From North to South India

The training in the north ended well. We learned a lot about how to do the workshop on Genesis. It was our first time to teach the new curriculum and we had to make some adjustments but it is fun to learn as we teach others. I think I am learning how to be a better student and preacher of the Word as I teach others how to do it.

On the way down to the south we had a plane change in Mumbai. They had changed our flight time to almost 5 hours later which messed up all our connections and would have made us arrive very late the night before we were to train. We had to buy another ticket for that leg on another airline. Just one of those travel things.

We had our first day of training in South India today. It went really well. The men here are so bright and enthusiastic about what they are learning. It is a joy to work with them. But it is not all rosy, none of them had done their homework. I had to get on them a bit about that. It is pretty typical for our students at is stage. They have to learn to do homework on their own, something they are not used to. I think as a group they have trained close to a hundred other people in 6 or 7 different locations since our last training and several are using it in their churches to train their people how to understand the bible.

It is interesting here, fairly hot and humid. I think it was about 93 or so today. They have a real problem with power in the city. It goes off every now and then for a bit and the voltage drops every so often. During one session we started with the windows open and the ceiling fans on. Then as it got hotter they closed the windows and turned on an air conditioner. Then the power dropped and the unit went off. So it was back to opening the windows and depending on the ceiling fans. Then the lights started flickering and they had to turn off one fan, and then later the other, and finally the lights went out. All this happened in a space of about an hour.

A wife of one of the leaders had a bad accident last week. She was in their back yard washing clothes in a small shed. An old palm tree fell on the shed and nearly killed her. She was not seriously hurt but will have several months of recovery. Although her husband cares deeply for her, he is here learning and is joyful as usual. We hope to see her later this week. She is such a sweet gal and is faithfully pressing one in spite of it all.

My back continues to slowly improve. It gets stiff when I stand a lot but otherwise hurts little. Thanks so much for praying with me about that. Compared to what my students, and their wives, face I have it easy. 

Al