A Sunday to Remember

The day started pretty early. We were picked up before eight in the morning, and after grabbing breakfast to eat in the car, we headed straight to church in one of the classrooms of a Christian school. There were at least two other churches meeting in different classrooms at the same time. I know this, because our neighbor church in the classroom on the right had very exuberant singing complete with energetic clapping and a cacophony of tambourines that pretty much drowned out our sedate prayers and quiet testimonies. When neither our closest neighbors, nor we were singing, I could sometimes hear songs from the service across the muddy courtyard. Mumbai is so over crowded that it has driven up rents and property values enormously. Many small churches cannot afford to have a place all week. There are plenty of buildings not in use on a Sunday that would suit, but most Hindu owners will not rent to a church. Hence the Christian school packed with meeting after meeting. When we finished our own service, the next church to use our classroom had congregants already lined up outside as we exited.

The pastor and our guide for the day is on the left

The evangelist brother we were with was proud to show us how he has raised up his church to be self sufficient. Most of the congregants came to faith because of his door to door evangelizing, track handouts, or open air preaching. He retains the title of pastor, but he pushes everyone in his congregation to do something. The band bring their own instruments from home, a group of women rotate who brings tea and snacks for after service, prayer time is led by one of the elders, the pastor told them he had no interest in even touching the money, so there is a small group that counts the offering and takes care of the required government financial reports. Finally, the pastor has trained the elders in the word and how to preach for when he is away, which is often. He is actually coming to the U.S. at the end of next month to preach and hold conferences. His goal is that if he were to die or move tomorrow, the church would be fine.

I used Proverbs 13:20 and 15:22 and Colossians 3:12-14 in my message

The older women tend to worship with heads covered while the younger tend to with uncovered heads.

Faye sharing about how God used a painful separation from home and the familiar in college to introduce her to a family who became highly influential in her life and faith.

The service was more simple and intimate than my church back home. Almost every member shared during prayer time, and "testimony" time. Communion, which happens every week at this church, started with tearing pieces off a little bun with candied fruit. Faye and I were given a time to share at the end. We both shared our testimonies, and I shared an encouragement for them to seek out positive friendships and mentors to help them grow in their Christian lives. We ended with tiny cups of chai tea and lots of photos.

They gave us flowers which touched me so deeply

Such a welcoming group of brothers and sisters!

They still tend to take serious Victorian style photos.

Once we finished morning worship we had a few hours to do some grocery shopping, eat lunch, and hear many stories of Pastor Othniel's travels. He has been to over twenty countries preaching and holding Christian conferences on a variety of topics, disciple making being his favorite and most common conference topic.

  

We get such yummy fresh fruit here

They do not have electronic scales at the road side shops

 

That finished, we went to visit a "rural" slum Sunday school. We picked our way carefully down a narrow alley tile slick with the monsoon rain beneath our feet. After climbing two oversized steps and depositing our shoes in the pile outside we enter a living room/bed room packed wall to wall with children. I instantly had the fascination of the older boys who whispered question after question in their charming sing song accents. "What is your name?" "Where are you from?" "Do you like India?"

Trying to remember the memory verse

"Do you like Indian food?"

The low key interrogation, which even delved into my opinion on wrestling, continued through the individual recitation of memory versus and all the way up to them walking out the door. The only time they took a question break was during singing and group prayer. Then we were on to the next group.

They were such hams!

Group two was reached by climbing a staircase steep enough to be a cross with a ladder and require going down backwards for safety. They were a much calmer group, but that may have just been because they had less English knowledge.

The younger/illiterate ones color while the ones who can read and write do a memory verse

Their head teachers

We taught them "He's got the whole world in His hands"

The street outside the center

Group three was the most remote group. We had to travel down a unpaved road that at one point was covered over with a river from the monsoon rains. I became a little worried that we were going to get stuck in our van, but our young man got us through safely. It was the same program for the third time of singing, Bible stories, memory versus, and prayers. Three different groups in three different places, but all needing what children everywhere need.

Reciting the Lord's Prayer

Our unstoppable driver

Finally we had a service in the same room sharing the Gospel with women and children from the surrounding slum.

The tail end of the river that ran across the road right before we got to the slum.

Closing meeting of the day.

How to Keep the Attention of Fifteen Kids Without Speaking Their Language

Our day two class

We have started our English lessons for the small ones who live in neighboring slums. We started yesterday, Monday July 24th. It was a quiet beginning in every sense of the word. We had only three students. An eight year old and two four year olds. We recited the alphabet so many times I lost count. We sang songs with hand motions. We counted. We went over names of body parts. Not one of the children said one word the whole hour and a half no matter how much they were encouraged. Even bribing with caramel chocolates did not work. One of the four year olds fell asleep and almost tipped out of his chair.

The shorter of the two is one of the three students from yesterday.

Such beauties!

Then there was today. Again the first students did not show up until after 9:30 even though we have been telling everyone it starts at 9:00 (India time). Everything else was very different though! We had fifteen students in an age range of two to ten years old. One of the older boys has already learned some English and helped to get a good number of students to repeat after us. Again we sang lots of songs, using "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" to move into more body parts. (By the end, two of the older boys could correctly name what I was pointing to most of the time.) We went through the alphabet over and over. One of the older boys was restless and picking fights with the others so I dragged him up and made him be my pointer as we went through the letters again. This amused them greatly and all the older boys insisted on having their turn as the pointer.

Faye (on left) continuing to go through the alphabet (she is signing the letter P in ASL) while I distract them by taking pictures. The woman on the right is a local who will be taking over the teaching when we leave.

The age range makes it a challenge. The older ones get bored with too much repetition, and are ready for more challenges. The young ones do not speak, and some cling to parents afraid of the strangers. We are working bravely to find the way to keep them engaged and behaving, while also getting them to learn English. There is the added pressure of having many parents watching and evaluating us.

Hiding behind Mama's beautiful skit.

Pastor cares so much for these kids.

There was a school here last year that I thought we would be assisting at. However, most of the children who were going to those lessons lived in an area that was demolished over summer holidays. The people in slums are more or less squatting on government land without permission. Some slums have houses made of scraps of wood and tarp roofs. Other more permanent ones have concrete structures with second floors, electricity, and running water. Whether a slum has been "notified" or recognized by the government can make a big difference, because notified slums are far less likely to be bulldozed for new building developments, and by law the government has to supply running water and sewage to notified slums. The slum that children were coming from was leveled to make room for a new high rise apartment building. Once it is finished, all the former slum families will be given an apartment for free. They just have to wait five years for it to be built.

 

The kid on the right is the most outgoing and the one who already has English skills. When I snapped this it was probably right after he had said "Teacher! Teacher! Another photo!" for the seventh time.

The new school will be different in more than just which students are coming. The school will be in English instead of the local language, Marathi. Most adults I have met here speak at least three languages, their local language or mother tongue, the national language, Hindi, and English, the language used in all colleges and most books. If these kids can learn English well, they have a much better chance of getting into college and building a future better than what their parents had.

 

One of the silent ones.

For tomorrow, we are planning to do more of the same. Lots of "action songs" (what they call songs with hand motions) to keep their attention, with some of them, such as the alphabet song and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" also being useful for English and some of them mostly just to keep them awake and engaged. We will also introduce more body parts. Neck, face, and fingers will likely make their debut. We will go through numbers and letters. And finally, we will introduce vocabulary based on objects in the room, door, chair, whiteboard, table, book, etc. I hope by the time I leave they can answer "What color is the floor?", "How many fingers am I holding up?", "What is my name?", and other similar questions.

Pastor Diwakar thanking everyone and inviting them to come tomorrow.

Trying to get them organized, facing the right way, and smiling was no short task.

Until next time.

Teacher Yana

Please lift up:

• Good teaching sessions for the kids.
• More kids to join.
• That the quiet kids would start to talk more. An English lesson will be much more useful if you are speaking.
• General safety and health (so far so good!)
• That we would be a help and encouragement and not a burden to our host.

Worship in a High Rise

Hello Loves. Sorry I have not been as communicative as I normally am when I am away. South Africa was utterly amazing, and terribly exhausting. It has also thus far been largely indescribable. I have tried to put in words what happened there, but the right words will not come. In the weeks and months to come, after I have had more time to process and think, I hope to share more stories with you about my time in prison ministry, and the country of South Africa in general. For now, let me tell you about India.

We just got in two nights ago, but I am already falling for the people and the place. Last night we went to a prayer meeting in an apartment tower. We started out at half past seven, driving through congested streets that had dark shadows and endless headlights at the same time. I have never before in all my travels heard so many car, rickshaw, bus, truck, and motor scooters honking at the same time. India is sensory overload on steroids. Their stop and go traffic is going from zero to thirty miles an hour in six seconds and them back to a dead stop less than a minute later repeated over and over.

On the far right you can see a little of the colorful outfits of the women here.

After thirty or so minutes, we wound and jerked and u-turned our way to a potholed brick road and after leaving the car, entered the ground floor of a high rise. In India, the ground floor is not synonymous with the first, the first must be attained by climbing stairs or riding in an elevator. The floor you enter without stairs is the ground floor and is designated on elevator buttons as 0. From floor 0 we rode the elevator up to the twelfth floor where we had a cup of delicious tea with the church treasurer, his wife, and their two daughters. After chatting for a bit and finishing our tea, we went back down to the seventh floor for the most beautiful prayer meeting I have ever been a part of.

The meeting started with people entering in ones and two, with each new attender going around shaking everyone’s hand while giving the greeting “Praise the Lord!” Then the worship started. It began with the most beautiful and touching singing I have ever heard. The whole setting was so intimate and lovely. We were thirteen people in a room so small that even though more than half sat cross legged on the floor two still spilled out into the hallway. Each one of the older women wore a vibrantly colored dress, mostly saris with scarves wound round their heads. My favorite was a magenta sari with a mustard yellow scarf wrapped round a new believer, the first in her family.

The tan in India only serves to highlight how bright the rest of the place is.

Once the singing was finished, I gave the short message/encouragement/teaching on prayer that I had been asked to give. I worked off Luke 11:1-13 and the story of Job. In the Charles Spurgeon book on prayer that I am reading right now, Spurgeon praised the beauty and argued the importance of praying for others. He noted that when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, it was a communal prayer that starts with “Our Father” and continues with “give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us...” Prayer was never meant to be self centered. From later in the chapter where it talks about asking, I encouraged them to invite God into every part of their lives as He will not go where He is not welcome. Finally, I told them to trust God in suffering. As a good father, He does not let us needlessly or pointlessly suffer. I told them of Job and how he said, “though He slay me, yet would I trust Him.” Just as a good teacher must correct their students, and a good parent must discipline their child, our loving heavenly father lets us go through painful and/or challenging times without rescuing us. It is always for our benefit to teach us a lesson, convict us of sin, grow us stronger, or to bring Him praise.

All the pictures I have so far. More will come.

After my short message, we went into the time of prayer which was finished with the pastor anointing with oil the woman of the house, a young widow, followed by anointing her son, her main door and living room, her bedroom, her bathroom, and finally her kitchen. This has motivated me to study anointing from the Bible sometime soon. There are over 180 versus that contain the word anoint, so it might take a little while to study them all thoroughly, but I am looking forward to it!

We finished the night with a meal of fresh dosas and chapatti. The widow sells them to provide for her and her son, and she should do fine with how good they tasted.

That night alone felt worth the travel here.

I hope you all are well!

Love,

Yana

Prayer Requests:

• For inspiration from God, and the help of the Holy Spirit for all the messages we are being asked to give.
• For health and safety.
• For protection from spiritual attack.
• For good rest and recovery from jet lag.
• For no offense to be unintentionally given because we are unaware of the culture.

Auntie Charmaine

Last Saturday, I got to meet a woman I consider my newest hero. She is known to everyone around as Auntie Charmaine, and everyone is hardly an exaggeration. Many, many groups greeted her, and us, as she gave us a tour of her neighborhood. This woman is like the village grandmother. Her outfit was not stylish, but practical and simple. The soup pot in her kitchen that she declared as too small to meet her current needs would feed closer to two hundred than the ten that her family would naturally be. However, this woman was not born a saint. She was not a model of young adult life. Her parenting of her own children in the early years is not an example to follow. Auntie Charmaine is an ex-convict. The first time she left the country was to pick up drugs she would deal in her neighborhood. She is an abandonment survivor, who gave up her own baby girl to be raised by others before she went to bring her home again.

After eating a late lunch (which was multiple courses and delicious in the way grandmothers' meals usually are), Auntie Charmaine took us around her neighborhood to pray for sick people and get to know the community a little bit. One of the reasons we were sent to visit with Auntie Charmaine was because her township, and others like it, are where most of the offenders we will be working with grew up. As we started the walk, we came across this group of young men blasting music who were more than happy to pose for the camera and dance for the visitors.

You have to love a street corner party

 Setting up a scarecrow in the new community garden.

Seeing all the people outside on their steps and in lawn chair chatting, and the children playing freely on the streets gave it a welcoming and safe aura. But that was the surface, I lost count of how many times Auntie Charmaine pointed at the ground in front of us and said, “Last week a young man was shot dead here” or “Three days ago two men were shot here.” or “I had to call the police because someone died here after being shot recently.” She also rolled up her sleeve to show us the scar of the bullet wound from when a bullet hit her in her sleep, in the “safety” of her own bed after flying through her wall. She pointed to one wall explaining that most imperfections were old bullet marks. Yet this woman goes out boldly to serve her community. She makes giant pots of porridge for the children to have for breakfast. She cheerfully stated, “I used to have four children, but now I have five hundred.” Her soup pot, which is probably ten times the size of the biggest pot in my house, is troubling her because sometimes she runs out of soup or porridge before she runs out of children who need feeding. The new bigger pot she wants is R4,000 which is about $306. Not much to most of us, but she does not have nearly the money she needs for it. She is trusting God that if He is giving her these children to take care of, He will also send the money she needs.

DeeDee Riding the Mary-go-Round Built on Pavement Covered in Glass

This is the private hospital that is too expensive for most families who go instead

 to a free government hospital.

Auntie Charmaine in her current service shows beautifully what a powerful Godly woman looks like. Her being in full time service wearing aprons with giant pockets and serving endless ladles of porridge does not mean she is not a force to be reckoned with. She told off some kids for posing for me with gang symbols. She also told us of recently going to confront a mother who had sold the uniform Auntie Charmaine had just provided for her son. She told the mother that her son better have his uniform back by that afternoon, and he did. Her house did not just have food or school supplies, it also had random bulk items that she was planning to break into small units and resell. Red nail polish, clothes pins, gallons of soap and juice, tubes of lipstick. This woman does so much!

"Say no to Crime and Drugs"

"Gee Teng Ons Straat" Take Back Our Street

Now I am going to tell you a tiny bit about my experience entering prison for the first time. We went to church in the young men’s section of a prison. As we first walked into the compound, I instantly noticed the powerful, rhythmic, pounding noise. It took me a minute or two to realize that it was the opening worship at the church service we were about to join. I do not think I have ever heard such manly worship before. Part of me was a little nervous before coming of how I would feel towards the guys. I am working with people who have done the worst things people can do. On first meeting them, all I felt was love. After a week more of helping facilitate a program with another group of young men, four at my table, and twenty four in the program, love is still the biggest emotion I feel towards them. As a group, they have been friendly, cheerful, and respectful. Even though the guys at my table are over twenty, there is something about the whole group that exudes the aura of a vulnerable little boy. They grow in me maternal feelings of protection and instruction. I see so much wasted potential, and it breaks my heart. As they pour out their stories, I can see how they came to be where they are. So much childhood trauma in one little group. It confirms in me the desire to work with kids. Just one person in their childhood who stopped them from joining a gang, or called the police on their abusing father could have changed their lives enough to have kept them from prison. The townships here are crying out for more adults who care in every sense of the word. I feel like maybe I have found my first home after college.

Home Sweet Home?

Please be Praying:

• For the young men in the program who's families could not come to family day. Pray that these families will have the chance to speak openly in the future.
• For the rest of the trip. Now that my main project is almost done there is some flexibility for me to chose activities. Pray that I will pick the right one.
• For rest. We are all in desperate need.
• For spiritual protection.
• Praise that eight guys committed to leave the prison gangs and two became Christians!

You can still support me financially for my South Africa trip. The church will keep donations open until my work here is finished. If you want to give, go to this website, select "STM South Africa", and put Tatiana Martin in the optional memo (You would get a tax receipt for this)

My India Teammate!

My name is Faye and I am a 25-year-old Christian living in Boston. I work as an electrical engineer in building design. I love musical theatre and traveling, and am also emotionally attached to having internet service at all times.

I was born to Christian parents and have attended church ever since I can remember. At ages 13, 17, and 19 (so far), God unmistakably showed up in my life in unexpected ways to reveal Himself to me, and through those encounters, I realized that this God I worship is truly a living God who is actively invested in me and in the world. With this affirmation, I get to go deeper with Jesus and explore what it means to be His disciple in the modern world. While the Bible does not explicitly mention social media or computers, its emphasis on empathy and grace are still very applicable lessons for living today. I am still learning this day by day.

Now that I have my college degree and middle-class job, it would seem like I have "made it" by achieving success. I understand and appreciate that, which only makes it more compelling to give thanks everyday and to try my best to live a life worthy of calling myself a Christian. I used to think all Christians would look the same, but now I know that being a Christian looks different for every Christ-follower.

For me, right now, being a Christian looks like mastering more skills, both at work and outside of work, living and loving my friends, my co-workers, and my family, and also challenging myself to be outside of my comfort zone, remembering that God will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, ,even in difficult times (Psalm 16:10).

Hope Prison Ministry, and My Role in South Africa

Hope Prison Ministry was started in 2003 by Jonathan Clayton and Jenny Joshua. They now work in nineteen prisons where more than three thousand inmates are enrolled in their programs. We will be joining the 153 volunteers they have on team.

They support prisoners with several different programs including job skills training, prayer walks, a letter writing program, counseling, holding worship services, and restorative justice.

What is my team's plan?

After a few low key days to settle in, get over jet lag, and do some more vital training, we will be jumping into the deep end. Our first week we will be assistant facilitators at a restorative justice program. The purpose of the program is to put humanity back into the crime, and to help the prisoners to confront and take responsibility for what they have done. Many crimes get prosecuted as "the state vs. so and so" and in some prisons the inmates become a number rather than a name. This makes the crimes impersonal and leaves the victims feeling twice wronged, and the offender not as easily equating what they have done with a life negatively impacted. In essence, the prisoners have been told "You broke the law. You will be punished by the government for doing that." This program comes in and says "You hurt people and ruined relationships. Let's work together to repair and reconcile what we can."

The staff and long term volunteers running the program will be going through a number of exercises and giving some lectures. On one day, the men will go through an exercise to name everyone effected by their crime. The victim/s is/are the obvious person/people, slightly less obvious are the victims' family and the convict's own family, but it spreads even farther to the police who processed the crime scene, the professional who did the autopsy, the community members who do not feel safe on their street and in their homes, etc. On another afternoon they have a rape survivor come in and tell the men her story of how crime has effected her life and still effects her to this day. Many of these guys were in gangs from a young age and have never really thought through the impact of their actions. They are giving themselves that challenge now. These man are not ordered into this program, and they receive no benefits such as reduced time or a nicer cell block. They are doing this because they want to be better men, and I really respect that.

My role (and my teammates roles) as assistant facilitators, is to sit at a small table with an experienced facilitator and small group of inmates and help them work through the process. After exercises we have time set aside to share in our table groups. Facilitators are supposed to help keep the conversations respectful, open, and meaningful. We are to ask probing questions and give our full attention to listening to their answers. We are also, when it is appropriate, to share personal stories from our lives.

After the weeklong intensive, the goal is to invite the prisoner's own families to come visit them and help them talk to each other and begin to repair their relationship. Many prisoner's families do not know why their loved ones are in prison. They then have bi-monthly follow up meetings with more exercises and homework. I am hoping to be at the first follow up which should happen before I fly out to Mumbai. After a full year of going deeper and doing more follow up, the goal is to invite victims to come meet with the prisoners for some time of open dialogue. Many victims are full of questions that make the process of healing and moving on more challenging, we hope that talking together will help both sides move forward in a healthy way.

In the ten days after the restorative justice intensive ends before I leave, my team will be visiting some other prisons to help in Bible studies, perhaps going out to visit another ministry in the townships, and supporting the long term workers wherever and however we can. We also plan to go looking for wild penguins on our Saturday off (and they told you penguins only live where there is snow!)

You always have my thanks and love for your support.
Tatiana

Please be praying:

• That anything I need to do (like putting together a first aid kit and getting my mom added to my bank account) I will get done in the next two and a half weeks.
• That things will go smoothly when I meet with my college advisor to talk over my change in major and registering for fall classes.
• That I will get enough rest to go into this prepared to serve and poor out.
• That my India visa application will be approved Monday.
• That I will be able to locate the translations of the book I want to give the prisoners as gifts.
• That be safe and healthy leading up to and throughout this trip.
• That this trip will help me better see what long term ministry I should be doing after college

You can support me financially for my South Africa trip by going to this website, selecting STM South Africa, and putting Tatiana Martin in the optional memo, or by putting money so designated in the offering plate at Park Street Church during Sunday service. (You would get a tax receipt for this)