Return From India

I guess I should comment on what actually took place in India now that I am back.

The trip was great! Dave and I taught two separate 3-day Bible seminars on Old Testament Survey and the people seemed very appreciative. I preached several times and shared some with the young men who stay at Vijay's training school in Madurai.

Teaching through a translator is somewhat difficult and tiring, but quite an experience. As I was teaching and then listening to the translation, I was thinking about how to communicate my next sentence. It was one sentence at a time. Slow going. When I asked why we couldn't just teach this to some native speaker, Vijay and his father-in-law, D.S. Spurgeon, explained that it was much more of a draw to have someone from another country come and teach.

I suspect I will lead another group this next year, 2009.

Passage to India

I leave for India on August 4, one day before my fifty-fifth birthday. This really came about because I went to our missions guy and pastoral administrator and said, "I want to go to Ecuador and Uruguay." He came back some time later and said, "No." He said as a pastor I needed to lead a team. I had been hoping he would invite me to go with the college team to Uruguay or at least meet up with them and yet I knew the college leader probably didn't need me coming along and being in the way, though he would probably have graciously accepted me going.

Our missions guy mentioned that he needed someone to lead the India team and as I prayed and thought about that I felt I should go. Turns out they had a leader for the team already and our guy on the ground, Vijay, didn't want to combine what I would do (teach leaders) with what the other group was doing. So I asked other teachers if they wanted to go and Dave Cardot agreed to go.

I'm nervous a bit about how this will go. I don't want to do anything less than they need, but it is hard to know what they need and how to teach them, since I don't know them. I am trusting that God will help Dave and I to bring something of benefit despite our unfamiliarity with our learners. I am also sure that we will learn a bunch ourselves. I am greatly looking forward to this opportunity. Vijay was a student of mine at Crichton years ago, so it will be fun to connect again in person, rather than just through email.

The not so fun part of this trip is the immunization and travel. We have to watch out for some pretty crumby diseases, like malaria, and the long flights will be tiring. But I will be interested to connect with another culture and see firsthand what God is doing is this predominately Hindu, Sikh and Muslim country.