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.