Plunging: In

Between this year's Good Friday and Easter Sunday we had the joy of seeing Asha testify to her faith in Jesus by being baptised.

Our original plan was for 5 others to take this step with her as well, but as the 19th of April drew closer the other candidates dropped out (we hope they will take the step soon though).

So on a sun-drenched Saturday evening we gathered at the small baptismal chapel at Holy Trinity School in Thane to witness this step of joyful obedience to our Lord.

After a time of praising God in song (with Enoch on the keyboard and his dad accompanying with the guitar and loud singing) we were blessed with a wonderful word by bro Jolly.

Jolly talked about how he and his wife had been convicted by God's word that they needed to take baptism - and how that had been later in life - but how faithful the Lord Jesus has been to them since they took that step of loving obedience.

Jolly challenged us all to keep following the Lord - something that we have seen him and his wife Suma do faithfully over the past 11 years...

Then Asha stood up to testify about what God has done in her life and why she was being baptised.  It was a happy dream for us as parents to see our daughter stepping out like this.

And it got better!

Immediately after Asha's testimony, went into the water (surprisingly cold - a whole tanker load which had filled up the previously empty tank just minutes before we started the service).

Here I asked Asha whether Jesus Christ was her saviour and Lord.

She replied 'yes'!

And so Jolly and I had the privilege of dunking her after I said the following words:

"Then in obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and upon your profession of faith, I baptize you Asha, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

It was over so quickly, a quick splash down in the water and up she came!

After she came out I said:

"Buried in the likeness of His death and raised in the likeness of His resurrection."

And we all broke into an acapella version of "I have decided, to follow Jesus." 

And so our Asha steps into a new phase of her life.

13 years have gone by in a flash.

The Asha of the past - the little girl that I carry in my heart - has morphed into the next part of her life.  We now have a confident young woman in our house now - who is making her steps of faith and understanding... forward!

It was such a privilege to be part of this public statement of hers that she has died to this world - and is alive in her Lord Jesus.

Sheba and I are very grateful for this joy-filled day.

We think back on our own choices that we made in our youth - my baptism was when I was about 8 - and Sheba's when she was 14.  

And now this generation is stepping forward.

In 2 weeks Asha and her best friend Nikita will have an adventure with Dr. Mary and Dr. Catherine who serve with Love the One in Behrampur Odisha.

Nikita has been praying regularly to be a missionary peadiatrician - and so we thought what better place for them than to actually see first hand what two amazing friends of ours are doing - along with the whole Love the One team!

The Thane Eichers after the baptism - father and daughter wearing a change of dry clothes!

The 19th of April also marks another small but important step in Asha's life.



She is starting to wear specs!

Last week we found out that she has virtually no far-sight in her left eye.  Her right eye - which sees perfectly was doing double duty whenever she looked far.

That was quite a surprise for us - but Asha took it gamely and now we have a very smart looking young lady in our midst!

After the baptism was over we repaired back to the Eicher flat for a big supper - with the household bursting with the John Gabriel family,  Emmanuel and Mokshaa and Wo-way as well as Agnes and Annie - and us 4 Eichers.

Emmanuel prayed for the feast - and then it was open season for food and conversation.  A perfect end to a wonderful day!

Four flowers - times two!

Asha and Enoch have been on a small origami craze recently - sourcing new designs from the internet.  The flowers they made are part of a small but growing collection of origami art that is being manufactured during their just-begun summer hols!

But of course the real flowers in this picture are our 3 girls - and little Wo-way!

Plunging

This evening Asha will be plunged in water.

In the presence of our church and friends, Asha will bear witness that she is a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ - and that He has forgiven her of all her rebellion against Him and made her His daughter by His once-and-for-all-time sacrifice on the cross.

Asha will tell about what Jesus has done in her life and how she has decided to obey Him in the command to be baptised with water.  This act is an outward sign of the inward renewal God has done and is doing in her through Jesus her Lord.

Needless to say it is any father's dream to see his daughter take steps of faith.  And it is an even greater joy to be the one who is actually baptising her.

Our cup runs over with joy ...

Building a monument of love

How do you build a monument of love?

Well, you start with a single brick...  after you have sorted out all the 5922 odd bricks that are said to be in the Lego Taj Mahal set that is!

We were given this set last month - and we started building on the 19th of March Anno Domini 2014.

Enoch put in the first bit on that day - and since then we have tried to grab little bits of time to work steadily through the three books of instructions to make our masterpiece.

Our dear friends Kumar and Shanti Vedanayagam and their 5 kids Jeevan, Anand, Karuna, Kirti and Nitya gave us this massive gift.  And now just under a month later the master-piece is finished!

There were of course a huge number of white pieces.  Which we first stored in a large plastic tub and kept pouring out on our blue dhurrie to get enough contrast to find the little pieces needed for a particular part of the building.

In my growing up years lego was by far my favourite toy (hmm... it still is ... am I grown up yet?).

But the sets we got were very much on the small size (due of course to the monstrous costs the good folks at the lego company have always charged for their products).

So to have this flood of pieces - and to be building this one big building was phenomenal.  It really was a three dimensional puzzle.  The same joy of seeing piece fit with piece and make something beautiful, the same delight in seeing the jumbled chaos of random bits at the beginning slowing whittle itself down to nothing - and instead form a complete whole.

Enoch was in his element (as was his dad too).   As the days went by we managed to squeeze in the odd building session - and were always thrilled to see another big step forward.

 The ingenuity of the plans were a source of marvel.  On one hand the ability to render curves of domes through layers of small white pieces.

On the other hand the way that certain pieces were marshalled into ways that I had never thought of.

And all along the gradual development of the familiar lines of the Taj Mahal.

As we came nearer to the end we started running out of some of the pieces.  Not many - considering the huge number in the set - but enough to be seen 'from the outside.'

This brought us to dip into the lego hoard that we have built up over the years.

Some pieces were found - exactly like the missing ones.  Others were the same but a slightly different colour.

And in a few cases we had to engineer a slightly different way forward.

 And then we came to today.

The main structure was ready yesterday - we just needed to rejig the little cupolas on the top.

Dig, dig, dig... can you find me a flat 2x4 white piece?   Dig, dig, dig.  The sound of lego pieces tumbling over each other.

And finally it was finished.  We had summitted.  There were clear skies and views all around us!

Many a person has taken a picture with the Taj in the back-ground - acting like they are picking up the Taj by their fingers.  Well - how about a shot of a giant of a boy actually touching the top of this august building!

The building is just a thrill to look at.

Hats off to the lego designers who have so elegantly minituarised this beautiful structure - and given it such a royal look!

And being lego - you don't just build something, you play with it.

Lunch break was over for me - and I had to go back to work - so Enoch took over.

Apparently some tourists showed up with their cameras.

Pictures have to be taken of course - I mean - what's the use of going to someplace if you can't have a shot of yourself their to prove that you have been there and been seen!

We just got over with the building and had to clean up stuff - but I am pretty sure that there will be a whole gang of 'good guys' and 'robbers' that will probably be living out their chases and other exciting events in and around the Taj in the coming days.

We have started talking about seeing if we can recreate the famous gardens and ponds in front of the Taj too.

Let's see... but till then, we savour the outcome of 3 weeks of building (albeit in a quantum way).

The Taj is finished!

And since my darling bride and I actually went to Agra for part of our honey-moon (the other part at Ranthambhore National Park), I think that we need to have one more shot.

Not a full moon-light picture, but here is the Taj at night!

Exciting days

A few posts ago we said that we had some exciting news... well here it is:

After years of praying, and praying, and praying for more medical staff to join Sheba ... we have not one doctor joining us at Jeevan Sahara Kendra... but two!  And they are married to each other!  And the most lovely folks too!

And after years of praying for more nurses to join our faithful Agnes... we are getting a nurse next week with Natasha Chopra due to join on Monday, and then Jerusha - the soon to be bride of our dear Daniel - is expected to join us in early May.  And in addition we have had Lydia - an amazing volunteer nurse who comes 4 days a week with a 1.5 hour bus ride each way!

So... after almost two years of renovation at the Lok Hospital building we have a sparkling 10 bedded hospital ready to care for people with HIV who are very sick... but over the past 2 months we had the painful process of having to tell people who were really ill that we could not admit them - because we did not have the nursing staff to care for them.

But this month we hope to have turned the corner.  With the team in place we have the opportunities not only to care for multiple sick people and their families at once at our JSK Centre... but to even think of expanding and reaching out to other parts of the city (tomorrow morning Sheba and I will be going over to Virar to see whether we should start a weekly clinic there)....

And the spark to all of this has been the amazing meeting up with Dr. Emmanuel Isukuru and his lovely wife Dr. Mokshaa Mohan and their lively son 'Wo-way!'

Three weeks ago we got a call from a 'Dr. Emmanuel' saying that a local pastor had told him and his wife about us.  Could they meet us?  Sure we said.  The next day they spent the day with us at JSK.

Things clicked beautifully ever since.

Emmanuel is from Nigeria.  Mokshaa is from Chennai.  They met as medical students at St. Petersburg in Russia.   They have been married for two years now and had moved to Nigeria after their marriage.  But then their local church in Nigeria challenged them to come to India.  And so they did.

When we met them we were just bowled over by their sincerity and joy in the Lord.

We had been able to introduce them to Dr. Stephen Alfred, and two days later an SMS came from him - telling that a flat was available for rent and would our friends be interested in it?  Would they ever! 

In what seemed like a dream - just over under two weeks later they had moved into their new digs.  Emmanuel and Mokshaa have been on the bad end of a number of ugly racialist behaviour by members of our so-called cosmopolitan city of Mumbai - especially when they tried to rent a place.  But here they are - within walking distance of us and the Jeevan Sahara Kendra.

Emmanuel had told me that he secretly hoped he could move out of the difficult place that they were in before Mokshaa's birthday.  Well, her birthday was today (we celebrated at JSK as a trio by the JSK staff this afternoon as my birthday was yesterday and Sheba's is tomorrow).   They moved their things in on Saturday night - and after staying the night with us - and having a posse of angels from our church clean up the place after the land-lord had done a quick and blessed paint job too - they moved into their home on Sunday night.

God is good.

These are exciting days for us - we need to pinch ourselves a bit and ask is it actually happening...

And now the joy of moving forward together.

Emmanuel and Mokshaa are already part of our family.  They have committed themselves to working with us for the next two years.  Sheba has started teaching them and getting them into the harness for caring for people with HIV the way we do it here.  We are hoping to enroll them in the Masters in Family Medicine course from Vellore.   Emmanuel is jumping into Hindi studies.  They have a lovely jumpy baby - and great expectations for another bundle of joy too...

Big gulp of air.  Be brave.  Trust and don't doubt.  Change has come - let's move forward and embrace the amazing possibilities all around us!

Living Legends: Hans and Ruth Strom

Many years ago I had a magical summer.  We were in Europe - spending time with Oma Fischer.  It was 1978.  Opa Fischer died in 1975.   Oma Fischer was living in the 'German Democratic Republic' - also known as 'East Germany.'

Mum and Dad took us 3 kids with them to the OM International Conference - I think it was in Holland.  After that, Dad was invited to go to Sweden and Finland.  Mum and Dad decided that Mum would return to East Germany with Stefan and Premi - and that I would go along with Dad on his trip.

We drove along with a Finnish brother up through Denmark, on to a ferry, and then over to Sweden.

In Sweden we visited Hans and Ruth Strom - who had been with OM in India in the late 1960s - and whose son Stefan was born here.  They had helped run OM Sweden and were living in the countryside.

Their house was like heaven to me.  There son Stefan - two years older to me - took me in as a friend and we went on bicycles into the forests, gathering blue berries.  In his front-yard, Stefan had rigged up a pole vault pit - and with the aid of bamboo poles was making a go at the big time.  Never having been much of a sports-boy, let alone a sports-man, my attempts at pole-vaulting stopped there.  But what fun to have a go with this boy who later has become a sports-teacher.

At 11 AM there was a meal.  Sandwiches. Hot drinks. Ice cream.   I thought this was lunch.  But at 1 PM another large meal awaited us.  And then something at 4 PM.  And then a supper.   Whether they were trying to fatten up a thin Indian boy or whether this was just the way it was in Sweden I never found out - but having grown up with more than a faint wiff of austerity, this was all quite delightful.

After 2 days it was time to go with Dad to Finland.  But I had found the place where I wanted to be.  It was decided that I could stay the week there and Dad would pick me up on the way back.
And so my Swedish summer continued.

I knew very little about tennis.  But that week on a Sunday afternoon I went over with the Strom's to a neighbour to watch the finals of the Wimbeldon Men's finals.  Having been in the US for a year previously, my sympathies (carefully concealed) were with a certain Jimmy Connors.   Unsurprisingly, the room full of Swedes were baying for their own favourite - the great Bjorn Borg.  I still remember the black and white images of Borg doing what he did best - winning at Wimbledon - to the delighted shouts of all and sundry present (except yours truly).

This month - a good 36 years after that week in Sweden - we had the joy of hosting uncle Hans and Ruth Strom at our place here in Thane.



They have weathered the years very well.  Now in their 70s, they were on a tour of India, meeting many of their old friends (not a few of which have lost their spouses) as well as a number of the schools that they have been supporting over the last few years.

As a young married couple, they both had good teaching jobs when they decided to go to mainland Europe with OM to share the love of Jesus with others.   After praying about it, they extended that one summer to a life-time of service.   A few years of this time were in India, and when they were asked to return to Sweden to set up the work there - they were returning to nothing of substance as they had 'sold off' most of their belongings when they left for India.   One of the things that they asked God was for a fully furnised house - at no rent.  And the Lord provided.

That was the house in the countryside where I had spent my magical week.  A local farmer allowed them to stay there for many years without taking a penny (or a krona is it were).
Over time, God give them a place of their own - in the near-by town, and their son and daughter now have families of their own and are following God in their own way too.

Before coming to India this time, Ruth had been wondering about the rigors of travelling for 2 months across the country.  One night she woke up and read about how Peter had been imprisoned and an angel had come and woken him and told him to get up.  When he did so, the chains fell off - and the angel then led him out.

Ruth felt God telling her that this was a message for her.  "But what chains do I have Lord?  I am not in jail." she spoke out to God in prayer.  Then God spoke to her through a thought: "Your fears about India are shackeling you."  And Ruth realised that her fears had been hemming her in.  She felt a tremendous peace as she took the step of faith and put her fears in the Lord's hands.
What a blessing for us to be visited by such living legends.  The years hang lightly on these saints.

The Bible tells us to consider the outcome of the lives of those who have shared the faith with us.  And to imitate their faith.   Here's a couple whose faith is worth imitating - at whatever stage of life we may be in!

Steel frame

What has two back bones and thousands of ribs?

This 'old chestnut' of a riddle has a simple solution: a railway track.

I am writing this on board the Maharashtra Sankranti Express.   My destination is Delhi - where my friend Danny and I are due for a board meeting tomorrow.  We are travelling through ripening wheat fields in rural western UP, having passed the holy city of Mathura.  Our travelling companions are a father with his teenaged son, both watching a movie on a laptop and sharing a set of ear-buds, a man who seems to be a contracter of some sort - on his way to Kashmir, a young woman computer engineer - on her way to an interview, another man with a copy of Popular Science (borrowed by yours truly of course) and an India Today with Narendra Modi on the cover - and 3 commandoes on their way back to Delhi after doing VIP security in Mumbai for some pretty well known folks.

I was talking to one of them.  A man my age - from a farming community in Hariyana.  He has travelled the country and sees his wife and children a month out of the year.  The train had stopped for a long time at a signal so we got down for a stretch.  He looked at he fields near-by and pointed out the fields which were ready for harvest - and which fields needed 2 more weeks of clear skies to reach their potential.  I told him about the work we do - and how medications for HIV are making a huge difference in people's lives - but that pills will never cure hearts.  He nodded, saying that at the armed forces medical centres in Delhi there were a number of service-men who had HIV.

And so we roll on.  Phone calls are coming in now and my fellow passengers are telling family members and business colleagues about when they hope to arrive.  Our train seems about an hour late - but we are clipping along at a wonderful pace, the steady rumble of the aircon is matched by a low vibration and the muffled sound of our coach clicking over rails at a fine speed.  Electricity posts nip by outside at a regular rate as the flat disc of rurality becomes punctuated with odd hamlet and criss-crossed by power lines snaking away to the horizon.  Now we segue through a cluster of buildings, then we barrel past a rail crossing.  

If we went up and looked down at us, we would be a small metal worm, making its way up north along the main rail corridor between Mumbai and Delhi.  Look further behind us and you will see another such worm, also making its way north.  Look ahead of us and there is another.  A set of worms moving ahead at safe intervals between each other.  And look across the nation and you see hundreds of trains taking thousands and thousands of people across the land.  

This is the steel frame on which our country moves.  With all the advances on road, and all the metal birds that fly through the sky - its our rail that is still the medium on which India moves.

While waiting for the train in Borivali I over heard a young couple asking people when the train to Ahmedabad would come.  There was something in the way the young woman asked it that marked her out as a person who had not done much train travel before.  But there she and the young man (brother? lover?) she was with were on the platform - waiting to be taken away.

...

And so it goes.  I have since arrived hale and hearty in Delhi.  After seeing a wild hare in a rural part, and the inevitable shacks and garbage that announce the onset of a city, we ended up at Nizamuddin Station in Delhi, a mere 5 minutes behind time.

Across the darkness of the night other trains are leaving from stations, ploughing through the night, halting at signals.  Their human cargoes living out another strand of life - woven together for a season - as their steel caterpillars whisk them onwards, onwards.

Meanwhile, I am about to book tickets for 2 months from tonight - when we as a family should be leaving New Delhi station for Dehra Dun on the 11.45 PM AC Express.   Bharaitya Rel - jai ho!

Stock out

Stock out

Two words that don't mean much to most of us.

Because most of us do not have to take medication each day to keep our resident HIV at bay - and let our immune system still function close to how God intended it to be.

Taking the medications has its own challenges.  The sobering truth is that unless the meds are taken at a 95% adherence level the chances of viral resistance are high.  This means that you could 'afford' to miss 3 doses a month if you are taking the pills twice a day.  Across the world - in both 'rich' and 'poor' countries - adherence rates for long-term medications are a sobering 50-80% on average.  

Unsurprisingly, we know that most of our Positive Friends who are taking the medicines long-term face similar challenges.  A lot of our work with JSK right now is focused on helping them take their medications regularly.  We aim at 100% - and so if a person does miss the odd pill in the month it will still work.   Our real challenge are our friends who have a pattern of being irregular with their meds.

But now we have a new challenge.  And its a very serious one.

A number of our long-term HIV Positive Friends are at a point where their virus has become resistant to the basic Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) drugs.  The government, which gives the ART free, also provides free 'second-line' ART medications.  But since these are far more expensive, these drugs are only given at a few select centres.  In Mumbai the main govt. centre for second-line ART is at the JJ Hospital in Byculla.  It has in the past been hard to 'get on' the second-line therapy - but most of those who have needed it have received it.  The problem for them has been the long travel to the JJ hospital in south Mumbai once a month to get their monthly-supply.

Over the past few months we have had disturbing stories.

The stocks of 2nd line medications are low.  So instead of giving a month's worth of medications - those who need these life-saving meds are given just 10 days' worth and told to come back.   That means 3 visits a month.  

And it gets worse.  We have some of our Positive Friends who were only given 4 days worth and told to come back.  And that too - the medications are given loose.  One of our long-term patients came to our Jeevan Sahara Kendra clinic with this:

He is showing 4 days of second-line medications - which he was given in an old box of a 'first-line' medication.  

Now we all know that once you start giving drugs loose the immediate question about quality comes to mind.  And if a patient doubts the quality of her medications - then their efficacy will suffer.

And then there is the issue of going every 4 days to get medications.  Who has the luxury of doing a Mumbai Darshan every week?   We know of Positive People losing their jobs because of their frequent absences to get medications.  We have people coming from outside the city to get their meds too.

The Mumbai AIDS Forum has been taking up this issue and held a rally last month to protest these shortages.

The press covered the story and the officials said that the issue will be taken care of 'at the earliest' - but the damage is being done.

When drugs are not there - it is inevitable that adherence rates will drop.

And after the 'second-line' medications stop working...  then what?

A basic fact of HIV drug treatment is that once a drug stops working, you have to replace it with a completely different kind of drug.  You cannot just amp up the dosage (like some of the diabetes drugs) and hope for a better outcome.   Each new set of meds is a quantum more expensive - and usually more side-effects to boot.

So here is the grist of it - People living with HIV need to have their medications.  It needs to be free and life-long.   We have to see that they get the support and encouragement to take the pills daily - without fail - in order for the effectiveness of the meds to keep their resident HIV at bay.

But in order to do so, they need the drugs.  And they need access to the meds in such a way that they don't lose their jobs because of repeated visits a month to the government centres.  That they don't lose their health because of the strain of long travel.  That they don't lose their adherence because of the challenge of even getting the meds regularly, let alone taking them on time.

We are glad that our National AIDS Control Organisation is providing ART medications free - even the second-line ART drugs.  But we know for a fact that the situation in Mumbai is clearly one where the system has to improve.

Besides the issues of logistics which clearly need to be sorted out - how about letting Jeevan Sahara Kendra partner in providing the medications at our centre here in Thane?

Your thoughts and prayers on this are most appreciated.