45 years together

Forty-five years ago today, on the 23rd of December 1967, two young people promised themselves to each other.

The setting was the Eicher Memorial Chapel at the Maharasthra Bible College near Bhusawal.  The young people were Raymond Elmore Eicher and Christa Roesli Fischer - who were married 45 years ago today - and whom I am blessed to call my parents.

Dad had taken Churchill's promise of 'blood, sweat and tears' and offered it to Mum (with a lot of prayer and Scripture of course).  Being the God-soaked young people they were, the only response possible was a 'yes' to Dad's request to 'magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.'
 
A year and a half later I was born on Malabar Hill in old Bombay...   Mum and Dad were well into the rough and tumble of an idealistic commune-lifestyle which was centered around Jesus and included taking the Bible seriously - to the extent of 'forsaking all' - even cameras.  All the early shots of the family were taken from communally owned machines - or by a passing visitor....

Andi in May 1969 - a month old and already a strapping baby - how come my parents look so young?

I am writing these words from outside Vishakapatnam (Vizag being the old name that we grew up with).  Sheba, the kids and I arrived here at Amma and Appa's place two days ago.  Oh the joys of air-travel!  To leave your home at 3 AM and arrive in Vizag at 9 AM - amazing.  And have hot dosas and ginger tea and two different kinds of coconut chutney in Amma's kitchen!  Bliss.

As Eichers we are slowly unwinding and taking a deeeeeep breath (make that many deep breaths) after what was a crazy last few weeks in Thane.  A lot of time so far in Vizag has been spent in busy things like this:

But even before Amma and Appa moved here after retiring from the Rourkela Steel Plant in 2002, Vizag had a certain ring for the Eichers.  We came to Vizag as a family in 1972 when the Logos ship was docked here.  Mum and Dad were 5 years into their marriage then.  That visit led to another iconic shot of the early Eicher family:

now its Stefan's turn to be less than a year old - he joined the family in Aug 1971

Mum and Dad's adventures continued.  Despite an early dream to spend the rest of their lives living for Jesus in Rajasthan, the leaders of OM had asked Dad to help with the leadership of the movement in India.  This meant being in Bombay after all - and travelling all over India to meet the young people in the teams.

I was growing up and the issue of my schooling led to Mum and Dad exploring various options before finally getting admission at the Cathedral and John Connon Infant School on Malabar Hill.  We moved to Byculla to be close to school and then miraculously were able to shift to Nana Chowk in 1975.

Premila had in the meantime joined the family in 1974 and so our next family shot was a five-some (with cats adding 2 more members to the Eicher clan).

The Eichers at 'Elim' - the OM base and our childhood home.  The shot is from 1975 and we are carrying Snowy and Tiger - the original cats which led to many generations of cats throughout the Nana Chowk years - the last being a tomcat called Charley who moved with us to Mussoorie in 1987

Mum and Dad have been through many hard times as well.  The blood, sweat and tears bit that they talked about as young idealists did come to pass.  But with each challenge, they clawed their way back through prayer and hope and forgiveness.  They still have some rough edges, but have many many many smooth ones which these years of mutual putting-the-other-first has etched into their beautiful faces.

As Sheba and I navigate our own marriage, we are so grateful for the love that both of us received from our respective parents.  Giving love.  Guiding love.  Love that accepted us and gave us a security to be who we are.  Love that can really never be repaid back directly.  I still don't know the full extent of what Mum and Dad sacrificed for each other - and for our sakes - but our own experiences as husband and wife - and as parents give Sheba and I a little glimpse of what Mum and Dad have gone through.

Forty-five years is a long time to be together.  We salute Mum and Dad for not only 'surviving' but for 'thriving!'   We thank the Lord for you and pray that we too will be able to see such a day - and with such a legacy as you have left us!

Mum and Dad at 'Shanti Kunj' in Mussoorie in December 2012

Your children will rise and call you blessed!  Prov. 31.28

Looking forward to the Golden Anniversary celebrations on December 23rd 2017!

On seeing The Hobbit at our local cine-plex...

Last night we went as a family to the theatre to see The Hobbit - an Unexpected Journey.  


The 10.20 PM show capped off an extra-ordinary day - which had begun with an early morning family celebration of our 13th anniversary, then saw me whisked to Chembur where Dr. Edwards and I presented our initial evaluation findings with the Project Parivartan team, then came back to Thane and stopped in on Asha's school maths fair where she and her friends were displaying their model of a Ziggurat - and finally plunged into the biggest programme of the year for Jeevan Sahara Kendra - an annual Thanksgiving time which saw over 400 people participate this year - Positive Friends, their families, church volunteers, JSK staff - you name it!   Sheba had also been putting in her time, seeing patients during the day and admitting a very sick man to the JSK centre for in-patient care.  I don't think it would be possible to cram more events into a 24 hour slot.

We were thus rather frazzled by the time we drove out to the theatre at 10 PM.    A few minutes later, in the dim coolness of the cinema - and with a huge tub of popcorn in hand - the four of us donned our 3D glasses and settled down to be taken to Middle Earth.

The film was a fun watch.  While the 2.5 hours were streaming by, my eyes were glued to the screen.  The pace was frenetic.  The set pieces grandiouse.  The scenery stunning. 

And yet the high-light of the film was the eerie blueness of Gollum's eyes.  The unnerving desire seen in this strange (and all-too-familiar) creature.

Looking back 24 hours after seeing the film I can safely say that it was a film almost totally unhinged from the book.   "Story-line inspired by The Hobbit" would be more like it.  Though most of the narrative does echo the core sequences of the book - the whole ethos of the film strikes me as something completely alien to Tolkien's story.

Hollywood loves spectacle.  And the film had plenty.  Using his CGI budget to the max, the director has shown us grandiosity after grandiosity.  The battle scenes contain thousands of different figures.  Whole mountains take form and fight with each other - with the 13 dwarves and Gandalf and Bilbo going along for the ride.  The problem with all of that is that it is so completely and utterly removed from who we are as humans.

I had a minor accident a week ago.  A motorcycle suddenly came from the wrong side.  I braked.  He braked.  His bike hit the front corner of the car.  He was hurt in his leg.  The bike punctured our air-con-radiator.  Steam came from the front of the car.   The actual impact was a fraction of a second.  The sorting out took 2 minutes.  He waved me on.  I went.  I spent the rest of the day processing the shock.  One small incident, but the closeness to real death and destruction shook me to the core.

And yet in this film, the characters go through slaughter after slaugther.  And barely raise an eyebrow.  Where is the essential humanity, the sense of scale that Tolkien so clearly had in all his tales?

One of the beauties of reading The Hobbit was the gradual discovery of courage and pluck in Bilbo.

But as I close my eyes - the images that come back from the movie are the massive battle scenes, the endless cliff-hanging, and unbelievable body smashing that went on.   Smash, bang, grunt, run, repeat.  Pan out.  Show more complicated stuff. Smash some more.  Grunt.  Repeat.

The director and his script writer(s) have had to conjure up a huge bulk of material to make sure they have enough spectacle.  So we get a mishmash of characters from The Lord of the Rings (Radagast the Brown wizard shows up prominently in this film) as well as completely new characters.  The most prominent is some Uber-orc who had a vendetta with Thorin Oakenshield's father.   The dwarves as picturised in the film seem to be largely small versions of Mel Gibson's Braveheart.  There is very little dwarvish in them - but lots about territory, lost home-lands and such.   In the midst of the slaughter - a few moments of 'deep thoughts' about 'being true to who you are' etc. etc.  All very, very, very Hollywood.  The only thing that the director seems to have (mercifully) omitted from the normal Hollywood take is to give Bilbo a love interest.  But who knows, given that there are two more films on the way - probably shot already and waiting to be rolled out for more money....  

Tolkien loved myth.  He loved telling stories - and his characters spend a inordinate amount of time themselves telling tales and singing songs of old.  What Tolkien hated was violence for the sake of violence.  At one point his great warrior Faramir says: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for it's swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory.  I love only that which they defend."

The film version of The Hobbit inverts this.  There is no love for anything but spectacle.  The Shire is reduced to the England that Danny Boyle showed during the Olympics opening ceremony - a small pastiche of quaint cliches - rather than a place where Tolkien - and all who love the good can rejoice in.  The movie has no mooring.  It is just following the flash of mega-disaster films since Independence Day first showed how using computer-aided graphics could destroy whole cities.  The films foundations are in other films - its references are external - rather than building on a world that is cherished and true.

Why do I love reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings?  Partly because at the end of the day, they speak a deep truth about the way things are.  We recognize the constant battle between what is right and good - and the awful destruction that evil wreaks in our world.  We celebrate the bonds of friendship and love that are forged, even while mourning over the stubbornness of heart and the betrayals that take place because of pride that so deeply fills us.  The Hobbit is fiction - but its power comes from how 'true' it is - the thrill of recognizing the real and the true in it.

This is why - as said before - only scene that really stands out is the unnerving portrayal of Gollum - and his manic multiple personality relationship with that which he has lost - the ring.   His twisted emotions are powerfully close to the way that we are.  We recognise bits of people around us - and bits of ourselves in him.

As for the rest of the film?  Mainly Hollywood pastiche.  Wish I didn't have to sound so curmudgeonly, but there it is.   Galadriel's showing up in this film allows for a bit of mumbo-jumbo but nothing like the magical discoveries that a far simpler reading of The Hobbit gave it is readers.  However, if you want to show something magical in film - you need to shoot it in the golden evening sun like so:

I guess I shall just have to firewall the world in my mind that I have for the books - and dip into the big tub of greasy popcorn on the odd occasion that I make it to the cinema.  

Kitab parna Zindabad!

13 complete

Thank God for a mother's prayers.

My mother, to be exact.

This is what we just got from her:

Our dear, dear Andi and Sheba,

We rejoice with you over His goodness and mercy during each year of your married life. 

"The LORD is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in loving kindness.        
The LORD is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works"  Ps.145:8,9
(please read this Psalm together)

We are so thankful for both of you. Our prayer for you, Andi, a long time ago was, that you would marry the woman of God's choice and that you, as a team would be greatly used for His Kingdom, and the Lord would be glorified through your lives! Praise the Lord for His answer!

Thirteen years ago my mothers prayer took shape.  Sheba and I were wed 2 weeks before the Millenium ended - on Dec. 15th 1999.

Thirteen amazing years ago.  Years which have had their fair share of tiredness and tears.  But which have been the very best ones yet for me.

We will be starting out into our 14th year with a bang.  Beginning with a small family celebration in the morning with Asha and Enoch.  I am then off to Chembur to finish off the evaluation for the Sahaara trust - and then in the afternoon we will be celebrating the annual Jeevan Sahara Kendra Thanksgiving Time with some 400 plus Positive People, their family members and church volunteers and JSK staff galore!

13 years complete.

Its been a long time since we were married all that long ago in Rourkela.

Its only been a heart-beat ago.

Thanks Mum for your prayers.   And thanks Amma - for your prayers on behalf of Sheba too!

We have had 13 years of joy already.

A short walk into hell

I entered a kind of hell today.

Off a busy street in Bhandup.  Down a slightly less busy one.  Then a tiny crack in the wall between two butcher shops.

The half carcass of a goat adorns one of the shops.  Flies buzz and settle on the meat.  The other shop has  the same wares - even larger piece of fly-infested mutton.  And what lies down the narrow crack of a walk?

More meat for sale.  Human meat this time.

It takes a second to realise that suddenly you are in a different world.  Girls are lounging around.  Colourfully dressed.  Languidly putting on make up.  One each side young and old women are sitting.  Looking at you.  The odd young man is also there.  Old women - with heavy make up steal glances at you.

We walk down the middle of the little path and then duck into a flight of stairs.

We have come to our destination.  A small room where the Project Parivartan of the Sahaara Charitable Society runs a weekly medical clinic among these women who sell themselves. 

There is no power today.  In normal clinic room there is no window.  The nurse on duty is giving one of the women from the brothels an IV line.  The two field workers flit up and down the stairs - bringing girls who are complaining of medical problems.

One is drunk.  She says that she had broken her foot and had had a cast put on it.  But she cut it off.  The cast that is.  The foot is still there but in pain.

"Why did you take it off?"  The Doctor asks the woman.

"I have to eat.  No one gives me food just like that."  Replied the woman who was called 'Doll.'

I must have seen 15 odd ladies come into the room.  Get a checkup and some meds from the doctor.  Receive comforting words from the various SCS staff.   All of them then went back to their 'homes.'   As I write at an unearthly hour - they will be engaged in 'the trade.'

Dr. Lalita Edwards and myself have been asked to do an evaluation of Project Parivartan.  That was why we did the field visit to see the clinic and interact with the staff.   The Project Parivartan people are deeply committed to helping these women leave the trade.  But they cannot force them - and there are such huge barriers for the women to step into another life.

I asked Rekha - the main coordinator for the work among the women for Project Parivartan - how many women had left the trade this year to date.

She told me that 4 had left.

You could say that: "All that work. And only 4 left the trade."

or

You can say that: "All that work is going to reap rewards.  So far we have a trickle with only 4 having left the trade.  But we need to see this break out in a huge way - given the terrible situation there women are in.  Lets see Sahaara and the churches they are linked with now move forward in a huge way to love in deed!"

Hats off the the Sahaara team and all others who are working directly with these women.

Amazing grace.  In the heart-breaking passageway of a kind of hell on earth.

Poverty song

Wilbur - making the common extra-ordinary. 

Climb

As a girl, growing up in marxist East Germany, my Mum used to read about the 'ice tigers' - climbers who challenged the Himalayan heights.  She knew that she could never go there - thanks to the restrictions that the Soviet occupying forces (and the nation of Quislings that welcomed them) had put on young people - to keep them from the decadence of the west.

Today - many a year later - Mum lives in the Himalayas.   God has given them an amazingly beautiful home called Shanti Kunj. Mum loves hiking.  And trees.  And flowers.  And all things beautiful.  And being with people.  And reading her Bible in quiet corner of the hillside.  And when you are with her she will bubble over with enthusiasm about that bird that just flew by, and the small fern that is growing along the path...

Here are two pictures from her Facebook page.  The first from a hike that she took with a friend of hers to 'Pepperpot Cave'.

And the second is an early morning shot which she took of the majestic 'Bandar Poonch' mountain that dominates the view (on a clear day) from the top of the hill where she and Dad live in Mussoorie.

Not bad for a little girl who grew up under the marxists in Leipzig.  They are history.  She is living out God's grace with great joy.  Dreams come true.  Prayers see fruit.

Flobes

Enoch has had loose stools for the past few months.

He seems uncomfortable after meals.  We have given him various kinds of medications for worms and other creepy-crawlies.  We are currently trying to see whether it may be some food allergy - all milk and wheat-based foods off for the last 10 days (a muffin made it into his mouth by mistake a few days ago).  Some improvement, but not much.

So day-before-yesterday we went to see Dr. Stephen Alfred at Bethany.  He talked to Enoch, prodded him a bit, said that he could feel a node in his neck, and asked stool tests for three consecutive days and for an ultrasound of Enoch's abdomen.

I took Enoch for the ultrasound later in the day.  Enoch asked if it would hurt.  I assured him it would not.  He asked the  radiographer the same question.

While the ultrasound was being done Enoch watched me. 

The Dr. told me that she had seen some nodes but that they were not a problem.


Enoch had told Sheba that he did not want to go to school.  When Sheba asked him why, he told her that he had heard that he had 'flobes' - he wanted to know what 'flobes' were.  Sheba assured him that we all have 'flobes.'  He went to school happily enough.

We deal with a lot of death and sick people   Enoch knows people who he saw and are now dead.  Its hardly surprising that he was scared.

I picked up the report this morning and brought it to Sheba.  Sure enough - there was mention of 'few right iliac non necrotic mesenteric nodes are seen - the largest measuring 7x11 mm'

Now it was our turn to wonder about 'flobes.'  In our minds we ran through the times Enoch has been to our JSK centre - where so many have TB.  We remembered how some of the kids of the doctors at the hospital Sheba trained at had gotten TB.  But Enoch's appetite is not only healthy - it is almost ravenous these days.  No fever too.   The other alternative?  Some kind of a cancer....  We never want to think of things like this, but there they are.  Would we have to do further investigations?  A biopsy perhaps? 

The kids were at a music practice so we went over to see Dr. Stephen.  He looked at the report and assured us with a quiet chuckle that nodes are found in allmost all children.  Appetite?  Super.  No need to worry.  Stephen wrote a set of medications that would shock and awe any heleminth or bacteria in sight and send us on our way rejoicing.

What would we have done if Stephen had looked at us gravely and said that he would like to have a biopsy from Enoch?  To be honest, we had already half-prepared ourself for such an eventuality.  It didn't seem possible, and in the end it wasn't, but then whenever something feared takes place we don't believe its actually happening when the crash and the bang are taking place around us.  We did leave the home having said a prayer in which we gave Enoch back to the Lord.  And he has given Enoch back to us.

Medical technology is wonderful.  The stuff we can now do to look into the body is amazing.  But sometimes the things that it throws up can also give you the willies!  At the end of the day - it is Enoch's robust appetite that has swung the pendulum back to what we consider normal - to have a delightful young man who is closing in on his 10th birthday in mid-Feb.   Are we ever grateful for the common grace of having this wonderful lad!

Onwards!  Flobes or no flobes!