Tuesday 25 June 2013

Famous Five

My phone just buzzed. An SMS.  Its 22.08 and this is what it says:

Andi brother v reachd safely. Plz remem us n ur prayers

Jobel and Denny have arrived safely in Pune.   Our latest birds have flown out of the nest.  This year's crop of interns at JSK - 5 of them - have all returned to their seminaries.

Sandeep, Reshma, Denny, Jobel, and Jim

Sandeep and Reshma Gaidhare are our first married interns!  Both are studying at the Maharashtra Bible College in Bodward (near Bhusaval).  Amazingly, this college was started in 1907 by my great-grandfather Christian Eicher!  

And then there were the three musketeers from Union Biblical Seminary in Pune.   Denny Sam Jacob and Jobel E. Chacko both hail from Thiruvilla in Kerala - and their batch-mate Jim Reeves Magh from the very other part of the country - from Nagaland!  I was surprised to find out that Jim was married too - to Joyce who is ethnically Malayali.  Since she is working with a national newspaper in Pune she was not able to move with Jim here - and so we had Jim taking the bus up to Pune whenever he could!

It's our ninth year now having interns from UBS - and as I think in my minds eye over the different ones who have done their practical ministry at Jeevan Sahara I can only smile.  Each one so special.  So unique.  And each one having taken away with them insights into working with the poor in very challenging situations.  Each one of them a potential world-shaper - and by God's grace - we are already seeing how wonderfully a number of our 'alumni' are getting their hands dirty and building things that last!

Its a privilege to invest in the future.  We know that whatever we do is so limited.  So frustratingly small at times.  But here are people who have wings.  What a great joy it is to play a small part in all that they will be doing in the days to come!



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