My First Trip To India

For several years I have received the reports and corresponded with I. S. Deenadayal, a gospel preacher in Jadcherla, India (pronounced Zad-cherla). We have become friends through our e-mails and he has invited me on several occasions to visit him and teach classes, but I had never been able to fit it into my schedule until this year. By the grace of God, I have just returned from a very exciting trip, being with Deenadayal, his wife (Victoria) and their two sons (Sam and John), both of whom are college students in Hyderabad. I will share a few stories with you in this report, to help you understand the country and the Lord’s work in that country.

The names of the folks in India appear very strange to us. Their given name is written last, preceded by two initials. His full name would be Immadi (his family name) Sundaram (his father’s given name) Deenadayal (his given name). He has two sons, Samuel and John, so their names would be written as I. D. Samuel and I. D. John, showing the family initial and the “D” for their father’s given name.

 

A Few Facts About The Country

India is one of the largest countries. It has a population of 1.2 billion people. The government is controlled by the Parliament in Delhi. The senators are elected every five years by popular vote. The party with the most senators then chooses the prime minister from their party. The government is run by the prime minister, but the president is over him. The president can hire or fire, plus can reduce the punishment or abolish the death penalty. If the senators send a paper to the president for his signature, he can refuse to sign it and return it to the parliament for amendments. If the senators leave the wording as is and returns it to the president, he has no choice but to sign it into law the second time.

India is on a strange time zone, being 11½ hours ahead of Central Standard Time in Bowling Green. Most of us are accustomed to time zones changing only by hours and not by thirty-minute increments. The country has fifteen official languages. All of these can be seen on the left side of each paper bill in their currency. The language of Telugu is used in Hyderabad and Jadcherla. There are 56 letters in the Telugu alphabet. I noticed in the translations, that it would often take Deenadayal twenty words to say what I said in ten. I entered the country at the start of the summer season, which means that there is no rain for several months and the temperatures are high.

The country has a wide mix of cultures and is especially seen in the buildings. Some are from the British rule and older buildings are from a Muslim king.

The clothing styles are extremely varied in India. Some of the men wear the traditional long, white lungi with a white shirt. Some of the men wear pants with a kudta, which wears like a shirt that goes all the way to the knees. Some of the men are now wearing Western-style clothing. The clothing of the women is extremely colorful. Most of them wear the traditional sari, with a blouse of one color and a scarf over their shoulders that will match the lower pants.

One very unusual thing seen regularly is that most of the folks never touch a glass or bottle to their lips. They hold it about two inches from their lips and pour the water into their mouth. The only exception I saw was when drinking from the small disposable plastic cups.

The national currency is called the rupee. It takes 100 paise to make one rupee. The coins consist of 50 paise, 1, 2 and 5 rupees. The paper bills consist of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 rupees. The 1 and 2 rupee bills are legal tender, but seldom seen anymore.

For the Hindu families, the priest chooses the day for the wedding. All of this is based on their superstitions and the signs of the zodiac. Many weddings will be held on the same day.

 

A Few Facts About The Lord’s Church

Hinduism is the prevailing religion in India, but the country enjoys freedom of all religions. There seems to be a temple or mosque on almost every corner. Because of the diversity of religions, the school calendar and work days are varied. For the Muslim, Friday is the holy day. For the Hindu, it is Saturday. Christians, of course, worship on the first day of the week. This creates a problem for many of the Christians, because some schools have classes on Sunday.

From what information I have been able to gather, I would say that Christianity was introduced to the country in the late fifties or early sixties by J. C. Bailey, a missionary from Canada. Deenadayal’s father was a Mennonite preacher and met J.C. in 1974. They studied together on four different occasions during that year. He was eventually baptized and he and his wife left the Mennonite faith. He started a new congregation in his home, desiring to follow closely the teachings of the New Testament. He met John Humphries in 1977 and studied the organization and work of the church. He learned that he had become involved in an “institutional” concept and a few practices that violated the autonomy and independence of the local church. He rapidly made his stand for truth and left the more liberal ways. Deenadayal was baptized in 1976 and started preaching the following year.

I allowed Deenadayal to make recommendations on how to best use our time in India, so he planned our schedule. We divided the days into three areas: Hyderabad, Jadcherla, and Hampi.

 

Churches in Hyderabad

Hyderabad has a population of 10 million. The city has several churches of Christ, eight that would take a more conservative approach to the Scriptures and the work of the church and about twenty that are more liberal in their attitude and practice.

Because of our limited days, we only worked with two of the churches in Hyderabad. The Banjara Hills Church meets on the roof top of the home of the preacher, M. J. Suryakant Raj. He had worked hard to invite many of his neighbors to the Bible studies. We had over 75 students at his place. All of the students sat on mats. He stretched electric wires across the roof to provide enough electricity for everyone to see their Bibles. The singing was very enthusiastic and the students were very attentive. I especially enjoyed being with so many children who were anxious to learn more Bible stories.

On Sunday morning, we assembled with the Mount Olive Church, where M. Solomon Raj preaches. Solomon and Suryakant are brothers. Their father is also a member at Mount Olive and I would later meet two more brothers, all of whom are faithful gospel preachers. They are an amazing family. The attendance at the Mount Olive Church was around 50. The brethren have built a modest, but very adequate building for their services. They take great care and concern for the building. The ceiling is decorated with long, colorful ribbons. The floor is covered with colorful mats. All of the brethren remove their shoes as they enter the building. There are no pews, so everyone sits on the mats. As the brethren enter the building, they prostrate themselves in prayer before sitting.

The songs in Telugu are very long, some of them having as many as fifteen verses. The building is equipped with three microphones and an amplifier mounted on the roof of the building. The worship service is heard throughout the whole neighborhood. Psalms 63 was read in unison. For the Lord’s supper, the ladies moved from their sitting position to their knees. They took the bread, held it in the palm of their hand, bowed their heads to the floor, prayed and then ate the bread. The same was done with the juice.

After our worship, one lady opened a box of homemade candy. She explained that her daughter had made the highest marks in her class at school and she wanted all of the brethren to rejoice with her, typical of what we read in Romans 12:15. After several minutes of visiting, I was invited to Solomon’s home for lunch. It consisted of rice, chicken curry, boiled eggs, papaya, grapes, and bananas.

 

Our Work in Jadcherla

We left Hyderabad late in the afternoon and drove to Jadcherla, about 100 kilometers away. Along the way, we saw many little boys (about five years old) with horse-driven wagons. These children are extremely “street smart.” We saw many Brahma bulls on the highway, many of them having their horns painted bright green or blue by the Hindu as a high honor. We passed workers, building a stone wall between the highways. The men usually carry the stones and the women carry the mud. I’m told that a typical salary would be three dollars a day for the women and five dollars a day for the men. A skilled mason could get nine dollars and a carpenter could get ten dollars a day.

John decided to skip classes for a few days in order to attend the preacher-training classes in Jadcherla, so he rode with us from Hyderabad to Jadcherla. We stopped at the church building, a comfortable little building built in 1978. The wall surrounding the building has scriptures painted on each panel, as well as the walls inside the church building. The brethren were cleaning and doing last-minute preparations for our classes. Deenadayal had rented a large tent and 40 plastic chairs for our classes. The men were erecting the tent in the yard between the church building and the house.

Most of the preachers were going to sleep under the tent and the ladies were going to sleep on the floor in the church building. Deenadayal had decided that I might be a little more comfortable at a little hotel in Mahabubnagar, about 30 kilometers from Jadcherla. It was starting to get dark before we could reach the hotel. Driving on the highways at night is almost an invitation to take your life in your own hands. There are so many 18-wheelers, public buses, motorcycles, and three-wheelers without any tail lights, plus all of the animals. It can be very dangerous.

 

Preacher-Training Classes

Deenadayal sent invitations to many preachers all over the state. Some came alone and some brought their wives with them. Our lowest number was on Monday, with 35; our highest number was on Wednesday, with 43. Each preacher was given a small notebook and ink pen. With their words of thanksgiving, you would have thought we had just spent a thousand dollars on them. At the end of the classes on Friday, I gave each of the preachers the money for their bus fares home.

Our classes were for morning, afternoon, and evening. The students were very attentive, took lots of notes and asked many questions. We chose a different theme for each day: summary of biblical books, Old vs. New covenants, the preacher & his work, the Lord’s church vs. men’s churches, and godly living.

When I would mention any Bible passage, the students seemed to compete to see who could find the passage the fastest, in order to be able to read it. There was one particular student that I was especially impressed with. He was the first to find the passage, the first to ask questions if there was anything he didn’t completely understand, and the first to use up his notebook with so many notes. I knew he was a preacher, but I didn’t know for what church. At the end of our classes on Friday, he said, “I want to thank you for teaching us, thank the Americans for supporting you, and thank you for showing us the truths in the Bible. I have learned much. I now realize that I haven’t obeyed the true teachings of the Bible. I was only sprinkled and never immersed into Christ for the remission of my sins.” I was almost speechless. After a few more questions, I learned that he was the “pastor” of a small Methodist church. Deenadayal had conducted several studies with him in the past and had invited him to these classes. His decision to obey the gospel gave another lady the courage to do the same. We filled the concrete baptistery in the yard and witnessed both of them making their good confession of their faith in Christ and following Him in baptism. After the baptisms, he ran down the street to a little bakery and bought a large box of special treats. He came back and distributed these to everyone. He said he wanted everyone to celebrate with him that he was now a true child of God! His work will be difficult, as he tries now to bring the congregation out of this denomination and see if they are honest enough to make their stand for truth. Let’s keep him in our prayers.

 

Electrical Problems

Deenadayal had requested that I use the Power Point projector with the classes. Since English is the second language for all of the folks, he thought the charts and visuals would help them in taking their notes. It worked well for a couple of days, but then the city government starting turning off the power for 12 hours at a time. Without the ceiling fans in the church building, we started getting very hot. Since we couldn’t use the projector, we moved our classes to under the tent in the yard. During one of the afternoons when we had power, I was using the computer and projector. The power went off so I continued my class without the charts. When the power came back on, it came back with too much strength and force. The power surge ruined my computer and projector. For the rest of the trip, I had to teach all of the classes without the aid of the projector. Replacing those will be one expense that I certainly hadn’t counted on.

 

Visiting the Villages

On Tuesday evening, we moved the evening classes to the village of Bhootpur. The church here is where Lazarus preaches. Many of his neighbors came for the classes. We had an attendance of 41. After our classes, we were invited to have supper with them. When I reached for a cayenne pepper, the women thought I didn’t know what I was doing and slapped it out of my hand. They tried, in their broken English, to explain that it was too hot for Americans to eat. I explained that I loved hot peppers and picked it back up. They watched in amazement as I ate three of them. They said they had never seen an American who could handle their hot peppers or hot curry.

On Thursday night, we went to the home of Prakasham, another gospel preacher. His wife and daughter-in-law prepared a delicious curry meal.On Friday evening, we went to the village of Adirapally, about 18 kilometers from Jadcherla. The preacher here is also named Lazarus. Our attendance was 55 for the classes. The sky was lit up with a full moon. It was very hot, so many of the village folks were sleeping on the sand outside of their houses. After classes, we were invited to eat rice and chicken.

On Saturday morning, we departed from my hotel at 7:00 a.m. to drive to Kwthur, about 30 kilometers away. We left the paved road and drove down a dirt road. It was quite a contrast in vegetation. One side of the road would be dry, with cotton growing. The other side would have irrigation, with rice or corn growing in the fields. The land was also full of sheep and goats. Most of the houses were constructed of mud. The brethren generally have to be in the fields for work by 10:00, so they wanted to meet for a Bible study before going to work. They have started construction on a new chapel. The walls are finished, but they have no money for a roof. We had 38 for the class. After class, I went to two homes to share a cup of boiled buffalo milk, a local tradition of hospitality.

On Saturday evening, we went to another village. We drove down a long dirt road, an area with no houses and no electricity. We were not as warmly welcomed in this village, since some Hindu extremist are in this region. One of the Christians invited us to her home for a Bible study. Everyone sat on mats in the yard in front of her house. While we were conducting our Bible class, some of the Hindu teens stood near the house where we were conducting our classes and beat their drums, in hopes of disturbing us. After our Bible class, we walked down the street to a second home. We were asked to have a 15-minute Bible study here and then share a meal with them. We then returned to the first house and had another meal. We were then asked to walk to a third house for another Bible study (with about 25 folks) and another meal. That was three meals in three houses in a one-hour period. After the first meal, I was no longer hungry, but it would insult the people if I didn’t eat with each of them. I was stuffed at the end of the night!

 

Marriage Proposal

Our visit in one of the villages gave me the opportunity to witness another part of their culture, a marriage proposal. Lazarus has two single daughters. One of them had been chosen as a possible bride for one of the young men. In the villages, the marriage proposal is arranged by the boy’s family. His family visits the girl’s family. They will ask many questions about her character, her health, and her cooking skills. This is often the first time for the boy and girl to meet each other. If the boy and girl express some interest in each other, then the girl’s family will make an appointment to visit his neighborhood. They, too, will ask lots of questions, both of the family and the neighbors. If the girl approves of the boy, the two families will then meet to discuss the price the girl’s family will pay the boy’s family for the right to marry. If the price is agreed upon, this will be followed by a big engagement party in the next few weeks. The expenses for the party will be paid by the girl’s family. The average cost would be about 30,000 rupees (or about $600 in U.S. currency). At the engagement party, the boy provides a ring, clothing, sandals, hankie, perfume, powder, and bracelets. For many of these young couples, the boy and girl have never even met each other before. After the engagement party, the couple can now talk to each other, sit together in public, visit the shopping mall, and sit & drink a Coca-Cola. The boy is now allowed to visit the girl at her home. For the wedding, the boy gives the girl more gold: earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. This usually amounts to about $2,500 in U.S. currency. Some of them laughed when I told them I would probably have been forced to remain single, because I could never have afforded all of the gold gifts. A typical wedding would cost about $7,500. Many rich families will spend even much more. At the wedding, an older man from each family will give an “introduction” speech for the bride and the groom.

 

Sad News on Sunday

Deenadayal received a phone call early on Sunday morning to inform him that his mother had suffered a stroke. He and his brother left at about 3:00 a.m. to drive to Hyderabad to check on her and take her to the hospital. They were delayed in getting back, so a young man came to my hotel on his motorcycle to ride me to the church building. We were about an hour late in starting the services, so Deenadayal arrived as we were ready to start the singing. He explained that his mother was resting comfortably and the doctors did not feel that she would suffer from any permanent damage from the stroke. The church worded a special prayer for her.

Since we had rented the tent for the week and it was still in place in the yard, we met under the tent for our Sunday morning worship. Our attendance was 88. All of the men sat on one side and the ladies sat on the other side.

After our worship, the lady that had been baptized on Friday brought out a big box of candy. She wanted to share with everyone and thank them for the encouragement they had given her in her first two days of being a Christian.

 

My Second Problem

In my haste to leave the hotel with the motorcycle, I may have left my suitcase unlocked. I can’t really say for sure. I had felt safe there all week and had no problems with any of my belongings, but when I got back to the hotel that evening, my Blackberry cell phone was missing. I called the manager and they interviewed a few of the staff members, but nothing turned up. With the destroyed projector and now the stolen phone, my expenses mounted much higher than I was expecting. Oh, well, life does not consist of material things, does it?

 

Heading to Another State

After our Sunday morning worship and lunch, we loaded up and took off for Hampi, in the state of Karnataka. Since the college was going to be out of class for two days due to the Hindu festival called Festival of Colors, John decided to skip one day of school and travel with us. We were glad to have him along with us. He had never been to this state and thoroughly enjoyed getting to see the sights, attend the classes, and be with all of the brethren. The journey was about 400 kilometers. Because of the crooked roads and passing through so many villages, the drive took us about six hours. Once again, we saw a great contrast in vegetation, with lots of rice and cotton growing in the fields.

The area around Hampi is filled with one temple after another.  It is a real haven for Hindu pilgrimages. One of the saddest things was to see how many American college students were in the area to indoctrinate themselves in the Hindu religion. The big bulls roam the streets and seem to have total control of the sidewalks and shops. I had my picture made beside one of the big bulls, but I was warned that I should not touch the horns. They consider the Brahma bull to be the highest form of life on earth. Many of the folks also worship the monkey god, the elephant god, the fire god, the river god, and a host of others. I felt like Paul must have felt when he walked into Athens and saw all of their altars. I wanted to tell them about the “unknown God.” It was some very sad sights.

Once again, we rented a tent and had all of our classes underneath the tent. Many preachers came from many different locations. Our attendance average about 45 each day. We had classes for the full day, ending by about 6:00 p.m. since we didn’t have electricity at night. The area around Hampi was having a shortage on producing electricity, so they turned off the power for twelve hours each day. The timing differed each day. India had new records for high temperatures while I was there. I could sure have used an electric fan at night, but we had no power.

 

 Festival of Colors

Our classes went from Monday thru Wednesday. The Hindu folks went crazy on Tuesday. This was the day of what they call their Festival of Colors. The schools are closed, the businesses are closed, and everyone is on the street and their bodies are colored in bright powders, dyes, or paints. They paint their clothing, their faces, and their hair.

 

Safe Arrival at Home

On Thursday, I had to be back at the Hyderabad airport to fly out at 7:50 p.m.  I flew from Hyderabad to Delhi and sat in the airport all night. My flight then left Delhi at 1:25 a.m. on Friday.  I arrived back in Nashville on Friday afternoon at 2:45. By the grace of God, I had a safe journey.  I want to thank those who prayed for me during this trip. I feel that much good was accomplished. I pray that God was honored in all that we did.