Life Changing Words Ministry

Missionary Journal

January 25, 2005

Tuesday the 18th, Angel and I went to the rose garden after breakfast which was down the block and around the corner. We sat in the sun and talked about ministry and the difficulties she was experiencing. We prayed and came back before lunch.

The day changes when Tonya gets home from school. Tonya is a self-declared vegetarian and loves American food. This makes more work for her mom, but here the families seem to cater to their children's wants. Then Tonya has to begin her studies with her mom or with tutors who come to the house. The schools here do not teach the students, the burden for their learning lies with the parents or the tutors. Everything they learn has to be by rote memory. There is no area for just learning or by experience. Things are just inadequate in the educational system.

Sheri, part dachshund and part lab, is a kick to watch, as she is the one that runs her owners around. She is a good dog, but definitely the humans cater to her. It is funny to watch how she behaves making them think that she is guarding the premises, when in fact she is sleeping until she hears them return or stir.

The next day, I took Bill over to the rose garden and we had a nice walk and talk time. Angel was worried that we would get bored just visiting, but somehow the time always passes quickly when you are having a good time encouraging one another in the Lord.

On the day before we would ride back to Gurgaon with Angel by car, Stan took the afternoon off from work and took us passed the border of Himachal Pradesh up the mountain to the hotel that greets you on one peak and sleeps you on another peak via the cable car. On the way back we had tea at the forestry department where Stan oversees as part of his finance commissioner job.

The last stop was to a garden area that one of the Moguls built as a summer relaxation spot in the heat. We walked down to the end and took some snaps along the way as we tried to picture what life would have been like back then.

Our five hour drive back to Delhi afforded more sightseeing of the countryside and dozing. After being dropped safely to Gene's to catch up with our laundry for the weekend, Angel would have another hour before she would arrive to her brother, Sunil's house. We would be arriving there on Sunday evening after Angel leaves to go back to Chandigarh. I would be teaching her three teachers the English method at Agnes School beginning on Monday.

The routine for the week would be to get my bucket of hot water for bathing at 7:30 am. Chai would arrive before the water so that I could wake up somewhat, however, in the cold mornings one wakes up fairly quickly and then needs the tea to warm up. But nothing replaces the joy of splashing hot water from a two-cup measure over your head. Guaranteed that you have short baths.

Maan Singh, the cook, would fix my breakfast of one parotha and one egg fixed anyway so that there is a variety with a cup of tea. Sunil doesn't have breakfast before going to school where he oversees it as principal. Instead, we will have at least three glasses of chai during the four hours of school.

Agnes School is only seven minutes from Sunil's home where it was birthed and run for two years. The education administration felt threatened by the school's existence in a residence sector and brought difficulties to the family until they found a building to rent where they are now having school. Then the persecution stopped.

The current building looks like it could have been a former school building. Angel is renting three of the four classrooms plus the office room. There are 58 children attending. Five of them are from upper families and five are from deprived families and the rest of the families are able to pay the little tuition. The running of the school is a ministry because the income does not cover the operating expenses. Each morning the children are gathered before class. They are checked to see if their hands are clean and their fingernails are trimmed to the quick. They must have a hanky on their person. Then they are allowed into the classroom. Class begins at 9 am and goes to noon for the nursery. LKG (lower kindergarten) through third standard go until 1:00 pm. I shared with the teachers what we would like to do with their cooperation. They expressed their willingness and we set the time to meet each day for the period 1:00-2:00 pm. My new English 'students' would be Kundan, Seema, and Juliet.

Tuesday morning I sat in Kundan's class to observe. He has the nursery and LKG. He would check their notebooks and assign each one a new assignment that had to be completed in class before the student could get their tiffin and have lunch. The problem I saw was that the children were not supervised and the room was extremely noisy and some were running in and out of the classroom.

I suggested to the Principal that he hold a storytelling time for the nursery children and give them something to do instead of being idle. He agreed with a little hesitancy, but with the little encouragement and suggestion I gave him, he jumped into becoming the storyteller both in English and Hindi. The children loved doing the drama of the story because they had never done anything like it before. Even Kundan enjoyed the little freedom to give focused attention to each child.

Wednesday was a holiday, Republic Day. Angel's daughter, Sarah, and I along with Sunil and Bill, went to the new mall in Gurgaon. I bought a few souvenirs and found a bangle shop where my Bhai (brother) Sunil gifted me for my birthday with some bangles. He was so happy to do this for his Didi (sister).

Thursday I sat in on Seema's classroom where she is teaching the UKG (upper kindergarten) and 1st standard children. She has 18 children and they are responding to her by the reflection of their marks (grades). Seema is the senior teacher of the three and I had met both Seema and Kundan the last time when I saw the school in Sunil's home. Seema is more organized in her teaching and I suggested that she could be the main teacher of the new English method. Although this year all the teachers will introduce the phonograms to the children.

Lastly, Juliet's was the hardest class to sit in. It seemed like it was boring because she was shaming the children for not having the right answers. After the first portion was completed, I asked to talk to her while the children had recess before prayer time. I shared with her what I had seen and expressed straightforward the need to encourage the children in their learning rather than shaming them. Even the tone of her voice was important. By the grace of the Lord, she received my words and opened up to me why she was angry this morning. I was able to share the word in counseling her and encouraged her to remember how Jesus might have talked to the children, especially when He wanted to bless them. She received all that I shared in the love that it was intended. [Later she brought her son and her husband to meet me and invited me to come to their home.] We even got through all the phonograms with the teachers. We were all excited together and looking forward to the next week when we would begin to practice them as in the classroom.

Bill and I returned to Gene's to help prepare for the music program that would be performed during the monthly prayer meeting in his home. Pastor Sam, Elsamma, and the children would sing the songs which Pastor Sam wrote and the music team would join us early to set up.

Everything went well Saturday evening because we all chipped in to help cook the food. The musicians were excellent and the songs brought the praises of the people to the Lord. It was a wonderful prayer and fellowship time together with believers. We headed back to Sunil's house late in the night.