Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving.

Expressing our gratitude.

For another amazing year gone by.

It was a bitter-sweet time for us as we gathered on the 19th of December at the Jeevan Sahara Kendra.

Our dear Positive Friends came.  And their families.  And our friends from local churches.  And our staff and their families too.

How many came?  Well, the 450 food packets we prepared were all gone at the end - and a number of our staff 'went home hungry' (including a certain family with 5 who have a well-stocked fridge).

Once a year we pull out the stops.  To stop and say thanks.

Thanks to God - and thanks to each other.

Looking back and looking forward.

For us this marks our last annual thanksgiving time.  We have had at least 12 of them so far.  Usually on the second last Saturday of December.  A time for our HIV Positive Friends to look back and thank God for the year... and that they are still alive.  And look forward to what God has in store for them next.

This year's programme started with a lively worship set by bro Selvam Nadar and his crew.



Our limited budget - and the fact we are in a silent zone - meant that we could not have the full scale sound that Selvam wanted.  And he also came with a stripped-down team.  But the trio got us all off our feet and praising the Lord.  The man has a big heart and it what a joy to have him lead us in worship.

Next up was a skit by the local church youth group - and then a full scale set of dramas by the Living Hope team.

Minimal voices.

Maximum moves.

Mime to sound.

The team expressed the existential dilemmas that we face well.  And the hope that God through our Lord Jesus offers freely.

The 10 person team had us enthralled for half an hour - and the echo of their moves resonate in our minds.  Theatre has the ability to capture the very essence of something and take you deep into the heart of the matter.   Living hope lives up to its name!

As a team, the Jeevan Sahara Kendra loves to sing.

So we finally got a chance to put our voices to action - and gave a lusty rendition of the Urdu Christmas song "ho shadaman, saara jahan..."






The sun was now going down in the sky and we split up into three groups.   The adults stayed outside in the area behind the Lok Hospital building, framed by the coconut trees above (thankfully none fell down) and the garden on the side.

Tea was served by our eager volunteer teams.

Kids went off to the back of the campus where a team from the Childrens' Bible Ministry had a special programme for them.

And the young people were blessed by a team from the Borvali Hebron Fellowship who had a super session for them.

Each one is so precious - young and old.

It has been a privilege of working with the different families over these years - and seeing God shape lives in different ways.

We are so glad that none of the children born to HIV positive mothers under our care over the last 13 years have been born with HIV.  God's grace, lived out through the hard work of our staff and the love and generosity of church volunteers.

When we look into the faces of these dear young ones we see the future.  And it looks a lot brighter than the past from which many are emerging from... for which we are so grateful!




In a time of so much seeming hopelessness we are grateful for the Word of God who has revealed Himself in His word.

It was fitting to have John Gabriel share with us.

John has been with us as a family since our days in Borivali way back in 2001.

And over these years he and Nalini and their daughters have stuck to us.  Encouraging us. Praying for and with us.

As a family they have also supported the work with our Positive Friends - joining a number of Positive Friends retreats - and helping as a church to stabilise and support families in the locality.

One of the Positive couples from their church is today down South living an amazing life as an auto-rickshaw driver and pastor - with a son who is studying engineering.

Even as I am writing this a phone call has come from John - asking help for a contact of his down South who needs HIV counselling.

John shared from his heart about how our Lord forgives all our sins... and heals all our diseases.

We then had his words put into practice.  Our Positive Friends came forward to share what God has been doing in their lives.

What a joy to men and women stand up and publicly share their journey.  Some are far along the road to wholeness, others are just starting.  Each life is a miracle of grace.   We are obviously not showing their photos on this blog - but in our minds we see their faces and their words are still fresh in our hearts.  What a privilege for all of us to be part of this journey.

Sheba and I took the stage to say thank you - and to tell our friends that we are moving on.  Looking out at the various faces in the crowd was deeply moving.  Each one represents a life that we and the JSK team have partnered with at some point.

Sheba and I have been blessed to see so many of our dear friends pull through.

And we also know that many did not make it.

Even this year we lost a number of our Positive Frieneds.   The young boy Kim comes to mind as a particularly tragic case.   There were a number of folks at last years meeting who were not here this time.  But by God's grace, the medications are working and they are doing wonders.

We have folks who have been with us for years.  Some come back especially for this meeting each year.

We were able to thank God for His goodness in helping us this far - and share with our friends how we see our Lord leading us forward to move to the North again after the 13 years of work in Thane.

After the meeting a number of our dear friends cried with us.  We cannot imagine you not being here was something we kept hearing from our Positive Friends.

It was my real joy, to introduce my dear friend and our successor as leader at Jeevan Sahara: Thomas Phillips - known to one and all as 'Jolly.'

Earlier in the day I had gone back to our old centre for a very specific task:  to pluck a leaf.


This was no ordinary leaf.  It was the leaf of what is now a large tree growing on the street outside the old JSK office near Happy Valley.

About 8 years ago, it was a small sapling that an 8 year old boy called Sachin had planted there with his uncle.  Sachin died a few months after that.

But Sachin's mother was here with us at the meeting.  And his sister too.  And the once small sapling is now a mighty tree outside our old office building.

I handed the leaf over to Jolly as a symbolic passing on of the baton.

We are not worthy to be part of the lives that God has linked us up with.  Our model is the Lord Jesus who said that unless a grain of wheat dies, it will not bear fruit.   The lives that we see transformed in front of us are so often the result of our staff 'dying' to self - putting in the many hours of care and work that most do not see.

Jolly shared how deeply moved he was to be with everyone - and how much he looked forward to serving come February.  He then called the JSK staff forward for prayer.

It was now time for a snack and a gift.


We asked all those who had come to sit with their family members while our volunteers scurried about serving packets of vegetable biryani and hot tea in the slightly cool night air.

At the same time, we had our guests from local churches line up for joy of gift-giving.  Our JSK staff would take a church volunteer and steer them gift-in-hand to a family and introduce them.  The volunteer then gave the gift and spent some time talking and praying with the family before reporting back to our gift centre to be deployed to the next family.

It was a happy mayhem.


It was not possible to meet each person in the crowd, but Sheba and I did shake a lot of hands as we mingled with our dear friends.

Looking back, it is a perfect end to our time here.

A time to give thanks to God for His goodness in giving life to so many who would otherwise slip away from this earth largely unnoticed.

A time to rejoice in the wonderful way our team put the programme together, working as a seamless unit to get the 101 things done needed for a programme of this magnitude.

A time to make a clear statement that our time with Jeevan Sahara is now at an end... and the joy of being able to introduce our dear friend and brother Jolly to our Positive Friends.

And so we gathered as a JSK team with some of our family folks after the programme for a photo.   What an amazing bunch.  We are proud of each one of our JSK family and are already mourning our upcoming going of different ways.

But oh how thankful we are.



p.s. a big thanks to Sharon Joseph for the superb photos - a few of which we were able to show here - but most of whom because of confidentiality and privacy issues will not be posted on the blog! 

Songs in the night

We have been carol-singing for the past 3 nights.

One or two years into our time in Thane, we were awoken from our beauty sleep at some ghastly hour between 11 PM and midnight by a large group of carolers from a local church.  We had not been 'warned' that they were coming, and I stumbled out to meet the 30 odd folks embarrassed and confused what to do with them.  Call them in?  Send them away?  I don't remember what we finally did - probably just grinned a bit and said good-bye to the dear-hearted Christmas revellers.  No hot chocolate was served by the Eicher household that night.

Our small church has less folks in our whole 'congregation' than that group of carolers.  So our own forays in the early parts of Thane's ever-so-slightly chilly nights have been far more modest.

We have our little band of faithfuls (with the 5 Eichers forming a big proportion of the celebrants) who visit 2-3 homes per night.  Three songs.  A small sharing about the joy of Jesus.  A prayer for the family.  Handing over a small gift of a 2016 bible calendar, a Dayasagar vcd and a plum cake (eggless of course). On our way into the night again.

Three nights and yet such very different homes - reflecting the fractured reality of our city of Thane - and the cheek-by-jowl but oh-so-very-very-apart lives of the rich and the poor.

And so we sang songs of the Messiah who came into the world to save us from our sins in the beautiful homes of our neighbours as well as in some of the less lovely homes where our slum-dwelling friends live.

There was a particularly horrid hut yesterday night which summed up all which is so wrong in this world.  We are no strangers to this place.  The couple who used to live there were a decade younger to us.  Today they are dead.  They died from HIV.  Our team tried hard, very hard to help this family.  The darkness in their lives did not relent.  The current inhabitants are a small 7 year old orphan boy and one of his grandmothers.  I forget which one is which - the one who sells liquor and got his older brother to stop school and start ragpicking, or the marginally better grandmother who showed up unannounced at the hostel we had sent the children to last year to try and get them a new start and caused havoc there with her lies.

We had passed a knot of men gambling at the entry-way off the street, walking through small dark gullies till we came to the tiny asbestos covered shack.   This 10 ft by 10 ft 'home' has been cut in half and another family lives on the other side - no doubt paying a small rent that one of the grandmothers uses to keep things going.

I was sitting on the floor with the others crammed into the tiny space and looked up at the bags of clothes tied up, and the soot encrusted walls.  A shabby TV with a pay-set-top-box showed that cash is used for for some entertainment of sorts.

In the din of the slum - with other TVs on in other places and the hustle and bustle of life behind walls our songs swelled up for a short period of time.  What hope is there in a family who has made so many sad choices?

But it was for just such a seeming hope-less home that our Lord became enfleshed.  One of our number was little Ashish - barely 4 months old - but brought along by his parents on this night of carols.  How helpless our Lord was in that night in far away Bethlehem.  How humiliating for the King of glory to be cleaned of the wastes that his little body ejected.  And how familiar our Lord is to the horrors of poverty, the life-time grind of not having options.

We sang songs of hope in a pretty hope-forsaken place.  I am back in the comforts of my home and that broken family continues to squat on that little bit of land.  But a prayer has been said. And well after the songs have faded, there is still hope for change.
 

Coming home

We have been blessed to have Andi's parents with us for most of this year - and on the 1st of Jan we head off to Vizag for a quick visit to Sheba's parents.

So many parents, however are yearning for their children to come home...

This is an advertisement for a German shopping chain.   Sometimes truth is spoken from strange places...

Yohan's first birthday... with us

Its early AM on the 13th of December 2015.

Today is the day we have decided to start celebrating Yohan's birth on.  We just don't know which day he was born on (1 in 365 chance that it was the 13th of December of course).  All we know is that he was born in 2003 - just like Enoch.

Enoch's birthday on the 19th of February is shared with the great Maharashtrian warrior king Shivaji.

Yohan's birthday celebrations will from now on be shared with our dear Amma - whose immediate and warm welcome of the news that we desired to bring Yohan into the family was so important to us.

Since tomorrow is Sunday and our house fellowships are all gathering for a 'common worship' time in the morning - and as there is a big concert in the evening that we are running a stall at - we decided that our first party for Yohan would be today instead of the 13th.

And what a lovely party it was.  Yohan had been counting down the days - and today finally arrived. He woke up with his normal big smile - and it was hard to keep him calm through out the day.  The news that little Abhishek had got up at 5 AM with an announcement that today was 'Yohan bhaiya's Birthday Party' brought a smile to all of us.

A last minute dash to get everything in order - with everyone pitching in and a more than a few trips to local shops - and we were good with 6 PM rolling around and the first guests there!

Yohan was joined by Divya and her brother Harsh-vardhan from the building.  Harsh-vardhan plays football with Enoch and Yohan.  Anil and Sandhya and little Abhishek and even littler Ashish were the first in the door.  We also had the JSK lady staff as well as Jayprakash and his sister Gita.  Two more couples with kids - Daniel and Yerusha with their Abiel and Rajesh and Shweta and little Stuti too rounded off the evening's crew.

A full house, some fun games, and then a time of reflecting on God's word.  We have the example of our Lord Jesus when He was 12 years old Himself - that He grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men (Luke 2.52).  Daniel uncle prayed for Yohan.  And then it was time for cake and candles....

Mummy and Daddy were hungry from all the 'work' of getting the party together... so young Yohan was quick to feed them...

Who would have ever imagined this day on the 12th of December 2014.  Yohan had been admitted at JSK as a sick small boy at that time - but to think of him as a family member....  Amazing what God has done!  

We still have a long way to go, and ask for urgent prayers so that we will be able to turn our foster care of Yohan into a proper adoption.  But we are so thankful for everything that has happened so far.

Here are our two boys - both born in 2003 - and both celebrating their 12th this year.  Enoch is already looking forward to his 13th in Feb, and before that we have Asha's 15th to celebrate in Jan 2016!

The festive season is truly underway!

And just for the public record - here are before and after shots of Yohan's first cake as an Eicher....

Friends from other eras - still fresh!

It's not often that you get a phone call from Auntie Hazel Raine - and its even a greater joy to know that she is briefly in town and choses to come and meet you as a family!

But that is what happened on Thursday evening.  We had the joy of having a real saint - another of our living legends - come by and spend some precious time with us as a family.  Lloyd and Hazel Raine came to Bombay as missionaries in 1959.  They helped set up the Berean Bible College in Chembur and lived many a place across Bombay town and poured their lives into others.

Asha took this photo and so is not in the happy throng...

Uncle Lloyd and Auntie Hazel knew Mum and Dad from when they were young bright-eyed OMers in the mid 1960s.  One of Hazel's first memories of Dad is him showing up with 30 young men one day Lloyd and Hazel's place and expecting to be housed and fed - which they were.  And when it was pointed out to him that their dear cook was being worked to the bone, he swung into action and got the young guys pulling their weight too.

Uncle Lloyd went to be with the Lord just over a year ago.  This is the first time that Auntie Hazel has come back to India 'alone.'  But, of course she has family everywhere she goes.  People that she and her dear husband poured themselves into - and who are living lives of purpose and value... all across the country.

I remember them vaguely as they were just finishing their stint at Bombay Baptist Church and then heading out to Calcutta where they spent another 13 years of service.

Auntie told us about how the pollution of Calcutta basically finished Uncle's lungs and forced them to return to Canada to save his life... but how shortly afterwards they were convinced that they needed to come back to India.  And they did.  Without even knowing which of the 4 options they were considering they would eventually take.

And so they ended up in Hyderabad for the last stint of their service in India.  The air was better than Cal or Bom - and they faithfully lived out their love for Jesus.

Which is what brings Auntie back again for a 3 month trip over this winter.   We are so touched to be given the slice of her life she blessed us with!  Her visit was over all to quickly and she was off again to be with folks in Colaba...

--------------------------------------

What ho!  A message on FB saying that Noel DeSouza is in town and that he would like to come over and visit us.

I can't even remember the last time we met.  Decades ago.

Noel's mother Theresa was a dear friend of Mum.  She died when Noel and his two brothers Nigel and Nathan were very very small.

Fast forward to today.  Noel is married to Pearl and has two daughters - the older one who is Asha's age.  Nathan is with him in Dubai and Nigel back in Goa.  Uncle Joeseph died a few years ago.

The three lads have survived so much.  And here is Noel - large as life with us on a Saturday morning in Thane.          

We looked back with so much thankfulness to the love and care that Mum and Dad gave at various times and in various ways.

Noel has done really well.  What a blessing to see him thrive.  While showing us photos of his wife Pearl and their daughters, we saw lots of shots of computer servers - and a picture or two of a cricket stadium.

He casually told us that he is looking after IT for the ICC.  Yes, that's the International Cricket Council - which is based in Dubai.

Enoch's eyes grew round when I told him this after Noel had left.

But his eyes - and Yohan's too - had already goggled.  Uncle Noel had come bearing gifts - and one of them was a massive box of Lego.  A huge Star Wars battle creature called an 'AT-AT' - the arrival of which meant an end to Enoch and Yohan's Saturday morning classes with Mummy - and the beginning of some serious building:

Noel and I talked about how much this toy was a blessing to us - he remembered Stefan and my collection - which I was happy to tell him is still being used by Enoch and Yohan (and their Daddy too once in a blue moon).  Those strong plastic bricks - still being used to build dreams - and play out fantasy adventures 30 years later.

Noel's visit was also over far too quickly - but he had others to meet and so we bade a regretful good-bye after a time of prayer together.  

May we meet again - and not after decades...

We may be friends from other eras - our kids may need major back-filling explanations for folks who are strangers to them - but amazingly, our relationships can still be fresh!

Future colleagues... coming right up!

"And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet."

Got that?  It's English.  Only 800 years ago.  St. Mahrer is said to have written this in 1225 which rendered into more prosaic Victorian sounding English goes as follows: "the tide abides for, tarrieth for no man, stays no man, tide nor time tarrieth no man" (all this gyan fresh off 'the internet' of course).

Today we say "Time and tide wait for no man."

Time certainly seems slipping away.  This day is minutes from being over.  December is rushing by like a Mumbai fast local train.  2016 is peeping around the corner.

And so what looks like our immediate future.

Take a look at some of our colleagues from the next lap of life for the Eichers.

This shot was taken 10 days ago at the Harriet Benson Memorial Hospital in Lalitpur.  It was on the occasion of the Regional Advisory Committee meeting so the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA's) North and Central Regions.  Near the centre, wearing a white shirt is Dr. Sunil Gokavi who serves as the Executive Director of EHA, next to him in the olive green shirt is Dr. Ashok Chacko who was my first 'boss' in EHA many moons ago as he was in Coordinator for Community Health when I served at the Nav Jivan Hospital in Jharkhand.

Sprinkled among the good folks in this picture are dear friends.  Vikram Tirkey, Dipak Singh, Johnson, our own dear Victor Emmanuel.  And there are folks that we don't know, but look forward to working along with.

This picture was posted by Biju Mathew who is the administrator and head of the HBM Hospital which hosted the meetings.

At present we are planning for me to start up at Lalitpur on the 19th of January (5 weeks from now!) with me going up to Lalitpur for 2 week spans during Jan, Feb and March.  After the school year ends for Asha and Enoch, we then hope to shift as a family in early April.

Lots to look forward to.  Onwards!

Mumbai as you have never seen her before

Mumbai is an amazing city. 

She calls the masses from near and far.  Those who were privileged enough to be born in her (ahem, ahem) swear by her.  Others swear at her.  But they still come.  Grudging pilgrims to money.  Village dreams drowned in the go, go, go that keeps the city pulsing.


Here is a picture of Nana Chowk today.  You can see "Elim" our childhood home just behind the lighted steps coming down from the skywalk in the lower right hand of the picture.

This clip is a shot from a beautiful short film of time-lapse photography made by Aswhin Nagpal.  Its quiet hypnotic sound track drives the images forward. 

The night shots wash away a lot of the grime - but perhaps that's what we need every now again.  To see some beauty as well as the ugliness of this great sprawl.

Enjoy.

Mumbai - A short time lapse film from ashwin on Vimeo.