Back on FB

After 2 weeks in Facebook withdrawal the powers to be at FB have decided that we are not such transgressors after all - and have reactivated our account this morning.

Why our account was disabled in the first place remains a mystery. “Fred” sent a note stating that I have access to it again – and apologizing for the inconvenience. No clues about what evil deed we were supposed to have done (perhaps block too many of those inane quizzes??).

I guess when you have 200 million people using your service – and no one giving you any money directly - it is not surprising that it will take some time to getting around to dealing with glitches.

The more sobering part of the story was how much I had come to see the bit of Facebook territory that has our name on it as ‘ours’. It isn’t. At the end of the day they can shut it down and that is that.

During my 2 weeks of the enforced “Facebook fast” I realized a few home truths:

1) I have become far to enmeshed in the service for comfort. It sometimes takes going through something of a cold-turkey withdrawal to see how much a part of you it has become.

2) Of the 900 odd folks who are listed as friends, 2 noticed that I was not around and wrote to me to find out why. OK, it

3) Most of my social networking takes place in real time with people around me – especially my immediate family. We were blessed to have 3 amazing visits in the past 10 days – and having a cup of chai with someone in our home beats hundreds of mini-scraps of conversations that take place virtually

4) But…. the strange thing about FB is this – that you do ‘get a little bit’ about folks from various walks of life – and by ‘listening in’ to the scraps of info people are broadcasting it is possible to at least feel the pulse of so many all around the globe.

So at the end of the day it is down to this:

Will remain on Facebook for now – at least for a bit more (would want to somehow back up my contacts addresses – but FB stores the emails as images and does not make for easy retrieval).

Want to exercise a severe curb on how often I go on. Every other day? Having been at times accessing multiple times a day in the not too distant past – I think that this should be tried out at least.

The wander through the virtual world continues (with links to the carbon based and spirit filled one of course).

Damp Squib

I am writing during what is for us an almost total solar eclipse.

This morning - as the sun is rising - and Sheba and I are up drinking tea and reading our Bibles - the sun is being eclipsed by the moon - at least for us in Mumbai and a goodly swath of India.

Sadly there is not much to see.

The solar eclipse has arrived during the monsoon - and as usual we have an impenetrable bank of clouds above us and blinding sheets of rain.

The only evidence for the eclipse is that it seems a little darker than normal. But that too is normal because of the often heavy rain. As I type it is coming down in buckets (thank God) which is great for the general economy of the land - and the water levels of the lakes which supply our 16 million plus megacity of Mumbai-Thane-Navi Mumbai - but sadly means that there is no obscured-sun-gazing for the Eichers.

The kids will be allowed to keep sleeping. Not much point waking them up to see some dark clouds outside. The paper tell us that we shall have to wait till 2087 it seems for the next one - lets hope it isn't during the monsoon!

picture thanks to the BBC website - my lifeline to see the world

Wings

Hooray for the aeroplane!

In a few hours we will be joined by some of our favourite people on earth - Sheba's older sister Daisy and her husband Ramesh and their daughter Frankincense ('Frankie'). We love them so much, but this will be the first time they are visiting us in Thane - because they live half way around the world in Arizona.

What makes it possible to traverse half the globe in a matter of hours? That gleaming sign of high technology - the fixed-wing, jet-propelled aerocraft.

This 7 day period has given us already two amazing visitors - and Daisy and party will be the third - all possible because of inter-continental jet-speed travel.

Last Friday we were joined by the amazing Richard Phillips. An areoplane delivered this dear friend (sadly without his luggage) at our place in Thane. The 9 hour flight from Heathrow spanning what used to take 6 months by ship. Richard is an old friend from Taylor University - an amazing Irishman whose parents were pioneer church-planters in their own green and beautiful land. Richard continues the family legacy having served with his wife Wendy in Uganda and Zimbabwe - as well as serving God in the marketplace through Dell computers.

Currently one of the hats Richard wears (besides being father to 10 year old Zeph) is the CEO for ACET Ireland - a remarkable charity that does AIDS Care and Educational outreaches in Ireland. Wendy and Richard have been link people for a number of AIDS Care programmes in Zimbabwe under the banner of the Matilda Project which has touched the lives of hundreds of people in Zimbabwe.

It was so wonderful just to have Richard in the flesh in our living room. Drinking chai. Talking. Listening. Bliss. I kept scratching my head, amazed to know that it was actually happening. That Richard had managed to squeeze in 2 days on his way to Hyderabad to meet with other ACET International leaders this week.

Good things keep getting better. On Tuesday we were blessed with a visit by Rabi Maharaj.
This remarkable Trinidadian (of Indian origin of course) has traversed the globe - covering 120 countries and 600 college campuses so far. Rabi's message is simple - he knows and loves to share about who Jesus Christ is to him.

The story of the first part of his life has been well written in his book "The Death of a Guru". Rabi was once worshipped by others - as he shared with us this week - but was empty inside. His pockets and drawers were bulging with donations that his devotees brought to him as diksha - but he knew that he was hollow for all the mystical experiences that he had gone through. But then he realised the wonderful truth of who Jesus is and how much Jesus really loved him, Rabi had to do something that he was not used to - he had to humble himself and worship another.

Despite having been through 3 gruelling flights from California to Minnesota - and then to Amsterdam - and then out to Mumbai - despite arriving at 3 am after this marathon on wing - Rabi seemed fresh as a daisy.

Rabi is aging well - its almost impossible to make out his age from the outside - but it is his inner freshness and delight in sharing from the Bible that take you aback. Relying on the Holy Spirit to guide him, Rabi shared over the course of the day - hitting so many of the areas that we needed to be reminded about: our amazing inheritance in Christ - being called as a royal priesthood - how important it is for us to be in unity with each other - and how this is such a vital testimony - how much trouble we can spare ourselves by trully esteeming each other as better than ourselves. The day was a rich feast of ideas, shared passionately and with an amazing set of anecdotes and insights from across the world to back them up. An added bonus was Rabi's son Franklin - who is starting his last year of high school - and brought a sharp intelligence and empathy with him on his first trip to India.

And so we get back to the countdown to Daisy, Ramesh and Frankie's visit to us. The welcome poster is being made by Asha and Enoch. Brownies have been baked. A day has been set apart to meet them at the airport and whisk them down to Mumbai to see the Gateway of India. Expectations are high. We are waiting for our loved ones to be jetted from Delhi and deposited through the wet rainy sky to Mumbai airport and into our lives.

Wings. Amazing fixed-wing aeroplanes. Facilitators of so many relationships. Knitters of the Global village. The Global now.

In patients

After a long time we are admitting In-Patients again.

Last night we had an HIV positive woman from a near by suburb. She is 6 months pregnant and who needs a blood transfusion - but since the government hospitals in town were reeling under the doctor's strike we admitted her for the night and took her to Kalwa hospital today. After having been in a private hospital for 6 days - with no treatment at all - she was so happy to be with us. Just being at the JSK centre clearly took a load off her shoulders and she seemed so much brighter when she left this morning.

Barely had she left when another patient came. A man from a far suburb whose haemoglobin had dropped to a life-threatening value of only 2. Its likely that this is due to one of the anti-retroviral medications he is taking (Zidovudine causes severe aneamia in a small number of people). We have admitted him and will be giving him a blood transfusion later in the day.

Prayers are appreciated for these two very sick patients. And for Dr. Sheba and the team as they look after the man at the JSK centre.

Doctor's strike

After much waiting, we finally have a down-pour on our hands. Typical Mumbai monsoon - intense rain for short stretches throughout the day - effectively flooding all the low-lying areas and bringing rail traffic to periodic halts.

In the midst of all of this the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has gone on strike demanding better pay and conditions for the doctors and interns serving at government hospitals.

We may lament the public health system. We may gnash our teeth at the inefficiencies and appalling state of many of the civil hospitals. But they are a life-line to so many in the city.

With the strike in full force - the terrible cost was evident. Most who presented at the gate of the Mumbai govt. hospitals were sent away because there were no doctors to see them.

Newspapers showed pictures of doctors shining shoes outside the hospital. If this was supposed to show that they felt used like menial artisans - then it didn't elicit any sympathy from me.

On Friday, Rahul, one of our JSK staff took Mr. Babban (name changed of course) to Sion hospital. He was not going on a picnic. Mr. Babban has been in terrible pain with an infection in his upper thigh. He has already had it drained once, but now needed another draining.

The two braved the rain and the crowded trains and got to Sion hospital, only to find that the doctors were on strike. Back again in the pain and the rain.

People with HIV face many challenges. These are compounded by the daily challenge of living in the city. With all the financial power that Mumbai has - and we have hospitals that are at least staffed - in contrast to many parts of our country - we still lack so much for common people.

People like Mr. Babban who is exhausted, sick and depressed. Living in his shack with 4 of his 6 children. Nursing his suppurating wound and his swollen thigh.

Moving into high places

About a decade ago we were setting up what was then a small TB programme at Nav Jivan Hospital in Jharkhand.

Sheba had just joined us and brought with her the rigorous approach to TB treatment that Dr. Raj her mentor at the Christian Fellowship Hospital Oddanchataram had drilled into her. I had the data from a previous study that showed only 20% of patients completed their treatment at Nav Jivan. Repeating the study with a group of medical interns from Ireland showed even less - only 17% documented completing their treatment.

One day we were visited by an old friend of Sheba. Dr. Raj Singh was the older brother of a school friend. Raj had since medical studies and was appointed to the Revised National TB Control Project. He came to visit us along with an American advisor to the government on TB issues - Dr. Tom Friedman.

I just found out that Dr. Friedman has been appointed by Barack Obama to be the head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (usually called the CDC). It seems a long way from a small hospital in Jharkhand to being a shaper of US public health policy. Through its first rate epidemiological research and various links with international agencies, scientists at CDC continue to be a formidable force in shaping public health policy. Our Indian Council for Medical Research is a pale shadow in many ways - barely able to make its voice heard - and often drowned in bureaucratic dullness as it plods along with uninteresting and barely relevant research.

Tom Friedman has played a high profile role in between his stint advising the Government of India on TB policy and the current position at CDC - he was the health commissioner for the city of New York - a city which continues to have a far greater effect on world affairs than many countries.

What I remember him for in the short visit there in Jharkhand was Tom's earnest and positive questions about our work on TB control - and the total enthusiasm he was able to evoke in Dr. Singh and the others in government TB control work at the time. If Tom Friedman able to enthuse others like he did Dr. Singh, then his legacy in public health will last a long time.

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Post script: the small TB control programme we started in response to the poor patient completion data at Nav Jivan has grown by leaps and bounds since we left. Thanks to the hard work of Dr. Arpit Matthew, Dr. Jeevan Kuruvilla and Dr. Chering Tenzing, the hospital has now been designated as a TB unit - coordinating all the TB work in the Latehar district. Hundreds of patients have successfully completed their TB treatment - lives have been changed - communities helped. We are greatful to God for what he has done through modest beginnings - and hard work of so many!

See you again Daniel!

Parting is a sweet sorrow.

We are saying good-bye (God be w' ye) to Daniel Kautikkar, who joins a 2 year Masters of Social Work course in Ahmednagar next week.

As we look back on the long road that we have walked along with Jeevan Sahara Kendra over the past 7 years, we see that Daniel was with us for most of it. Joining us in May 2003, Daniel has not only completed 6 years with JSK, but has done so in his own gentle and loving way.

We are sad that we will not have his familiar and soothing presence with us. Many, many of our positive friends will over the next few months be asking us "where is Daniel-bhaiyya?". At the same time we are glad that Daniel is taking the opportunity for further study. We wish Daniel all God's blessings, and hope very much that he will rejoin us in 2011!

The greatest legacy that Daniel leaves behind is that of people. So many today are alive because of what this young man has done. Others were nursed and lovingly cared for in their last days by Daniel's care and concern. Others have been taught about TB and caring for the sick through his patient instruction.

We will definitely have a Daniel-shaped vaccuum at JSK over the next few weeks and months!