Developing communications in India

While visiting the north Indian slums of Patiala one day, to minister to the impoverished garbage pickers who live there, Mrs. Sulochana Singh saw something that broke her heart: a small baby girl lying on a cot with thousands of bees swarming over her nearly lifeless, skeletal body.

That baby was malnourished to the point of near death, infected by many oozing bedsores. Sulochana watched as the child struggled to take her last breaths.

Sulochana had compassion on the child and wanted to do something for her. At the same time, she also recognized that it wasn't her business, and worried about whether to interfere. But at that moment, Sulochana says, "I heard a soft voice inside me saying, ‘What would you have done if she was your own baby?’ That voice touched me and I told my husband about the voice and got his consent to help the child."

Sulochana and her husband, Pastor Akash Singh, found the baby’s parents and talked with them to find out why was the baby left out on the cot like this. They learned that the baby was weak, and the doctors had given up hope for her, telling the parents that she would die. So the parents, not knowing what else they could do, had left the baby on the cot to die and had prepared a grave for her.

But Sulochana was persistent and asked if she and her husband could try to treat the baby in a government hospital. The father agreed. He went with Sulochana and Akash to take the baby to the children’s ward of the government hospital. There they met with more disappointment. A doctor told them that because the baby was about to die, they couldn’t admit her for any treatment.

Sulochana told the doctor that she and Akash run a charitable organization called Grace Seva Smitee (Grace Service Committee) and it was through that organization they had come on behalf of the child. They pled with him to admit her to the hospital.

The doctor’s attitude changed. He decided to take a chance on the little girl. He called his team and started treatment. With some oxygen, she immediately began to improve.

Then, the baby suddenly stopped breathing. The staff said she had probably died. Unwilling to give up, Sulochana and Akash went outside, knelt down and interceded to the Lord for the baby’s life. Even before they finished their prayer with “Amen,” someone came out and told them the baby had begun breathing again. They rushed back into the hospital room where doctors said they were going to run some tests and that they were optimistic for the baby’s life.

After all the tests, the baby was treated there for 25 days. Sulochana and Akash were at her side day and night, doing everything they could, along with praying continually for her. During the day, Akash stayed with the baby, and Sulochana stayed overnight.

"On the third day of the treatment the baby opened her eyes and looked at me and smiled,” Sulochana recalled. “I went close to her, and in spite of having no strength in her hands, she still hugged me very tight and I told her, ‘Jesus loves you.’ The baby was almost a skeleton, and when she hugged me I could feel her bones. All her body pus got stuck to my dress. At that moment I felt that the Lord has given this baby to me. I praised God for a new life to the baby."

After the little girl’s recovery, Sulochana talked with her husband and also with the father about the child’s future. If he was unable to care for her, would he be willing for Sulochana and Akash to raise her?

"We had already dug a grave for her in front of our house and had left the baby on the cot to die,” the father replied. “She was not eating anything and there was no hope for her. But you came in that time and the Lord has saved the baby through you. If we take the baby back, she would not survive. We have already decided to give the baby to you. You keep her."

Sulochana and Akash were overjoyed with this blessing. Doctors and the medical team instructed them how to take good care of the girl.

Slowly, the child’s health improved. She ate and digested well. Very soon, the girl became very healthy, put on weight.

Over the next four years, she started learning words, and began calling the pastor and his wife “Mom” and “Dad.” She attended church with them where she learned about God, and singing small songs.

Sulochana says, “We had two sons (Enosh, 18 and Phillip, 17) and now the Lord had blessed us with a daughter."

Now that baby is four years old. Sulochana and Akash say, "We love the baby very much. We have named her Angel. We want to see this baby becoming very educated and do great work for the Lord."

She will be attending school this coming November.

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The story you just read is a sneak peek at one of the many stories I am now receiving from our new communications team in India.

Some of you will know that last fall, I sent a Dutch volunteer to India for 3 months, to provide training and help organize a communications team there. It has been a long-time dream; we have been talking about it or working on it off and on for years.

At the same time, our church leader in India was able to find someone to take the role of India communications coordinator -- Rev. Rajiv Yangad.

I first met Pastor Rajiv back in 2013, when I visited to provide two storytelling trainings in the country. Pastor Rajiv specifically wanted us to give one of these trainings to people on his district in Central Maharashtra, because he intuitively recognized its importance.

Pastor Rajiv is passionate about photography, storytelling, video, writing and even creating websites. He has been developing his skills in these areas for years as a personal interest, next to his leadership for our churches in Central Maharashtra.

Since he took responsibility for communication ministry in India, and since Frank, the volunteer from the Netherlands, gave three months of his time to travel around with Pastor Rajiv and carry out four trainings in four different parts of the country, there has been a sudden flood of amazing stories from our churches in India!

I have been thrilled to see the beautiful, powerful and well-developed stories that trainees are writing.

Last week, Pastor Rajiv forwarded to me the first video filmed and edited by someone who was at the training. Pastor Rajiv is also working hard on creating a professional and modern Nazarene website for our church in India. And he is helping to develop a strategy for helping our churches in India communicate more effectively with one another.

You can read a couple more of them here:

http://www.eurasiaregion.org/today-you-are-a-new-creation-a-redemption-story/

http://www.eurasiaregion.org/the-last-shall-be-first-sudhirs-story/

An Unexpected Journey

As I sat on the unfamiliar bus, in an unfamiliar part of Manchester, and realized the bus was carrying me the opposite direction I wished to go (home) and I really had no idea where it would end up, I reflected on how there are just those days when nothing goes according to plan.

I was in this part of the city because my doctor had ordered some annual health checkup tests that had to be done at a hospital over here. However, the hospital is not in an area that I ever visit otherwise. The day before, I explored Google maps to figure out which bus I should take to get there. Yesterday morning, I left the house at 7:20 to walk to the bus stop where I caught said bus at 7:45.

The tests, but most of all the waiting in between, took longer than I expected. I ended up being at the hospital until 12:10. During one of the long periods of waiting, I had used my phone to look up the bus schedule going back. It seemed that the bus route I'd used to get here was incredibly infrequent. The next bus was at 12:15. Then there were many hours before it would come by again. There were other buses I could take, but I'd purchased a day pass on the bus that morning and it would be wasted if I just had to buy a ticket on another bus company.

So the second they gave me the all clear I tore out of the building and ran down the road. As I got closer and saw it was 12:13 on my watch (I was unsure whether that was the same time the bus driver would have), I saw the bus parked at the stand. I forced myself to keep going although I could already hardly breathe (a total of 7 weeks of sickness between Christmas and to the end of February has wrecked my stamina). Thankfully the bus sat there for a few more minutes. I stumbled on board, breathing raggedly and desperately, and showed him my ticket. I felt a flood of relief when I took my seat.

About 20 minutes later, I didn't recognize where we were. I used the google map on my phone to look at the little moving dot that represented me, and watched as it drifted further and further in the opposite direction from my neighborhood. Hmm. That wasn't supposed to happen. I did some more searching online and realized that the bus I'd boarded was completing the loop I started when I first got on that morning, as it headed to the far western outskirts of Manchester.

As a girl raised driving a car in the suburbs, until we moved to Manchester I didn't have much big city experience. While I ride the bus often, I tend to ride familiar buses to the same locations, and don't venture in different directions that will require getting off one bus and perhaps waiting 30 minutes to an hour for the next bus I need. So, it's not too surprising that I got confused and found myself in this situation.

Aside: When we moved to England, we opted not to buy a car, primarily because the costs seemed to be outside our budget anyway, but also to avoid the stress of having to learn to drive on the left in the second largest city in the UK. I've never liked city driving, even when I could drive on the right in my own country. But I've increasingly had moments when I've begun to wish we had our own car. Sitting there, watching unfamiliar neighborhoods float by outside the grimy bus windows, was one of those times.

Back to my present predicament.

Thankfully a little searching on my phone revealed that this bus would eventually turn inward again and come to its final destination at city hall (photo left) in downtown Manchester, an area I know very well.

There was nothing I could do but go with it. So I looked out the window and got a peek at many areas of Manchester I've heard about but never seen myself, such as Sale, Hulme, Old Trafford. Oh look, there's the Emirates Old Trafford cricket field.

I tried to see the adventure in my situation and enjoy seeing parts of the city that were new to me.

About an hour later we entered familiar territory as we approached the busy city center. The bus stopped at town hall and I found my bearings. By now it was about 1:30 and I was hungry. So I cut through Chinatown on my way to the street where I could pick up a bus that would take me directly back home. I stopped in my favorite Chinese restaurant for a bowl of soup while I caught up on my work email via my phone.

My stomach dropped when I got an email from a colleague with whom I had scheduled a video meeting for 1 p.m., She was wondering where I was. I frantically tapped out an apology email and explained the situation and we agreed to reschedule.

Part of Chinatown.

From there I managed to get the correct bus back, and when I reached our neighborhood, I was quite tired, but I stopped in at a rental agency to ask some questions concerning renting an apartment to my two new volunteers who arrive in a few weeks. That errand finally being accomplished, I walked the rest of the way home.

At home, I wanted to catch up on the work I'd missed in the morning, due to my longer than expected appointment and then my unexpected journey.

Unfortunately, the Internet was down! So, I decided I needed a hot cup of coffee to warm up from all that walking in the March temperatures. I'd been fantasizing about coffee the whole afternoon, but hated to spend money to buy one when I knew we had perfectly good coffee at home.

I unscrewed the Italian coffee pot that a friend gave me, intending to fill it with coffee grounds and heat it up on the stove. That's when I was confronted with a horrible truth: I'd forgotten to clean it out the last time I used it ... before Christmas. The entire thing was coated with mold inside all the compartments. I boiled some water, added soap and filled a large mixing bowl where I put all the pieces of the coffee pot to soak. Then I made some coffee in the French press.

I tried to do some email on my phone while I waited for the coffee to steep in the French press. Finally I poured it into a mug and took a sip -- and nearly spit it out. It was lukewarm. I'd thought that I'd boiled the water before I poured it in, but I guess I just filled the kettle, let it sit there, and then poured it into the French press.

I was cold, I was tired, I couldn't get much work done because I was tired and the Internet was down. And I knew I was going to be networking and getting stories at the district assembly in another town on Saturday, so I decided to just view it as a swap and I called a halt to my day. I was too tired even to cook or eat dinner. Thankfully Andrew wasn't hungry either.

About an hour later, a neighbor knocked on our door with homemade oatmeal cookies. She couldn't have known what kind of day I'd had, a day I'd managed to see the humor in as it unfolded, but was still frustrating and exhausting.  It was such an appreciated gesture and the cookies were delicious!

Ultimately, I am thankful that all the scans and tests came back good and clean, and I am glad to know I am healthy, a gift from God I do not take for granted.

And while I was able to enjoy parts of my unexpected journey, I really miss having our own car. :-)