The all-seeing eye of the Internet

We had a colleague at the mission hospital that we worked at in Jharkhand whose wife did not want her name on any document that would be put out over the internet. I thought that rather quaint.

Last week I came across this picture:

An unknown person, lying in a bed eating dominos pizza. The bizarre thing is this - it was taken on the 14th of Sept. 2006 but a group of motorcyclists who stopped in at Mum and Dad's place in Mussoorie - while they were not there. The picture is of the lower bedroom in the house - what used to be called "Andi's flat" and is the bed I slept in for a good year or so after University. The shot is one of 15 odd photos showing almost every nook and cranny of the lower flat at Shanti Kunj. You can take a complete guided tour courtesy of the unkown persons from the biker site by clicking: here

Big brother may not be here - but lots of small brothers seem to be. We may not be seeing a total overhaul of privacy by some all-knowing hidden power - but the huge amount of info about bits and bobs of our lives continues to flow - and laps up in unexpected places!

A walk in the woods

Being in urban Thane - we tend to get overwhelmed by the grittiness of life in the city. All the more so since we work with so many who live in such horrible situations - the filth and refuse of their shanty-town surroundings mirrors that miseries of broken relationships and sordid bondages.
It is important to come away for a while. We did that as a team yesterday - spending the day with our dear friend John Forbes in the Borivali National Park. The amazing part of it all is how spatially close we are to nature - just a 10 minute walk from our centre brings us into the national park.Once inside, it is a 1/2 hour walk up the hill and there we are on the ridge. With trees and a few small fields and no one else in sight. We worshipped God in the sheer beauty of his creation. Heard John encourage us about allowing God to do new things in us - and discovering the on-going work He is doing. We then listened as each person shared what they had learned in the last 3 months. The reports ranged from the personal - new things learned, small but important frontiers crossed - to our work where people have seen spiritual break-throughs in people's lives and where one of our staff said that instead of just loving others with HIV - they had received so much love from the people who have HIV that he was serving. We had time for team-building games - a crab-relay got the pulses racing- and brought lots of laughs and cheers from all. Another game with animal names and rythmic clapping made sure everyone had ample opportunities to laugh. We also reviewed the past 3 months and spent time praying for the next 3. Then there was the business of lunch....
A sumptious spread showed the culinary skills of all and sundry. This amazing spread had been brought up the hill and was eagerly devoured. Almost like something out of Enid Blighton. We only needed the Famous Five to show up.

Post lunch we spent time alone. Time to be quiet and listen. To the rustle of the wind in the leaves. To see the bamboo flowers - which only bloom something like every 18 years or so. To watch hawks and listen to birds. To be enveloped by the buzz of the cicadeas. God speaks through His creation.
From the ridge we could look down the eastern slopes to the urban sprawl of Thane - ever populated with more buildings rearing themselves up. A glance over to the Western side shows the forest opening up to the ridges of the National park. We could be looking at anywhere in central India. The hills and scrub forests - the occasional house or two of a long-standing village settlement.

And so we came back for a final feed-back and prayer. The time up away - and together - had been a deep blessing for us all. Nature does that to you. We return to seeing people with HIV and their needs on Monday. God has been looking after them in our absence. But we return with a bit of the hill-side peace in our hearts. Be still and know that I am God - it says in the good book. We did. We know.

Annointing oil

There is a small bottle of hair oil that Asha and Enoch have been playing with for the past few days.

This morning they told me what it was. "Opa's annointing oil!" He uses it when people are sick and he prays for them. I had to smile, thinking of my dear father who took a portion of his favourite "Keo Karpin" hair oil and put it in a small plastic bottle - perhaps a hand-me-down from someone who picked it up from a hotel.

.

When I smell their hands, I smell my father - in his sincerity and simplicity.

.

But besides anointing people - and being used on his own head on a daily basis - the oil has also been used for another purpose. In January Opa and Oma took Sheba and the kids for a picnic at Borivali National Park. At a small play ground Asha and Enoch enthusiastically swung - on swings that screeched horribly. Out came the annointing oil - and one set of swings in the National Park were silently and smoothly swinging Opa's beloved grand-kids.

Illegality

Jesus hung out with some pretty unsavoury characters in His day.

We are no different. Our own often unsavoury blend is still frequented by our Lord - and we also have the privilege of following His footsteps and meeting all kinds of people.

One of our positive friends runs a gambling den. They pay Rs. 40,000/- per month in bribes to the local police to keep running the show. If that is what they pay in bribes - you can imagine how much their turnover is. Needless to say, our friend is not very responsive to our home visits. His suffering wife has left him several times due to his neglect for her and the family - and his odd hours and sullen, selfish behaviour. He is still alive - but barely. His frequent illnesses keep bringing him closer to the edge.

Another friend runs an alcohol business, selling country brewed liquor. She says that God has been good to her and that she has prayed to Him and told him that she still has to sell the stuff to pay for her food and her son's education. Our staff have debated the issue with her a number of times - but though she is not happy with her work - she is not willing to take a step of faith and trust that God will provide for her and her son. The local church, which first referred her to us has tried to disciple her - but she has stopped going to this fellowship or any for that matter because of the business she continues to run.

A very sick woman has just heard that her house will be demolished. The vast majority of our friends live in shantytown areas - the land having been caputured and lived on for years. Every now and then the municipal goverment will allow the original owners to clear the land. So where do the poor go? And how can they get something legal?

We don't have any easy answers for each of our dear positive friends - and especially with the issue of illegality. But we have the Lord - who knew what it was - and is like - and is ever-ready to help us and show us the way forward.

Dedication

We just dedicated our renovated centre - and took a huge step towards becoming an integrated counselling and testing centre (ICTC) this evening.

It was a small meeting - but we had a big God present. John Forbes shared words of encouragement and sang. He said that our testing centre will be a place where people will get good news and bad news. Good news for some who test negative. Bad news for others who are positive. Good news for both the negative and positives - that God loves them very, very much. He reminded us of his own time when he found out he got HIV - and how God had been so faithful to His word in John's life - and that Jesus is life himself - and yearns to give life to others. John has been blessed with a rebuilding of his immune system - from a low of only 64 CD4 cells in 2002 to having crossed the 300 barrier this year!

Later he cut the ribbon that opened the door into the renovated centre.

Earlier in the day our doctors - Sheba and Marise saw six new HIV positive folks. All from totally different settings - one mother and adolescent girl were brought by Bro. Zen who serves through a house-fellowship in Mulund - another sick lady and her child were brought by her neighbour - a woman who works as a cleaner at Lok Hospital - another man came because his wife had tested HIV positive earlier - another man was met at the government hospital by our JSK staff.

The walls are sky blue - and everything smells of paint. Monday will see us working in the re-newed centre - which was dedicated to the Lord this evening.

.

Jeevan Sahara will continue to focus on home-care for people with HIV in Thane - but the renovated centre offers us the opportunity to reach out to people earlier - and to link them into care at home sooner - as well as allowing us to partner with the government health facilities earlier.

.

The door is open.

.

We now need to see the right people come in - or put it another way - people with HIV or at risk of the disease who need life-change. We want to see this centre lead to deep and lasting healing in many.

B-days 4 all

We are smitten by Birthday fever here at that Eicher household. Its pretty hard not to when Andi and Sheba have their birthdays 2 days apart. Andi entering the world and taking his first lungfull of Bombay air 48 hours before Sheba does the same on the other side of the land in Rourkela on the 4th of April.

We are now done with all our birthdays in the immediate family till 2009.

The beauty of a birthday is it gives an annual peg on which to measure our lives. The number of times our spinning ball has circled the sun is secondary to a common measure that says - I have been alive for so long!

We need reasons to celebrate too. So much of our time just spins by without us noticing. The joy of each other cries out for ways of expression. B-days offer one way.

By preparing cards and flowers - cakes and the odd gift - we share our lives together. Somehow in our childhood Dad started shaping our birthday cakes into various beautiful models. The one that I remember most strongly was a 3 dimensional VW bug automobile - complete with silver foil bumpers! I think it was made with chocolate icing too!

Today we got up early - and wished and prayed with Sheba. This evening we have the dedication of the remodelled Jeevan Sahara Kendra - and know that we are in for a treat as brother John Forbes (whose B-day was last Sunday) will be sharing and singing.

Till then we have a few more hours of meeting people - so many of them broken and wasted by HIV. Our birthdays remind us of God's love and faithfulness to us.

Will we see the next? Who knows - but one thing is sure - we want to make sure that life really counts. And we also want to experience joy on the way. This day has been another opportunity for gladness.

Born on April 1st

No its not me! (mine is tomorrow). Nor is it Sheba's (on the 4th of the month).

But two very dear friends from college were born on April 1st - imortalised for countless generations of little boys as April Fools Day.

Tzu Jen Tan - now a surgeon is Singapore at the Alexandra Hospital and Charles Ndeze - now where? Two lovely men.

Tzu Jen Tan comes from Singpore and studied at Taylor University with me in the biology dept. Jen dug into his studies and surroundings. He was amazed at how much was edible in the wild and took pains to make small jars of berry jam for us. He cut open rat hearts for research purposes and made exquisite drawings of them (some which made their way back into our rooms). He loved cross-country running (and running in the cold with minimal clothing). Though I was thrilled about it, I was not totally surprised to hear that Jen as given the 'sword of honour' - for being the best officer that year - when he eventually did his time in the Singapore military. In all of this there was an often almost painful humility in Jen - and a great love for God and us other mortals! I was so privileged to have Jen come out in 1998 and do an elective from his med school with me at Nav Jivan Hospital in Jharkhand. Here's to you Jen as a father of three girls (the twins were born very prematurely last year), husband, surgeon, and most importantly - Jesus follower!

.

Charles Ndeze. Just saying the name is bitter sweet. We heard about him before we saw him. A bare-foot footballer has come from Burundi, we were told. Charles never fit into the college soccer team - too regimented and driven I think. But we had many a conversation late at night - when he would be working as a security guard and I was at the library trying to put in some study or finish a project. Charles was the son of an Anglican Bishop in Burundi. He was a man of wealth - and loved his cows. He was a gentle giant - in the very strange setting of rural Indiana - a place not known for diversity and cosmopolitan pizazz. But maybe that was just as well - because Charles did not seem to want that world either. As the son of a man who I assume had enormous influence in his country, I always sensed that Charles was at least partly running away from something. This was in the years just prior to the terrible blood-letting in Rwanda.

.

Oh to try and speak my broken French with Charles again. Where are you Charles? I did the google search for your name - and only came up with a charismatic gorilla cub. Cold comfort. I wish we could meet again - and share where our lives have lead us - and what God has been doing since we last saw each other in 1992!