wow, this is a lot

so, we haven't had internet for a few days, so this is a huge post.
No pictures either, I don't have the speed to upload. Soon, we promise. I'll drop some in the appropriate places in this giant post, plus others we like, since I know pictures are the most fun, and only our parents will read this mammoth thing.

Anyway,
Highlights:
I preached 11 times in 4 days, Rachel 5 times.
I named a baby (you're welcome Michael).
Rachel learned to Indian dance.
We personally blessed hundreds of people by praying with our hands on them.
We went to the beach 3 times.
We met lots of wonderful new friends.
Rachel is wearing a sari this evening.
Clearly, we're exhausted, but delighted by our most cross cultural experience of our lives.

Tuesday, July 19th
Another step deeper in
We knew we were in for an adventure when we flew to the Rajmundry airport, and saw nothing beneath us that would qualify as 'city' or even 'town', but more like 'jungle, interspersed with huts.' the Rajmundry 'airport' consisted of one runway, surrounded by a high fence. Baggage claim was a truck, driven up to the 'terminal' (a room smaller than the fellowship hall) which was unloaded in the middle of the room, first come first served. We were feeling 'excited' at this point (OK, enough with the quotes).
However, as we came outside, we were greeted by Augusteen and Lalitha's smiling faces, and we were welcomed with warm embraces, and traditional Indian garlands. It was a delight to reconnect after a year apart. His ministry and home are about 2 hrs. away from the airport, so we hopped in the car with the driver and Lalitha, and Augusteen followed behind on his motorcycle. (picture)
Its a very different part of India-palm and coconut trees, rice patties, water buffalo, lounging in lakes, prawn fisheries, and a much more rural setting. Rather than there being people everywhere, there are just people always in sight-that is, you can look at things other than the people without much trouble most of the drive. Its also an interesting place because of the contrasts. Most people live in grass huts, or houses with concrete walls with grass roofs, and the richest live in concrete or brick houses. But all over the region, there are large construction projects, schools and industries moving to the rural area for whatever reason. I hope that it promises hope to poor people. There are certainly good things being done.
(picture)
We reached Augusteen and Lalitha's, which is a charming cement home of about 4 rooms (depending how you count the mostly outdoor bathroom) next door to the as yet unfinished church. There we met his three daughters (Priscilla, Santa Sharut, and Susan) as well as his parents, and were given an hour to rest from our journey. We watched the sun set from their roof, had cookies, tea, and apples, and made friends with the girls, who speak a little English (In 6th grade, they take three languages-Telegu, the local language, Hindu, and English-as always, America has some work to do). Then we set off on the next step on our journey. Augusteen has set up a pastor's conference in Anapurim, nearly 100 km further away, and we needed to be there. We packed 6 people in a 4.5 person car, and headed off. About 20 km in, we stopped for supper, and dropped Augusteen and pastor Luke Bosca off to take the bus the rest of the way (fear not, they were only 30 minutes behind us. Buses work in India). After arriving, we collapsed in bed, exhausted.

Wednesday, July 20th-
Today, we awoke early, to have breakfast with Augusteen and Lalitha, and to be updated on the days adventures. We talked about appropriate cultural behavior (take off your shoes outside homes and places of worship, say hello (bagunara) and thank you (wandanalu) at appropriate times, don't shake hands with women unless they want it, things like that. Also, we shared the gifts we brought with us for them and their community, which were very well received, particularly the shirts, Lalitha's bag, and the nativity we brought Augusteen.
One particularly interesting discussion revolved around how to talk about Hinduism. Augusteen's perspective, which I really liked, is that they don't want to be in comparison with Hinduism, because comparison begets competition, which is not good for anyone. Rather, they want to share the love of God they have found in Christianity, and have a book about that love which they want to teach, but they acknowledge that Hindus have deep and sincere faith, and that they too worship God, even if it is the unknown God that Paul talked about in Acts. It was a simple and profound statement of both our calling to share the good news, and our calling to respect all the religions of the world, and to be good neighbors.
Then, after a brief morning nap, it was time to begin the adventure.
We gathered at the home of pastor Luke, and met his wife and delightful children (picture)
There, we received second breakfasts, *all day we ate like hobbits. My previously useless talent for eating way more food than a body my size should be able to hold was finely proven useful.* This meal including igli, a rice and plum (not our plum) fritter, chai tea (Delicious) and a freshly opened coconut to drink the water inside (you chop off the top with a machete, and drink it with a straw. A little sweet, a little salty, not bad. Rachel even likes it.

Then there was lunch-chicken curry (2 kinds) sambar (soup to go over rice) yogurt with onion.
After lunch, more worship, and more preaching, I spoke on the parable of the sower, and Jesus' teaching both how to be Evangelists, and how to prepare our hearts for God's word. Everyone who was at SLMF two Sundays ago will recognize the bones of the sermon. Its nice to have an audience who hasn't heard anything I have to say.
Then there was afternoon tea, with Pakora, and banana pakora, little fried balls, which are great, for lunch.
Following that, we went to another local congregation, 4 km away. This church building, rather than cement and well equipped, was wood construction, with only two walls, made of palm and coconut leaf. There we ate (of course), including a new fruit for Rachel and I-custard apple. I can't even describe it (but wikipedia can!) but if you get a chance, eat it-its amazing! We blessed the pastor and the building, celebrating this ministry as well. It was interesting to think of the economic and cultural differences between the two places.
The most interesting experience of the afternoon was the opportunity to name a child. A mother came with a 3 month old boy, and asked me to bless him, which I did, basically the standard child dedication prayer, adapted for India. Then she asked me to give him a name. I was a little taken aback-I'm reasonably nervous about naming my pets, let alone someone else's child on the spur of the moment, in a language where I now know about 7 names, total. But Augusteen said just pick a good biblical name. So I picked Micah. Which everyone but Rachel heard as Michael. So Mikaelu it is. I am quite content with how that turned out. So, if anyone sees my brother-in-law, let him know I named a kid after him.
After this, we were sent back to the hotel for a much needed rest before evening worship (Augusteen and Lalitha, gratefully, have put us up in a place with air conditioning, and an American toilet).
In the evening, more food (oof), before my 3rd sermon of the day (a new record!) this was to the whole congregation, and about 100 people crammed into a space maybe half the size of the SLMF fellowship hall, to hear my translated words. Rachel and I think everything went fine, though apparently we're blessing people the wrong way-we need to put our hands on their heads when they come up for prayer after worship. We live, we learn. We also got to sing the song Jesus loves me to the congregation, accompanied by Indian drums, which really helps the beat!
We are tired, but ready for tomorrows adventures-door to door evangelism for me (apparently, a white dude opens a lot of doors) and a high school/young adult Sunday school lesson for Rachel (she's apparently incapable of saying no). In the evening I preach, which will be exciting, since I brought three sermons with me to India, and so I am frantically trying to put together number 4 (followed, I suspect, by numbers 5 and 6 on Saturday and Sunday, and possibly more). They clearly are interested in getting their money's worth out of us, and we're happy to help.

Thursday July 21st
A very full day
Today was a great day, we had several amazing adventures.
After a huge breakfast (again with the way too much food) of Dosa made of green lentils and two kinds of chutney, we returned to the congregation where we've been working.
Samuel and Augusteen went off with 10 other pastors on a door to door evangelism trip, while Rachel and Lalitha stayed behind and drank tea. Actually, Rachel also worked on her sermon for the afternoon, talked about gender roles in the United States (Lalitha is a one woman feminist crusade-more on that later), and learned to dance with the young women from the congregation.
Samuel spent some time talking about high caste opposition to evangelism, and the troubles in Hydrabad (there are riots, we hope it doesn't affect our flight), and then set out distributing tracts among the locals. It seemed, in general, to be a chance for lots of people to get their picture taken receiving something from a white dude, and we were invited into every Christian's house for tea or Coke and cookies. The other pastors teased that without me along, no one would have invited them inside. I also got to pray with a lot of people, using the proper blessing on the head technique.
At lunch we had crab and coconut rice. Samuel saw lunch moving around 45 minutes before consumption when the crabs were purchased from a guy riding by the car on a bicycle. That's India-there are people on bicycles with live crabs you can purchase out your car window for 20 cents apiece. It is just a little bit of a cross cultural experience.
In the afternoon, Rachel taught a Sunday school lesson/preached a sermon, including teaching a bunch of Indian youth "Allelu Allelu" and "I've got peace like a river" they were willing participants, and particularly enjoyed the call and response nature of Allelu. Then she spoke on spiritual gifts. Her message was so impressive, that they requested later that she preach at the evening service as well (this time on 45 minutes notice, which was appropriately terrifying, but I'm getting ahead of myself).
After her sharing, which was well received, we went to the beach. Hadessa, a 2nd standard (7 or 8) girl, had a blast, and we all enjoyed getting our feet wet, and the experience of drinking fresh coconut water out of the coconut at the Indian Ocean, which is every bit as amazing as it sounds.
On our way back was when Rachel was asked to preach, and we sprang into action. We used my already prepared theme of all God's children are invited to the table, and Rachel put her own spin on the story of the Wedding banquet and the Samaritan woman at the well. Worship was wonderful, the church was full to overflowing, with people sitting outside listening on loudspeakers to hear the singing and the sermon. Rachel did a great job, its clear she could quickly put Samuel out of a job if she keeps this preaching thing up, SLMF doesn't know what they are missing.
After worship, we had a time for prayers of blessing, and it felt like nearly everyone in the congregation was interested in prayer from Rachel or Samuel or both. Since no one spoke the language anyway, we both found ourselves in a rhythm of 3 or four stock prayers, and rotating between them, but everyone liked it when we used the Telegu name for Jesus, Yesu Christu. We spent about 30 minutes praying without ceasing.
Now, after some laundry, its time for bed. Tomorrow we have a few worship experiences, and are visiting a few churches, and we'll see what else we'll be called to do. We are quite confident, it will be an adventure.

Friday July 22nd
Another exhausting day
Augusteen and Lalitha are hopefully getting their money's worth out of us. Today, Samuel preached four sermons (a new record) and Rachel preached two. Between the both of us, we must have laid hands on 200 people, praying for things as varied as cancer of the blood (bone marrow, I assume, but I don't know), to both of us together praying for a woman to get pregnant. Another new record-we drank 6 coconuts worth of coconut water each. We love the food in India, but we both feel like 1 a day is about right for coconuts.
In the morning we worshiped in a church building under construction, celebrating the construction of God's kingdom.
After a wonderful lunch (beef biryani, and potato and green curry) in the afternoon we went visiting smaller (poorer) churches, where we had shorter worship services, quickly ate what they offered us, and headed to the next place. Samuel preached that everyone is equal before Christ, and Lalitha was delighted when he mentioned that Christian men should be good to their wives, treating them with respect and love.
In the evening, we had the big final prayer meeting (we move on to another area, 2 hours north tomorrow morning), where we both preached. There were non-believers there (Augusteen's language) so we did our best to tell the story of Jesus, and Rachel's message was quite impressive-come become a follower of God, Jesus loves a good party, and Christianity is a celebration!
Afterwards, we had our pictures taken with everyone, and ate at the home of one of the local pastors who lives in a common compound with his extended family, including 6 aunts and uncles and most of the associated cousins. Its an impressive place, and makes up a good bit of the local congregation.
Its amazing to think we had a moment to get in a good hour long nap after lunch. Now, to bed, we'll see what tomorrow will bring.

Saturday, July 23rd
A time to relax
After three days of intensive ministry, we got a mostly restful day today, which is a good thing, because we woke up a bit over tierd and in need of a restful day.
After breakfast in the morning we returned to Augusteen and Lalitha's home in Pithapuram, about a two hours car ride, stopping at a giant statue of Jesus next to a huge river on the way.
Before reaching Augusteen and Lalitha's house, we stopped at the home of a family who works with Grace Gospel Ministires in the city of Kakonada, the nearest big city of their home. There we met the mother and father of the family, as well as the older daughter, a 16 year old who was on school holiday. She spoke English very well, and we had a nice conversation with her about school and her plans to become a doctor. I (Rachel) was struck that one of the first questions the mother of the family asked via Lalitha, who was translating, was weather Samuel and I had an arranged mairrage, or if we were a 'love match.' This led into a conversation about the custom of parents selecting partners for their children, which is still practiced strongly in this area of India. Lalitha told us that 'love matches' were very rare, and that most young women were considered 'mairagable age' around 16, the age of both the young woman we were talking to and Lalitha's oldest daughter. The reality of the lives of women (old and young) in India has struck me during this trip. I'll probably write more on that later, but sufice it to say, I'm thinking about it.
In the afternoon, we spent time getting to know their girls, Priscilla, Shantasa Ruth, and Susan, by playing pick-up sticks and chess, which was a wonderful time, and Rachel quickly became 'auntie'.
Later we drove to the nearby beach, which had been devestated by the Tsumani in 2004. There are still boat pieces laying around far inland, and the road is still washed away in some places. We talked about the devestation there, and how it still shapes the community.
Then, after a brief prayer meeting with the local church, we returned for supper, and we each got Henna decorations on our hands, and Rachel on her feet, thanks to Priscilla, the oldest. She did an amazing job.
We enjoyed just being with our friends, taking time to get to know their children, and we look forward to a day of worship and celebration tomorrow, before our independent adventure begins on Monday.