A Change of Pace

This week, things have changed a bit. We're not in language learning. But here's a picture of Janis and I with our our language tutor last week - Shammi Kapoor.



The Language Institute is in the midst of moving to a more stable facility, plus last week was the final week of Summer Intensives in preparation for Fall Semester which begins August 6.

I (Chuck) have been helping in getting settled in the new facility at the YMCA in Nizamuddin. This YMCA site has been undergoing significant renovation as the Y concentrates many of its educational programs at this site. Because East West is focused on cross-cultural education, it has proved to be a providential fit for both sides.

Because of the threatened sealing last Fall and again this June, the Language Institute's supplies and furnishings have been scattered in temporary storage around the city. It has been quite an effort to re-gather them and put them in some sense of order in this new setting. We have another two days to prepare, then everyone assembles for the first annual East West Retreat to be held at our International School in the YMCA in Greater Noida, a satellite city to the South East of Delhi.

Janis has been using this week to get some things settled in our flat and to meet with Sarah Hivner, one of our INSIGHT students this past year, who was also Janis' substitute Art Teacher when she was away from Pasadena. Sarah was visiting India for a couple weeks this summer seeing friends and volunteering at an Ashram just North of Delhi.

One of the things we do a lot of is walk to the shopping areas. Below are some pictures of one of the parks we walk through. This park is often used in late afternoons and early evenings by young boys playing cricket. Each block in our area has at least one park which people seem to enjoy using especially in the evenings.

Week 3.5

Acclimatization
The jet lag symptoms are basically over and we're on a fairly regular sleep cycle now. That helps. Not so much fatigue which can make everything else more dramatic and challenging.

We've been managing public transportation well on our own. Only a few times when we've paid more than we should. I've actually been keeping a log of costs from place to place and have begun to get a sense of how much a ride should cost. That also helps.

The heat is still difficult, especially with the humidity. There are breaks occasionally, but Janis is feeling this is the biggest challenge for her so far.

Acculturation
We visited the Qutb Minar yesterday afternoon. A strange architectual mix of Muslim, Hindu and other influences. There are sevel stories about this structure. Whichever is correct, it remains an impressive structure within an impressive area. The Qutb Minar is essentially an Islamic structure, but contrary to all Islamic principles, images - not geometric shapes - are all over the structures. In many respects, this represents the deeply complex nature of Indian society. There are some principles that apply, but there's always exceptions.

We also visited a Hindi speaking church yesterday. The pastor and his wife are a couple we met last summer and have stayed in contact with over the year. Unfortunately, it is quite a distance away from where we live. We suspect they would like us to become involved in their fellowship, but we have reservations with the distance and uncertainties of what our responsibilities will entail on a week-by-week basis. Still, it was a wonderful experience...and we actually understood some of the Hindi from time to time. He asked me to give a 10-15 minute testimony, that I started in my rudimentary Hindi!

Learning
Today begins week three of language learning - the first week with Intensive Hindi 1, last week and this week with 1:2 tutoring. Challenging, stretching, but actually beginning to see a little progress. We were informed last night that if we kept up at the pace we are currently on, typically in two years we could expect to be fluent in Hindi!

This week will be full. In addition to tutoring we will: visit the site of the International School (MDIS) today; I will return to the YMCA site in Nizamuddin where the Language Insititute and EWEF Offices may be relocating; host our first guest from the US (a friend of our daughter, Heather. We did have a guest for 4 days last week, but he is the one who has been orienting us in EWEF); we may get a visit to our flat from an Indian family we met in the bazaar whose son is scheduled to begin a Master's program at USC this fall; and we're supposed to meet with two couples we met last summer who are cross cultural workers here and who will be members of our accountability team.

Namaste!

We arrived lated PM July 3 in Delhi, by the time we actually got to our flat it was early AM on the 4th. We were hoping to just rest, but I ended up doing some things with EWEF and Janis and I had a number of things to do before Intensive Hindi classes began on Monday, July 9. But...it takes a long time to do anything in India! We weren't able to complete everything, and, in fact, the list of things to do actually got longer.

One of the complicating factors is the type of visa I have requires registering with the Foreign Registration Office. For any with experience with this Office, the typical phrase is, "Come back tomorrow." This can be very frustrating when you have other obligations or things to do. However, we ended up "coming back tomorrow" three times for a total of four trips to the FRRO Office.

During those four days and four trips, we had the opportunity to pray for many people with many complicated circumstances. Some missed flights because of "come back tomorrow." For those who have taken Perspectives, this is a real-life "Newlander" experience. Newlander exists!

We could have gotten frustrated but Paul Gillette, our host, was a model of how important it is to stay calm and pray about the obstacle. This, in fact, may have been the reason God had us return the 4th time. We were five minutes away from completing registration on the 3rd try when the power went off. No auto-save features on the FRRO computers! It was already at the end of the day, so the attendant said with a smile, "Come back tomorrow."

As we were waiting, again, on the 4th day, after about an hour an older gentleman struck up a conversation with Paul. This man was quite frustrated. He was from Washington D.C., but his ancestors were from India. He had come to India to get acquainted with his roots, but had stayed beyond the time limit of his visa so was caught in a bureaucratic tangle. Needless to say, he was quite frustrated. He said there was nothing left to do.

Paul replied, "You could pray." The man said his prayers were never answered. Paul replied again, "Maybe you're praying to the wrong god." Pretty bold, huh!? especially in a government office in India! The man quickly moved away - he had been quite interested in talking about complaints, and even about spiritual things, until the conversation turned to prayer.

However, within minutes of him moving away, a clerk came over to us and said he would take care of our registration - which he did. As Janis walked by the man from the US with Indian origins, he said, "Looks like God does answer prayer!"

Yes, He does. Thanks for praying for us during these past six weeks. Here are a few pictures of our Hindi class, the inside of our flat, and one of the local shopping area.





Here we are with Geeta Rai, the senior Hindi instructor and our teacher for the first week.



This is Shamim, a new teacher at East West Language Institute. His specialty is Urdu. He sat in on the first week of class as an observer, learning teaching methods from Geeta.



These are our class mates. Janis and I had been in India 5 days. The others had been there 1 1/2 and 9 years! We are like babies learning the sounds, much less the language!



Our kitchen.






Our dining room.



Our living room.





Our spare room. If you visit in the first 7 months, this may be where you would sleep.



Our bedroom.





This is one of the entrances to a local shopping area.



No telling what you can buy in India!

Intense!

An Intense Month and a Half...
June and these first days of July have been quite intense.

We left Pasadena on June 1st and traveled to Nevada, Central and Northern California, Oregon, Washington, back into Oregon, and finished in Watsonville (near Santa Cruz), CA before driving back to spend one night with our son, Brandon, in San Juan Capistrano. We flew out of LAX at 1:05 am July 2nd.

Here are some of the people we saw during the month of June:

Homeless & Stuffless: On The Road

We both woke up early Monday morning (at different times, without knowing the other had the same experience) realizing we didn't have an address. For one brief moment, Janis felt an intense sense of loss when she realized she didn't even have a rice cooker! What a weird (but somehow liberating) feeling to be "homeless" and without all the usual "stuff."

We're in Gig Harbor, WA now (Thursday, 6/7), having arrived from Eugene, OR yesterday. Previously we had been in Roseburg, OR; Sacramento, CA; and Carson City, NV, having departed from Pasadena, CA on Friday, 6/1.

On Saturday, 6/9 we will drive a few miles north to Seattle, WA where we will spend a couple days celebrating our daughter Elisabeth's birthday. Sunday we will celebrate our youngest daughter Heather's graduation with a Masters in Teaching from Seattle University.

We'll return to the Gig Harbor/Tacoma, WA area on Tuesday, 6/12 for a series of appointments and gatherings. We travel to Portland, OR on Monday, 6/18, then to Paisley, OR for two days. We'll drive most of the day Thursday, 6/21, to arrive in Watsonville, CA late that evening. We'll see family and friends for a couple days, then begin a 7-day conference with Band Barnabas, our cross-cultural sending agency concentrating on the least-reached Muslims of Asia.

Mid-day Saturday, 6/30, we'll drive to Brandon's (our youngest son) in San Juan Capistrano, CA where we'll stay one night. He'll take us to LAX on the evening of 7/1, and we fly out for Delhi at 1:05 am 7/2.

A FULL Weekend!

Friday (5/18) – a full day and night of packing, preparing and pricing for tomorrow’s Estate Sale.

Saturday (5/19) – another full day: 8am-3pm Estate Sale, 3-4:30 cleanup (Janis decides to extend the sale tomorrow morning from 8am-1pm to take advantage of all the church traffic on campus and get rid of more stuff), 4:30-5:30pm Chuck continues cleanup, Janis goes to Art Studio to setup for Art Consultation at 7pm, 7:00-10:30pm our final L.A. Region Art Consultation.

Sunday (5/20) – the fullness-of-day continues: garage sale from 8am-1:30pm, there are buyers right up to 2:00pm when we have to leave for Mosaic’s Commissioning of us for overseas service from 2:00-5:30pm, 6:00-9:30pm dinner with family and friends at Heidar Baba’s Persian restaurant in Pasadena in celebration of Chuck & Eric Hardie’s birthdays.

Monday (5/21) – it rained during the night and many boxes and things from the sale are still outside! Fortunately it wasn’t a heavy rain, we are able to cover them, and protect most of the things. Decision time: what do we do with the items that are left???

The count down: 10 days to finish clearing out the house and complete all the remaining tasks.

A big item still pending – our visa application was sent by Express Mail to the Consulate in San Francisco last Thursday. Normally it’s a three-day turnaround time. Depending on delivery times, office schedules, etc. it could have been returned to us as early as yesterday (it wasn’t), or today. This is shaving the timing pretty close! Yikes!

Full-ness measured differently – lots of events and tasks completed, but in the midst of busyness we saw and experienced an outpouring of God’s grace:
- the Estate Sale was successful in reducing the amount of stuff and was financially profitable.
- Saturday’s Art Consultation participants surrounded and prayed for us and our journey in a moving, meaningful experience.
- Mosaic’s Commissioning was exceptional. It was hosted by our “doing-life-together” group of 8. A mosaic of friends, family and associates from various circles of influence in our lives were invited to share together in the Mosaic commissioning done for the first time in this way.
- our youngest son, Brandon, was able to attend the weekend. A friend of his, Cara, had an extra cell phone that Janis is able to use to replace the one that went through the wash. After a couple weeks of inactivity, her cell phone is back up (626.808.5752). Janis is thankful!
- 11:30 am today (Tuesday, 5/22) the approved visas arrive!!!

There & Back Again: The Continuing Story of a Journey From Idealism to Practicality and Back Again

We have not left for India yet (departing LAX 1:05am, July 2, 2007).

We have not even left Pasadena yet (sometime in the morning June 1, 2007; first stop Carson City, Nevada, on a trip through central California, to Oregon to Washington and back again concluding June 30 with one night at Brandon’s, our youngest son, in San Juan Capistrano, CA).

But the journey is definitely on!

This portion of our life journey may have begun at the end of November, 2006. That’s when the pieces began to almost visibly (for us, anyway!) move into place and toward one another. Some of this current journey's key pieces probably entered our lives last summer when we visited India for three weeks. Back then we thought they were incidental and impractical.

But something changed last November when we returned to Pasadena from a Thanksgiving visit in Seattle with our girls. We were challenged by a couple, who are friends and co-workers, to re-think those pieces.

As we did, their incidental, impractical appearance began to fade as we considered the ideals of:
• advancing the kingdom - especially at the edges - and
• essential mobility.

We were inspired by a distant vision of the possibility that we, in our going, could contribute to the kingdom's advance in distant, uncharted, spiritual realms of North India. Some have said this region of India contains the largest concentration (number and variety) in the world of unreached peoples. One could perhaps make a similar case for the largest concentration in the world of bypassed peoples – those who have heard the claims of the kingdom, but not in a thorough enough way to effectively challenge their allegiance. This, combined with the unique combination of our interests in education and in art, led to exploring roles in what was already being done and in what has never been done.

Heady stuff – vision and dreams!

And then came the checks and balances of practicalities. Things like initial inquiries and introductory applications. And eventually came approval paths and questions of, “Yes, but how?” (not to mention, "Why?").

The cascade of practicalities has turned into myriads of details in which we are now deeply immersed. As I (Chuck) write this I’m surrounded by boxes and piles of things being sorted for an upcoming yard sale, for give away, and for “temporary babysitting.” A couple crucial components in the approval path are still pending – one being the final paperwork for our visas. Each day, it seems, new details and tasks surface, and before any of them are completed, even newer ones demand attention!

Amidst all the trees, it’s often difficult to see the forest. But it’s there. We’re at that stage of our journey of having to regularly remind ourselves the forest is there, and that the forest is comprised of these thickets of individual trees. There are kingdom purposes for what we do, even when we're heavily occupied with practical, everyday matters.

Speaking of which, this week...
1. We're busy packing, sorting, and preparing things for the yard sale.
2. Janis presents a seminar on her topic of interest to the community this Wednesday (5/16) morning.
3. Janis and I share with the community on Thursday (5/17) afternoon about what we will be doing in India.
4. Yard sale Saturday (5/19) from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.
5. 3rd LA Regional Art Consultation also Saturday (5/19) from 7:00-9:00 pm.
6. Mosaic, our Local Fellowship, commissions us for foreign service Sunday (5/20) from 2:00-5:00 pm.

Trying not to miss any trees while keeping the forest in view while we travel there and back again...