India Week Two!!

We have now been in India for just two weeks, but we are so settled and feel so at home, it actually feels longer (in a good way!). We are still awaiting the arrival of our container that we sent from the US. It contains Alan's books, some clothes, some pots and pans and the girls' toys. This has been the only stress so far, and is still a very minor one. We just heard that the container finally made it to land on Sunday, July 27th. It takes about one week to reach us, and then it will take three to four days for it to be inspected (since we are on tourist visas, they must okay everything that we had sent.) This should not be an issue, since we sent no large or expensive items.

Alan is busy preparing for the classes he will be teaching at the seminary starting in about three weeks. Besides the two master's level classes, he has also been informed that he will be teaching a Phd level course starting in October. He is currently working on the proposals for this course, as he gets some say in what courses should be offered at this level. He will also be preaching at church this Sunday on the topic 'Men Seeking Spiritual Perfection'. So, he has been preparing his sermon, as well. Uncle Jayakumar wastes no time, and we are getting busy with ministry already, which is so exciting!

On Friday, July 25th, the girls and I attended the Friday Bible Study that is held weekly in the home of an Indian man named Mr. Matthews. The pictures above are some who attended, both men and women. About 20 people total were in attendance, mostly Indian, with a few Americans, too. Bo, in the picture farthest left, is one of the Americans here teaching at the seminary and led the study that day. I was awestruck by the pace of the study. It was never rushed, as if there were some set time to begin and end. We were there for three hours. We spent a lot of time in prayer, praying for specific things and people, without rushing due to time constraints. What a lesson in placing our time with God, both as individuals and corporately as the Body of Christ, as our top priority in our day.

This same day, the news broadcast that seven bombs had gone off in Bangalore within one hour. While none were very close to where we live, they were still in the same city. However, once we learned that it did not come from Indians themselves, and that these explosions are very small and not meant to kill, but only send a message, we felt a little better. A good way to explain it is if you live in or very near to large cities like Cleveland, Ohio or Chicago, Illinois and the south sides of those cities have gun shootings and other violence going on. They do not have guns here, so they create these small explosives to go off instead. Also, it is a rarity in Bangalore to have this type of thing happen. So, it is not an event for us to be constantly worried about. The very next day, we went into the downtown area called commerical street (picture below) to buy our clothes for church, and everything was back to normal.

Below are some pictures of our new Indian clothes (just a few things, mostly for church) that we picked up on commercial street.

The next set of pictures were taken on Saturday, July 26th at a youth event that took place at our church. These pictures show the praise band, made up of church members, that led us in worship that night. Rufus, Uncle's nephew, a wonderful young man, is on drums. Chuck, another American who is here working for the school, is on guitar. And another young man is singing. There is also a picture below of him singing a solo, with the very talented guitarist accompanying him. They were wonderful, both incredibly musically talented.