Day 4 (or early Day 5)
Well, surprise of all surprises, I haven't been keeping my journal updated daily. :D Please don't try to tell me that any of you really expected me to managed that...
Today and the last couple of days haven't been too eventful in the work arena. I've gotten things accomplished, mind you, but there haven't been any breakthroughs. I have completed all that I came here (Chicago region) to do. Now on to India! (provided the visa arrives tomorrow)
I should be in bed now, but I don't think I can or should try to sleep just yet. We ate rather late tonight. Actually, tonight was rather a wild and amazing night altogether. The Lukos family and I attended a prayer / Bible study meeting tonight in the home of Saji's friend Matthew. Let me see a show of hands... how many people have experienced worship in a group that doesn't speak much English? Ok, you have some clue what this was like.
But not entirely. In addition to the language being different (they all spoke Malyalam, a rather rapid sort of language), Indians seem to be a very demonstrative culture. Prayer, for example, is most definitely not one person leading and the others largely listening with perhaps an occasional amen thrown in. They basically all prayed at the same time. Generally, one person seemed to be leading, but I only guessed at that because he/she was louder than the rest -- I couldn't understand any of it, of course. After a while of prayer, someone would break into a song, and we'd repeat it several times (that or there were a great many verses that sounded all alike).
After some time, the prayer wound down and the preaching began. There was an Indian guy about my age (maybe a couple of years older) who spoke first. Then, as Saji had warned me, I was asked to share my story... why I, the obvious outsider, was present. So I shared my testimony in brief and talked about how I came to be making a trip to India. Then Saji preached for a while... so by the time we finished, it was 9:30ish. Then we ate.
Saji had made a semi-joke out of that before-hand. "Americans," he said, "eat and then have prayer meeting. Indians pray first and then eat." So we ate, and wow it was good. Several different types of dishes... all of them good. One rather interesting and quite delectable one is a yogurt curry that is used sort of like a gravy, though it's much more liquid that what we typically call gravy. For desert we had mango pie.
'nuff said. I'm about to fall asleep now, so good night all.
Today and the last couple of days haven't been too eventful in the work arena. I've gotten things accomplished, mind you, but there haven't been any breakthroughs. I have completed all that I came here (Chicago region) to do. Now on to India! (provided the visa arrives tomorrow)
I should be in bed now, but I don't think I can or should try to sleep just yet. We ate rather late tonight. Actually, tonight was rather a wild and amazing night altogether. The Lukos family and I attended a prayer / Bible study meeting tonight in the home of Saji's friend Matthew. Let me see a show of hands... how many people have experienced worship in a group that doesn't speak much English? Ok, you have some clue what this was like.
But not entirely. In addition to the language being different (they all spoke Malyalam, a rather rapid sort of language), Indians seem to be a very demonstrative culture. Prayer, for example, is most definitely not one person leading and the others largely listening with perhaps an occasional amen thrown in. They basically all prayed at the same time. Generally, one person seemed to be leading, but I only guessed at that because he/she was louder than the rest -- I couldn't understand any of it, of course. After a while of prayer, someone would break into a song, and we'd repeat it several times (that or there were a great many verses that sounded all alike).
After some time, the prayer wound down and the preaching began. There was an Indian guy about my age (maybe a couple of years older) who spoke first. Then, as Saji had warned me, I was asked to share my story... why I, the obvious outsider, was present. So I shared my testimony in brief and talked about how I came to be making a trip to India. Then Saji preached for a while... so by the time we finished, it was 9:30ish. Then we ate.
Saji had made a semi-joke out of that before-hand. "Americans," he said, "eat and then have prayer meeting. Indians pray first and then eat." So we ate, and wow it was good. Several different types of dishes... all of them good. One rather interesting and quite delectable one is a yogurt curry that is used sort of like a gravy, though it's much more liquid that what we typically call gravy. For desert we had mango pie.
'nuff said. I'm about to fall asleep now, so good night all.