India Report #16: Monday, Nov. 7, 2011 at 4:32 a.m. from Lawngtlei, Mizoram
Dear family and friends:
I’m becoming a “sleepyhead” it seems. Slept until 3 and stayed warm in bed for another hour before starting the day. Getting to bed before 9 helps a lot! The meetings here are more organized and predictable.
One highlight of Sunday was the hydrotherapy on my chest. We went to the house of Sabbath (Thanga) where we get our noon meal, and were there by the suggested 10 a.m. but the evangelist who was to do the fomentations could not get there until 11. So we had a nice visit with whoever came in and out. Sabbath had to go on his motorbike to visit an SDA member whose son was involved in a fight. The father tried to intervene and someone hit him on the head with a metal rod. He survived but was injured. I don’t know to what extent. Here details are hard to establish.
The heating unit for the fomentations was a rice cooker. It took a while to balance out the difference between how much heat the rice needs to cook and how much heat I could stand on my chest. It worked well and did help. This was followed by a full body massage. He learned how to do that in our Adventist Training School in Meghaliah. It seems that Bill Doll who has had an independent ministry in India for many years, had one of his helpers give that training. My muscles were very tight from all the travel by air and land under varying conditions of physical distress. The evangelist is the same one mentioned before who remembers our first visit to India to conduct the Mawbawk series of meetings in 1998. Now he is married and has 4 children, but is away from them much of the time in his evangelism. God is blessing him with many baptisms. He works well with the youth also. God blessed me through his talented hands as well. I felt much better and nearly fell asleep on the bed where the massage took place.
I tried to give him money to help with his family, but he steadfastly refused to accept it. That is a new twist for India. He is a member of the Lei (sounds like lie) tribe who are considered Mizo but are a different strain. Most of the people here in Lawngtlei (notice the ending) are from that tribe.
Following was the lunch prepared for us. We did not know that the Sabbath family and most Mizos do not eat much for noon. Breakfast and Supper are their main events, probably because of work schedules. But they went all out to make things for us that we could appreciate. We had boiled Irish and sweet potatoes, rice with dahl that was very tasty, green beans (a kind that grows here only in the mountains) and some other kind of greens along with Okra just boiled. I ate it with more relish than usual. We are wondering if it would not be better for us to eat with them at breakfast so they would not have the extra cooking at noon. We can adjust as necessary.
Today we are to eat with one of the Sabbath neighbors who are church members. The husband knows the message but is hooked on alcohol. We hope that somehow we can be of help with that problem. He is the field agent here for a large company. We do have some fears about eating with them. How much do they know about clean water? We were shown their cistern that has a lid on it which makes the water inside “clean”. But that water from the roofs carries a lot of extra baggage we don’t need. By the grace of God (and charcoal) we should be ok. We try to stay with food that has been heated well.
Then there was a quick trip back to our room to change into a suit and go to another part of the village to preach in the open air to a group of people who say they cannot come to the Hall. The music was great because the backgrounds were limited in the portable P.A. system we used. There must have been 150 there with a large number of them being children. Several families in that area are preparing for baptism from the work done ahead by the visiting pastors and evangelists. It is hard to prepare ahead what to talk about because you don’t know your audience until you see them. I adapted the sermon for the children as well as the adults and they listened carefully. Several of them did show up for the evening meeting.
The tide has turned. Our evening meeting began at 6:30 with a large attendance and it grew as we spoke. Biaka says we are seeing a miracle because most of the other churches have large meetings on Sunday night that would take away from those coming to ours. A Mizo friend in USA (Maryland) phoned Biaka to say that all the Mizos there are fasting and praying for our series. With that kind of support (including all of you who are praying for us also) it gives real courage to preach the Word in spite of what could be a hostile environment. We are encouraging those who are already Christians and satisfied, to dig deeper into God’s Word and follow His leading with additional truths not specified in the reformation they chose to follow a hundred years ago.
The children are attracted to Mary Alice (as also the adults) and swarm around her to shake hands and greet in whatever English they know. After the service while we were trying to hastily pack up the sound equipment and get back to prepare for the evening meeting, people jumped around us for photos. It seemed that everyone wanted to be photographed with us. We understand more about the challenges of the paparazzi. They make you feel like royalty, and of course, we are. (Sons and daughters of God.)
Sound sleep came easily with all the exercise and therapy. I gave my book on the Sanctuary to my masseur who knows English and he was delighted. We could not bring enough of them to give away significant numbers.
Biaka says winter is coming here early because of the earlier rains. Maybe it will be warmer down in the valley in Tripura for the last leg of our trip. Here, by mid morning the sun burns off the mists and the chill to a large extent. We did get another blanket from the manager of our apartment. That helped a bit last night.
We are impressed with the way the Mizos jump in and work together to get a needed job done. When we were first setting up the large Rear Projection screen at the hall, it was a problem how to hang it. But they got a ladder which did not reach high enough and so had nothing to lean against at the top to fasten our screen to their curtain rod. No problem. Someone pulled a bench over and put the ladder on that. Then they had several all around helping steady the ladder because it only had about 1 ½ inch of wood against the concrete wall. They got the job done and it is serving well.
Yesterday I tried twice to get on line but failed. We did eventually get on long enough to send out Report #15. At this early hour we may get on more easily and get this update on its way.
With love,
Dad and Mom, (Glenn and Mary Alice)
P.S. Since I couldn’t get on line to send this, I’ll add a few more things. It is 62 degrees in our room accompanied by the brisk breeze that carries the mist with it. We are living in the clouds today until the sun burns it off. The clothes on our indoor line may be “freeze dried” before warmth progresses enough to do it.
Fortunately, I got my sermon for tonight ready when up at 4 and so may just retreat to the bed in full dress and sweater (minus shoes) to bask in warmth listening to good things on the IPod. Mary Alice still has to work over her health talk for tonight.
Mary Alice just talked with Helen Anderson and learned of a strong earthquake in Oklahoma last night that rattled her bed for 45 seconds. I wonder if we would have felt in at our house.
We skipped our daily “pour” because the heating element is not working to get the water warm. Didn’t sweat much yesterday or this morning anyhow. We haven’t yet learned to warm water by friction. Something yet to be invented.