THE WHITE HOUSE

     Just before leaving India on our previous trip, Pastor Gabriel asked if he could add a couple of rooms onto his house for our team to stay in the next time we came. This would be more comfortable for everyone and would ensure that we would be centrally located in the jungle. He said that it would not cost much and that he had some material already on hand. Their small houses are made of brick and mud, covered with orange clay. Most of the roofs are either covered with curved clay tiles or bamboo thatch that forces you to bow to enter a small door in the wall. Once you straighten up inside, your head is almost touching the bamboo ceiling. There is a noticeable absence of furniture and the dark concrete floors are smoothed by hand.  Usually, there would be no windows or maybe just a small port hole without glass. The rooms are very dark and are only lit at night, with coal-oil lamps.  This is what I expected to be staying in and told my team to expect the same.

    For this trip, I took two pastors from New York with me. One was Pastor Ron, who had been to the Southern part of India many years before. The other was Pastor Gene, who was an avid camper and hiker and was excited about being in India for the first time. We had spent almost two weeks in the Ukraine before coming to India, so it was a lot of travel to get to our new base called Manga Panga.

    When we arrived in Manga Panga, we were greeted with the most excitement I had ever seen from the natives. They were so delighted to see us. Soon we were engulfed by an enthusiastic crowd who were singing and shouting, drums and flutes were being played, children were dancing, and fresh garlands of forest flowers suddenly appeared. Some of the brothers took our bags and we started moving towards the village. After such a long trip, I was looking forward to resting in our hut that Gabriel had built. I noticed a large white house standing among a row of smaller orange ones, which I had not noticed before. Its white roof gleamed in the sunlight, surrounded by tall mango trees. To my surprise, the line of people ahead of me entered the fenced yard of this house. I then watched our luggage, that was being carried on peoples heads, turn into the same yard. "Could this be our house?" I wondered.  As I got closer, everyone was studying my face to see if I was surprised by what they had waiting for me. I did not disappoint them. I was really shocked!  I would never have expected our own house, much less one so beautiful. They had all worked on it during the past year and now the moment came for us to see it for the first time.

    A ribbon had been tacked across the door. Someone handed me a pair of rusty scissors to cut it, while another brother snapped a picture the moment it was cut. We entered the long porch that faced the street, and then slowly entered each room. They were spacious, with high ceilings and perfectly straight walls, which had been freshly painted.  It had large window openings with wrought-iron bars made into fancy designs. It had hand-hewn wooden doors with gleaming new locks. There were three large bedrooms, a storage room, a dining room, and an Indian-style kitchen with a small clay stove molded on the floor.  Outside in the back yard, we toured a new latrine and a place to bathe, which are unheard-of luxuries in this neck of the woods.  Each room had a large bed, with a thin straw mattress to soften the boards. We each had a chair and a coal-oil lamp. It was wonderful!!

    After a brief tour of our new home, we all went to the church for the formal greetings and to express our gratitude to God for bringing us together again. It was such a moving occasion.  The love we experienced was so refreshing that it washed away all the weariness of the past eight hours of rigorous travel. I felt like we had been adopted into a wonderful family. Later, we learned how Gabriel had decided to build a separate house rather than add on to his. As he started to lay the foundation, another brother came by to visit.  "Why are you building it so small?", he asked, "Build big, because our God is big, and able to provide!" With this, the borders of the foundation were enlarged and so were the borders of his faith.

     They formed each brick by hand, made from the clay that covers the ground everywhere. After each brick is sun-hardened, they are stacked into the shape of a furnace and burned from within. Gabriel had never built this kind of house before, but he said the Lord helped him.  To get the money to hire the carpenter to build the heavy wooden doors and windows, and to pay for the corrugated fiberglass roof, he got permission from his wife and his father-in-law to sell her dowry jewels.  Others came by to help and soon the house was painted, cleaned, and a ribbon was tacked across the door. We noticed a child had written in chalk across the side wall, in barely legible English, "A missionary house."

     The money our team was able to leave Gabriel was sufficient to cover his expenses and re-purchase the dowry if he wants to. We gave the building to the Lord, and Gabriel and his family will live in the house during the year. Our teams will stay there whenever we visit in the future.  

 FOOD POISONING 

   A major portion of our time is spent in the homes of strangers, eating (or trying to avoid eating) their food. Our hosts always go to great lengths to feed us their best, but each country thinks of hospitality in terms of abundance. This is hard on our digestive systems. It is funny how your interests and priorities change overseas. We greet each other in the morning asking how each other slept and about the condition of each other’s bowels.

    For me, there is always a tension between a desire to eat something I have never had before, and wanting to stay with what is safe. What is safe usually wins out. This time we learned the hard way that not all the food is safe. One brother was assigned to travel with us into the jungle to be our cook. He did a great job making sure things were prepared in a way that wouldn’t hurt us. In the last village we were in, he ran out of cooking oil and asked if he could borrow some from a nearby home. He smelled it and thought it might be off, but reluctantly used some to cook our chicken. It was tainted and we immediately felt sick.

     Gabriel was the first to reject the meal alongside the road. By nightfall all those who had traveled with us that day had a headache, fever, and those dreaded waves of nausea that well up within you. I had delayed throwing-up until about 2:00 a.m. Then it became inevitable.  If I had known how good and immediate the results would be, I would have done it sooner. Both Ron and Gene were really sick for a couple of days. Although we have eaten some questionable things before, this food poisoning was the first I had experienced on any trip.                     

JESUS CAME ALL THE WAY FROM HEAVEN 

     We agreed to walk in to these remote villages, because a jeep could not get there. We would have to walk about five or six miles each way, which created some concern initially because we are not used to walking that far, especially in the heat. We could tell that everyone else was concerned for us. We did not realize to what extent until we arrived back home on the first day. Our neighbors, even our un-saved neighbors, came out to greet us with joy, admitting that they never thought we would make it. I’m not sure what they expected, but it was clear that they were surprised to see us when we returned each evening.

    In the jungle villages we visited, our message of love had an impact on them even before we opened our mouths. Apparently, they also found it hard to believe that we would be willing to walk to where they were.  No one had ever done that before.  We told them that we only walked a few miles through the jungle, yet Jesus loved us so much that He came all the way from Heaven to earth to walk among us. This was received with an understanding smile and a group of people saying "Hummmm!"

     As we drew close to a village, we were asked to wait in the shade so they could prepare a traditional greeting for us. The drums would start and they would slowly move towards us singing, dancing, and playing a variety of strange instruments. Then, once we were surrounded, there would be an enthusiastic shout.  Timid ladies would step forward to put garlands of beautiful wild flowers around our necks. Once this was done, everyone surged forward with their hands extended, eagerly wanting them to be shaken. The babies would begin to cry when they saw our white skin. This, along with the various homemade noise-makers, would add to the confusion.

     In one village, there was a sudden burst of gunpowder, set off by men whose child-like expressions of surprise always exceeded ours. Another time we were greeted with the blast from a home-made shotgun, which looked like something out of Robinson Crusoe. After the welcome was over, we would settle in for a few hours of singing, teaching, and a time of prayer for the sick. Then we would have a feast together, and an opportunity to take photos. Leaving each village was always difficult for everyone. They would walk together as far down the trail with us as they could before turning back to the regular routine of jungle life.