India/Nepal Report #10 (really #11): Tues, Oct 30, 2012 at 6 a.m. from Saiha, Mizoram, India
Dear Family and Friends:
Since we do have trouble getting on line at just any time, I’ll start another report and add as able to send when possible.
The attendance at the evening meeting continues strong—more than 300 they said last night. David, my translator, is impressed with how closely they are listening. It seems the Lord is doing a special work here once again. The pastors are all talking about the strong baptismal response at Lunglei. Pastor Liana will do good follow up and we appreciate that.
We were invited to go to a school some distance away and talk to the students. We are willing, but learned last night that it would be a five-hour round trip besides the time spent with the students. That would compromise our evening meeting and so we had to say no this time.
The book on the history and customs of the wild tribes of this area in early days is fascinating. I have managed to read 70 pages and plan to read it all while here. It is so interesting to see how the Lord led and protected those early pioneers. We will go through the place where they had headquarters on our way back to Aizawl and plan to stop for photos and perhaps a brief visit with a pioneer’s granddaughter who married a Mara and now does not speak much if any English.
One brief story will whet your appetite for more. On their way from England to India (1907) and on up into what was then called Further India, the N. E. section inhabited by very primitive people, Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Lorrain walked up a path from their steamship to a hut where they could spend the night. They learned that just the day before on that same path a tribal man saw a tiger by the wayside. He foolishly threw a clump of dirt into its face. That infuriated the tiger and it leaped on him, ripped off his arm and ran into the jungle with it.
The remote place where they built their first mission station was opened for travel in this way: One tribe had a slave family that ran away into what was then British territory. Warriors followed the runaways and brought them back. To discourage any further attempts to escape they hanged the man. Since this was on British territory the Brits felt it necessary to send an armed group to punish the tribe for doing that but the way was so inaccessible that they first had to build a road (path) over the treacherous mountain peaks and through the jungle. That took them two years and the Brits had so much trouble doing it that they abandoned the idea of going further just then. That “road” ended exactly where the mission station was to be set up. Without that path in, the missionaries could not have reached the place with all their needed supplies.
Today we are to leave at 9:15 to go to the Saiha SDA School and talk to the students. It takes a special effort on their part to get ready for an assembly. The school has no auditorium and they will have to carry benches out to where they meet. They needed to repair their PA system because it would be needed with so many students. We continue to be impressed with how much they desire our ministry. As it turned out, the students carried the benches to the house where the church meets on Sabbath and we talked to the students from grades seven through ten. It is too much to get the younger students there. We are to continue each morning through Friday with this Spiritual Emphasis Week. They need translation even though some classes are in English. About 200 attended the assembly, less than 1/3 of the student body.
Electricity and water are not always available here even in this better place to stay. Last night just as we were leaving for the meeting, the water stopped. Lodge people came to inspect our supply. Fortunately, we had filled the large barrel used for bathing and auxiliary toilet flushing. We noted that the water was not as clean as we usually have. Apparently it was the last of the tank and we got the sediment. We suspect that the water comes from the river and contains whatever the river is carrying down the valley.
9 p.m. It rained tonight and that cut the attendance some since many walk to the meeting, but we still had a strong group including a newspaper journalist who talks English and said that people are enjoying the sermons very much and he plans to publish them in his paper. Our Translator observed another man who was taking notes throughout the sermon and had tears in his eyes at the close. The Holy Spirit is working on hearts. I keep thinking of what these Mara people were 100 years ago and what they are now with the Gospel knowledge they have received. What a change! We get reports that very many are watching us via the TV channel. Since it is not live coverage of the meeting, but a DVD the next morning, the station does not charge for it. (Double blessing)
Biaka is doing much better and his voice sounds normal again, but we encouraged him not to make that long trip down to be with us such a short time. He needs to get really rested. His wild program finally caught up with him. Like someone else we know, Biaka does not like to turn down opportunities to share Jesus with people in public preaching or in giving Bible studies all over Aizawl. His “fuel tank” just hit empty and needed filling once more. On a phone call he told me that he and his family pray for us every day and we assured him that we do the same for them. He said that our Mizo granddaughter (his adopted daughter) prays for her “American grandpa and grandma.” We know the Lord hears the prayers of little children too.
8 a.m. Wednesday (Oct 31) We are almost getting used to the cold pours, but still look forward to the warm water when we go back on Monday to the former Lodge. Also clothes drying will be easier on their outdoor lines. However, we have adapted well to the changes. In spite of the better mosquito netting here we still get bites from somewhere. When we read of the pioneers to here from England in the early 1900s we realize how good we have it now. They had no defense against the hoard of mosquitoes and other biting bugs other than an inferior net and smoke filling the room by burning something in a bucket. They had little defense against ants for their food. The ants managed to get into what were thought to be waterproof and airtight containers so they had to throw out much of what they had brought from England to enjoy. At times they had so little food that all they ate was what they could shoot and that included turtles, monkeys and a variety of birds. We would not have adapted well to their rough life on that kind of food.
Our “hardships” now merely include the tasteless boiled vegetables, potatoes, green string beans, and the rice with watered down dahl. We requested dahl with no oil and also boiled (we preferred steamed but it is not always available) vegetables, and they complied. We now know for sure that the oil is where the flavor is. A little salt helps a great deal. We are to the place where we are willing to skip the hot meal at noon and make do with what we can buy at the market to eat raw. The raisons do help to spiz up the rice we save from the noon meal and bring to the room for breakfast with soymilk and white bread. We have given up on getting brown bread from Aizawl even though Nettie would gladly continue to send it by Sumo, a fourwheel drive vehicle that carries people inside and goods on top. The Aizawl bakery does not bake the WW bread as thoroughly and so it easily molds and we have to keep cutting it away or else eat little else than the bread to consume it before the mold has a chance to form.
The same lady who gave us the raisons gave us some American tasty treats last night at the meeting. They help to rehabilitate our taste buds that had given up on ever tasting pleasant flavors again other than the fruit and tomatoes.
Today is the halfway point of our time away from USA. We surveyed our food supplies from home and things like the “wet ones” for sanitizing the fresh fruit and tomatoes and cleaning the table after each meal. Now we know how well we are doing at dividing and rationing certain items we can’t replace until home again. It is a challenge to come out even and not have leftovers to bring home, yet have enough to supplement the food on the airlines as we fly. Also, since we plan to leave one suitcase with the Bible Felts, we need the space taken by the food and other dispensable items for the little gifts they feel obliged to give to recognize our service to them. We would rather they didn’t give us things, but do appreciate their intent and devotion to hospitality. Even the early tribal people would vacate their home to let a European or American stay there for the night. We experienced close to that in Tripura last time in 2011 when the Bru couple gave us their bamboo bed while they slept on the floor. No amount of protest from us could dissuade them from doing it.
That was a special blessing since my back problem was more severe then than now.
9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct 31: Tonight the attendance was very good again and the people were very attentive. The newspaper journalist was there again and assured us he was printing the sermons in the paper because of pubic interest.
Just after our noon meal we had a visitor—the man who gave us the book on history and customs of the Mara tribe. He is SDA and teaches elementary public school here for the Mara kids. They have few students because the private schools like our SDA School here are getting almost all of the available students. It is known that they get better education at our school. We had another meeting for the students this morning and were followed carefully in the presentation. They really sing out too. I taped on video some of it. Our visitor is very knowledgeable and shared good things with us concerning the population of the cities where we have worked in the South Mizoram area. Laungtlai where we labored last year has about 14,000 in population. Lunglei has 40,000 and Saiha here has 30,000. The history of the Mara people gives real insight into how the heathen tribals lived and feared the evil spirits while doing everything they could to placate them. I told the audience at tonight’s meeting how we appreciated how the missionaries from England had made such a difference and how we were glad to be in that heritage of bringing the good news of the Gospel also. We hope to take them deeper into some of the truths especially needed in these last days. The pioneers did well to break through enough to get just a few who would claim Christianity and modify their lives somewhat. Now the whole of Mizoram is mostly Christian, but some are still blending the old pagan ways with what they know of Christianity.
Today there was a lot of pure joy among the pastors and evangelists who are helping with the meetings. We distributed five laptop computers and will have three more to give in the next few days—the result of a special gift to our Evangelism account just before we left on this trip. I have on video the testimonials of those receiving them. Most are on such low wages they can hardly live and never dreamed they could ever have a laptop to help with their work. It makes them want to work harder for the Lord using this new tool to reach remote places. It was a great investment with immediate dividends in praise to God and appreciation to the donors who make all this possible.
It is time for bed now so I’ll try to get this on its way if we can get on line. We continue to appreciate your prayers and email notes from home.
With love,
Glenn and Mary Alice, Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma