Growth

There are always plenty of things to be sad and depressed about.

Here are a few signs of growth:

We just completed our 3rd session of the Church Members Training in HIV/AIDS care today.

A good day - full of meeting folks - sharing from the heart - discussions and learning.

One of the Church groups who have faithfully attended are coming from Gujarat. They take the overnight train and arrive here at 5.30 am - then head back the same night to Gujarat.

They are so hungry to learn - it almost hurts.

Recently they started a small phone help-line for people with HIV. An advertisement in the local paper - and the flood gates seem to have opened. They have already clocked 165 phone counselling sessions.

So much can be done. Oh, for people to be willing!

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A church fellowship from Ambernath attended our previous batch of training. Over the past 4 months they have made contact with over 30 HIV positive people in their area. 6 have already passed away. They are helping out in various ways with 5 HIV positive kids.

The dear brother who has been spear-heading the work had come by to the Jeevan Sahara Kendra for a short visit 2 weeks previously. Though the work had grown - there was still much room for improvement - especially in terms of willing hands and hearts to pitch in. We talked and prayed and then went our ways.

Yesterday he called up and said that things had changed - dramatically. There are a number of men and women willing to help now. He said he would come with 5 people for today's training. A total of 8 showed up. People are giving of their time - here a bit, there a bit!

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An elderly lady from a neighbouring church has been attending the trainings faithfully. She told a bit of her story today. They had a relative who was quite sick some years back. No one wanted to be near him - he had HIV. This lady and her grown children started visiting the man - he was skin and bones - but they talked with him and prayed. He got better. His whole family were reunited. Things were looking great.

Then he started to slip back into his old habits. The bottle became prominent again. His body-builder physique is gone again - and so is his peace of mind and spirit. The joy of the Lord is no-where to be seen.

This elderly lady said that when she heard about the training she jumped at the opportunity to serve.

So much is possible.

Signs of growth - small steps taken by finite, fallible people serving a great God!

Loss

We lost another of our friends.

Harish died on the night of the 10th of October.

10.10.2007

Day-before-yesterday.

End of life.

Period.

We met Harish 10 months ago. He had been sick for the past 2 years and at home. He knew that he was HIV positive since 2004. His wife is also infected. So is one of his two sons.

Its been hard. Hard for Harish as we tried to coax health back into him.

He tried. His wife worked hard to help him. His parents were tired out. He was bitter and angry at why he was this way.

And yet there were times of hope.

Through the 10 months we knew him, Harish had some rays of sunlight.

There were days when things were looking up. His wife continued to lovingly care for him. We met him on days where the tide had withdrawn abit - when the clouds were a bit less forboding.

The tide has come in fully for Harish.

Harish appreciated the visits by the JSK staff - even though their listening ears often left his little shack ringing with the bitterness of the life he was living.

A bitter-sweet memory:

Sheba had told Harish about eating fruit. "Choose whatever is cheapest. Buy guava if that is what is in season..."

Harish replied that he did not like to buy fruit. In his village no one bought fruit. You plucked and ate.

His family had a guava tree which gave the most sweetly succulent guavas around. It was a joy to all.

Then one day his mother told him to cut it down. His cousin sister was getting married - and they needed the wood to cook the marriage feast.

The tree was cut. The food was cooked. No tree left. Sweet guavas only a memory.

Sheba asked Harish: "Couldn't you get wood from somewhere? From the forest?"

"No" there was none near them - people brought wood from far away to sell - and they did not have enough money to buy wood. They had to cut the tree.

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A tear glistened in the corner of Sheba's eye as she told this story this afternoon. A tear glistens in mine as I write these words.

We cry for another young life cut so very short.

We cry for our country where so many have so little. And the little, the precious few drops of goodness around are further cut away.

Another star will be pasted up on the ceiling of the Jeevan Sahara Kendra. Over 100 now.

We hope to meet Harish in glory. Until then we have his wife and children to love. May our lives flow together to finish the story.

Living Legends

A true legend refuses to believe he is one - or that she is one.

In our path through life we have been privileged to rub shoulders with a number of men and women whom God has used in amazing ways.

One of them is Dr. Sheila Gupta.

Age? Didn't ask - but clearly has been around for many a year. This amazing lady been helping others, sharing the word, encouraging and healing for over 50 years.

Among the many she ministered to was Bro Bakht Singh.

We met her earlier in July at Mukti Mission in Kedgaon - the remarkable place which ministers to many women and children who are abandoned by others.

It was evening and we sat outside her simple room in the twilight. Bro John Forbes - who was with us - sang a beautiful acappella song. Dr. Sheila was deeply touched.

As we talked, we looked at the roots and stump of a large tree which was in the corner of her small garden. A few weeks before she had just said good-bye to a servant of God who had visited her, and had gone indoors when a loud sound came and she saw the tree fall down on the spot where they had just bade fare-well.

The huge tree had had its roots eaten up by white ants. No one would have known it would fall in the middle of the afternoon on a windless day.

How much of our lives are like that - it all seems so strong and sure - but beneath is rotteness.

Dr. Shiela came out and thanked God for protection. The God's servant had turned back briefly - they said good bye again - and he was on his way.

A small laugh by Dr. Shiela as she told us the story - and then a heartfelt prayer for us. We are so blessed to meet with the depth of what God does - using simple people to further His glory in a broken world.

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post script:

Dr. Shiela told us that someone had forced her to use a mobile phone. The next day one of the senior staff told us how Dr. Shiela uses it - to send SMSs of encouragement and Bible verses at all hours. There are those who are perpetually young - esp. those who burn with holy fire...

Golden Words

Asha and Enoch study at a school run by a Jain trust.

Here is one of the things Enoch came back with recently.

The golden words:

1. Please
2. Thank you
3. Welcome
4. Pardon
5. Sorry

If we could use these more - how much of a difference it would make. For all of us.

Out of the overflow of the heart - the mouth speaks (J.C. about 2 millenia ago).

Oh that our hearts would be renewed from within by gold - and that we would add the key that comes only from the Lord: "I forgive you"

Misery loves company

Couldn't help add another shot to my eye-gallery. Anyone need some red to use as a stop-light somewhere?

We live in an age of instant communication. And yet so much of what really goes on we don't want to see. I think that our monstorously large film-based entertainment industry (a.k.a. Bollywood) is based on the premise that we do not want to see the grime and grimness around us. Our 'official' entries to the Oscars end up being laughable pastiches - no where near the vibrancy that small countries like Bosnia are able to produce ...

So here I am putting a pic of my blood-shot eyes on the web - when earlier this week a boy was framed by the shattered wreck of a car in Iraq - when men and women saw dreams evaporate on hearing that they are HIV positive - when so many continue to grind away their lives in utter and total grinding poverty - poverty of resources - poverty of choice - poverty of relationships - poverty of spirit.

We are reading through the Gospel of Mark as a church - the key verse being: "Even so, the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45).

How radical a picture of Jesus we see. A man who made a difference. A man who led people to be astonished. The very presence of God - among them - in the flesh - and yet so many would not believe.

As a group, we at Jeevan Sahara Kendra have been examining what God's intentions for the future are - especially in the context of the broken, sin-stained world we live in. What a glorious - and real future we look forward to. Not some pie-in-the-sky utopia - but the real, total, complete promise of healing and wholeness.

Sore eyes? No way! He will wipe the tear from every eye. Not only ones who have a bit of conjunctivitis (like yours trully - this day in AD 2007) - but those who mourn and grieve, those who are broken and wounded.

Come Lord, and come quickly!

Sore eyes

Happy eyes of a little lad called Enoch - who has been cheerfully enduring conjunctivitis since Sunday. A mild case (thank God) this cheerful boy is our model patient!

When it comes to Enoch's father the situation is a bit different. The above is what I looked like yesterday evening. I knew I had it at work and so plugged away till the end of the day.

And this is what I looked like this morning. The most horrible thing was waking up at some ungodly hour and realising that the fluid from my left eye had flowed nicely into my right one! Sure enough - what was a one-eye infection now has me squinting with both eyes as I type this!
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I wish love were so infectious! But I know that love is not a disease but a choice. Hats off to our loving caregivers in our family - Asha who bought me a lollipop (like she bought Enoch one yesterday) and Sheba whose love and concern have made this a lot easier to deal with.

A hospital far, far away

Nav Jivan Hospital

The name means 'new life'.

The location - deep in our forgotten India - far away from any 'India Shining' lustre.

In the rain-fed and drought-prone district of Palamu, jammed up in the north-western corner of the tribal state of Jharkhand ('forest land') this hospital has been the site of healing and service for almost 50 years now.

Patients come from the nearby villages. Patients come from over a day's trip away. The challenges are many, but the miracle that the hospital still exists in the harsh conditions it has to operates overules that.

Amazingly, the hospital has become a beacon of hope for people with Tuberculosis.

Though for many years people had been coming for TB treatment at NJH, a study in the late 90s showed that only 17% of the 700 odd patients who were annually started on treatment at Nav Jivan actually completed the treatment. You can imagine what was going on at govt. hospitals if this was the rate at a dedicated mission hospital.

Some drastic changes in 2000 led to a jump to over 70% completing their treatment that year - and the place has not been the same since. By God's grace Nav Jivan has not only become a leading partner with the Government TB programme - with an over 95% cure rate - but is now managing the entire government TB programme for the district of Latehar!

Much of this is due to the prayers of many - and the sweat and tears of our dedicated colleagues at Nav Jivan. People like Dr. Chering Tenzing (seen breaking ground for the new TB unit above) who has worked at NJH for the past 1/2 decade and has been instrumental in moving the whole programme forward.

People like our colleagues from the community health and development programme (seen getting a jeep ready for a village programme - you can see the report by clicking: here). Young men and women who have put years of their lives into serving others in often harsh and un-rewarding situations.

We had the privilege of working at NJH from 1997-2001 and are regularly in prayer for the on-going work there.

Do you know of someone who God is calling to join the team there?

Could that someone be you?

Please contact us a.s.a.p!