and the shave too, although I've never had that before so I'm not entirely sure. The best part, though, was the oil massage after the cutting was finished. It begins with the squirting of a large amount of coconut oil onto one's head, followed by a vigorous slapping and pounding similar to how one would knead bread dough. Then, to my delight, the saloonist strapped a vibrating contraption to the back of his hand and began to massage my head, neck, shoulders, arms, and back. It was glorious. All for $2.50.

Ear we go again!

Hello All!

Apparently my body does not fully agree with the Mumbai rains, depite all the training I had growing up in Juneau. Sunday evening I began to feel a little sick, and by monday morning I was in the hospital again, this time with an ear infection. As a result I have spent much of the last three days in our apartmartment. I wish I could say that my suffering was a direct result of my gospel witness, because then I would be much more motivated to rejoice in it. As it is, I'm pretty sure that my ear got infected primarily because of my own stupidity. The infection most likely began shortly after I used a rolled up piece of newspaper to clean my ears. But I will rejoice in these circumstances never the less, because God has used the time for good. I am pretty scatterbrained most of the time and have a difficult time organizing my thoughts without concerted effort, so the last few days gave me a great opportunity to nothing but reflect on my experiences so far. He works all things out for good and I'm pretty much back to normal now.

Since most of my time since my last update has been spent doing a whole lot nothing, I don't have a lot to report. Please pray for the community in the slum which we are working in. 2 days ago two children were killed while playing with a bottle filled with chemicals when it exploded. They weren't apart of our school or children that we knew personally, but pray that God would use this to draw people to himself.

That's basically it. I leave Mumbai a week from today so hopefully I will be able to give a better update then.

Kyle

AIE #4
When I told my Indian roommates that my ear was hurting really bad on monday, their first guess of what could have caused it confirmed my worst fear. They thought that most likely the pain was the result of a bug that had crawled into my ear and made its home there. In order to find out that was the case Dinesh (my roommate) poured a little water in my ear as I lay on my side. He then began to describe, primarily through motions, what it would feel like if the bug were crawlling out of my ear. I almost wish that it had been a bug in my ear simply because if it had come out anything at all like he described it the whole procedure would have been worth it. But, sadly there was no bug.

Midterms

Hellow All! I've been in India for one month now, so here's the midterm report (how's that for teacher prep?).

I have two weeks left here in Mumbai before traveling back to hyderbad for a day or two of debriefing. From there I will be taking the train way down south to Tamil Nadu to visit my friend Noah who is an evangelist down there. The last two weeks have been filled with lots of teaching in the mornings. We have been able to do some home visitations as well as prayer meetings and bible studies most every night.

I have had the opportunity to share from the word at a number of the studies as well as during church. I have been overwhelmed with the responsibility of teaching the word of God and would appreciate your prayers in this as I want to prove myself to be one who rightly handles the word. This is sometimes more difficult here because oftentimes the request to teach comes hours before the actual meeting, which makes it necessary to be prepared to teach before the request comes.

The rainy season has been great in terms of temperature (it's much cooler), but they haven't cancelled the game and our team has had to play a man down most days. One of the Indian brothers who lives with me has been out for a week now with a fever. Please pray for our health, and specifically his as he is needed as a Hindi teacher in the school.

Every sunday in church they have a testimony time where they open of the floor for anyone to share how the father has moved in their lives that week. It is one of the most amazing times because of the sheer number testimonies that are given each week. I've been thinking a lot about II Chronicles 16:9 "the eyes of the lord move to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his." The lives of these people are a testament to God's faithfulness to those who seek him with all their heart.



Some of the kids will eat their lunch under their desks.



This is a view of the slum from the window in the school.



These are some of the boys that are with us a lot. They speak good enough english to translate most of the time and are super helpful.








AIE #3
The social standards in Indian culture are quite a bit different than those in America, especially those concerning personal space and touch. In India, it is not very common to see public displays of affection between men and women, but it is perfectly acceptable for two men to be seeen walking down the street arm in arm or hand in hand. The other day one of the indian brothers who I live with and I were standing outside of a store on the street corner waiting for some people to come out, when he slipped his hand inside of mine. Being the cultural chamoelean (I'm pretty sure that's spelled wrong) that I am, I stood there, hand in hand with another man, and simply enjoyed the freedom of Indian culture.

So here are a couple of pictures of what has been going on so far.


The first is a picture at Charminar (or something like that I think). The guy in it is me. Sorry it's sideways.

This is a picture of our flat with one of the roomies in it. Two bedrooms straight back, two bathrooms, a kitchen on the right. That's pretty much it.




This is a picture of some of the students in one of the schools. Anytime you take your camera out they go crazy. They love being able to see the picture right after it's taken.



This last picture is on the water in Mumbai. This group of Indian guys were really excited to practice their english with me and wanted to take a picture with me too! Enjoy.

Monsooner or Later

Greetings -

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. Things have been...happening. Last week was pretty busy. We spent most of the days working in one of the slum schools. Please talk to our father about this. They are in the admission process right now and simply do not have enough space or teachers to accomodate all of the students that want to attend. The other day we had to send away mothers and their children crying because there was no space in the school for them. Especially ask that our father would provide teachers and soon. My teammate and I have been teaching the second grade class by ourselves because there is not teacher for that grade.

Last saturday was a day of rain. It rained close to 350mm and there was a lot of flooding, but fortunately there were very few serious injuries. The power was out most of the day and so we spent our time lying around the apartment sweating because the fans weren't on. Sunday night I began to feel sick and ended up with a fever for most of monday and tuesday. I went to the doctor tuesday and got some drugs and am feeling much better now. One good thing about the fever, though, was that I had some serious chills. I finally got to use my blanket at night! Please remember my health. I am not going to be here much longer and want to take full advantage of my time here.

Kyle

AIE #2

If any of you have ever played the game frogger, you have a good idea of the traffic in India. The object of the game is to successfully move your character, a frog, across a busy street without getting squished by oncoming traffic. That is the beauty of traffic here. It's like a real life video game. For example, say I want to cross the street. There is no need to find a crosswalk, or "look both ways," simply step out into the road and don't get hit.

So it begins...

Hey Everybody -

Good News! I got my luggage on wednesday, so now I don't stand out because I am wearing the same clothes everyday, but because I am a foot taller than most people I meet. The last week has been great, though. Most of the orientation was primarily informative and we weren't required to do much beside soak in the information. Except for the day of teacher at the school I mentioned before. That was a humbling day. I have spent the last four years preparing to teach and so I went into the day expecting that it would be different, but that it wouldn't be that different from a US school. It wasn't a typical school day for the children either, though, because the semester just started. So there were no textbooks, no set curriculum that had begun, and most of the students were still not used to the structure of school. Basically, most of the actual lessons that we had planned on teaching did not work (or we simply decided not to even try them). We did teach the students a song or two, play a few games, and do a little teaching from an old textbook with the teacher's help. I am excited to get some more classroom experience on the trip now that I know a little more of what to expect.

Yesterday we finished our orientation in Hyderabad and flew to Mumbai where I will spend the next 5 weeks. As it turns out, myself and Jason (another guy from the US) are staying with two Indian brothers who work full time with the program here. If that wasn't sweet enough, we are all going to share the cooking responsiblities. It's going to be a learning process since pretty much everything must be made from scratch. Fortunately, they have been eager to help and very patient.

Most of my days will be spent in the slums. They are going to be pretty busy from what I understand. We will be doing a lot of work with the school that they run (I'm guessing I may end up doing quite a bit since they know I'm studying to become a teacher). We will also be involved in leading a number of church services, bible studies, and kid's clubs, as well as doing home visitations and bringing food to people. Most days go from about 9am to 7 or 8 pm. More on that later.

Things to be "thinking" about:
- humilty/willingness to learn for me
- patience for the indian brothers
- unity/deep relationships between the housemates

Kyle

PS. I've decided to include in each of these emails an Authentic Indian Experience that I have had so far. I think it's gonna be pretty funny and I hope you enjoy them. This week's was especially good.

Kyle's Authentic Indian Experience #1
In India, they have a slightly different process for using the restroom than I was used to. The typical Indian toilet consists only of a porcelain hole in the floor with a bucket of water next to it. Hence the term "squatty-potty." I'll try not to be too graphic, but the process is like this: Step 1) squat over hole, tuck pants, shorts, sari, lungi etc. behind knees. Step 2) Relieve oneself. Step 3) Wipe with left hand and water for that just brushed clean feeling. Step 4) Shake dry and wash hands. Thoroughly. This is one of the main reasons why Indians only use their right hand to eat with :)