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Side By Side training took place here on the campus of Concordia University in St. Paul, MN.
Our final day of training concluded with an outdoor, unplugged concert performed by Fat and Happy. That's the band's name...not an adjective. ;-)
Here's a photo of everyone on the India Global Work Crew. Front row (L to R): Dave, Asha, Erika, Kate, and Carson. Back row (L to R): Nathan, Alecia, Liz, Lindsey, Gina, Ben, and Alele.
Doesn't every mission trip have a photo like this? Here we are at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport waiting for our flight.
Two days later, we arrived here. This is Andhra Christian Theological College, a Christian seminary in Hyderabad, India. ACTC would be our new home for the duration of our stay in India.
Indian hospitality begins with a warm welcome. An exhausted India Crew was welcomed to ACTC with this welcome sign, which is made entirely of chalk and plant life. Check out that cool head gear!
It seemed quite fitting to me that as guests we stayed in the ACTC Guest Rooms. We were grateful for these simple, yet wonderful accommodations.
The bell tower at Andhra Christian Theological College could be seen from throughout the campus.
Volleyball (shown here) and Cricket seemed to be quite popular amongst ACTC students.
Erika, one of our crew members, was just phenomenal with the children, who were quite fascinated by our Indiglo watches!!
Sunitha was our Indian contact person. She was a marvellous host, leader, and friend to us all!
Our work project involved repairing the roofs on the huts in this slum, which was just outside of the walls of ACTC. The slum houses some of the city's poorest people.
Here's what one of the huts looked like before we started to work on it. These roofs were made of whatever these people could find...some included rolling pins, bicycle parts, and even a chicken's nest! Each hut averaged dimensions of 8x10 feet and housed an average of about five people.
We put plastic covering on about 120 huts to protect their inhabitants from the monsoon rains. We also completely reconstructed about five or six huts, which will be illustrated later on. The plastic was fastened with rope.
Here are two finished huts, complete with our multi-coloured plastic!! Just the colour alone brightened up the whole neighbourhood!!
Here are three children who lived in the slum. Indian people in general just love to be photographed!
Sarees are part of a traditional Indian wardrobe for women. Here we are shopping for silk sarees for the ladies to wear to an upcoming wedding! This was an amazing store.
And, here we are decked out in our new, traditional Indian garb at the wedding. The wedding was for our contact's cousin. It was in a town called Rajahmundry, which was a 10-hour overnight train ride on the Indian Railways from Hyderabad.
This was the band that played at the wedding. It was "The Wedding Singer" in real life...or at least, it seemed that way. Suffice to say, it was quite the aural experience!
This little girl's name is Duske, and she was one of our good friends throughout our stay at ACTC. But, here she is at the wedding. Isn't she just adorable?
Here's the bride and groom. Two unique things about this wedding... 1) It was a Christian, arranged marriage, which means that the bride and groom had only met for about ten minutes about a month or two before the wedding. 2) At the end, each family gave the bride and groom a flower garland, which made them look like walking shrubbery in full bloom!
Throughout our stay in India, we saw many interesting things involving animals. Here is a goat herder walking down the street just outside of ACTC.
Here is Asha, one of our crew leaders, with her waterbuffalo. Well, it wasn't actually HER waterbuffalo, but it was the one that she bonded with anyway. Hey all of you Veggie Tales fans...in India, everyone really DOES have a waterbuffalo! Hehe!!
Perhaps one of the most sought after photograph amongst our crew members was of these monkeys. I was able to capture a few photos, but I stopped trying after two of them chased after me and tried to eat me. Luckily, I escaped!!
I'd never seen a 5-legged cow before I went to India. Have you? Well, here are two of them walking down the street near ACTC. Our contact told us that this genetic mutation is intentionally perpetuated by breeding because the people of cow worshipping faiths believe them to be exceptionally "holy".
Back to our work project once more, here we are in the process of completely reconstructing one of the huts in the slum. We chose about five or six of the worst ones for reconstruction.
The new roof construction consisted of bamboo, basket weave mat, and of course, our colourful plastic.
Here's what our new roof construction looked like after completion. Check out all of the debris from the old roof!!
Mehndi, or Henna, is quite common in India amongst the women, especially for special occasions. One day for "Culture Share" time between the Indian and American Crews, we had the opportunity to try it out. This is what Erika's hand looked like while the design was being made.
And, here is what Erika's hand looked like when it was finished. This design remains on the hand for two to three weeks.
Another time during "Culture Share", the Indians shared with us how to do these chalk designs, much like the welcome sign with which we were greeted. These chalk designs are also made for special occasions.
When we were finished, we ended up with this nifty looking flower basket!!
When we weren't working or attending weddings or sleeping or eating, we had the opportunity to do some sightseeing. This is Birla Mandir, a magnificent structure built entirely out of marble from Rajasthan. The Hindu temple rests atop a hill that offers some great views of the city!
We also visited the Qutb Shahi Tombs. These are the tombs of the Qutb Shahi rulers, thus their name, I suppose. It was a cool thing to see.
The last bit of sight seeing led us to the Goloconda Fort, which is an old fortification dating back to Medieval times. The fort is situated atop a rather large hill, and we climbed a great deal of steps to reach the summit, which was the building seen in the extreme upper left of the photo.
Here's a good view of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Building from the street. Hyderabad is the capital city of the state of AP in India.
Our main means of transportation about the city were in these auto rickshaws. The placard on it's side reads "To Seat 4 Only". We fit nine into this one. Although, I'm not quite sure how!!
Well, PERHAPS we were able to minister to the people living in the slum by helping them through our work projects, amongst other things. But, I KNOW that these people ministered to us with their gratitude. The little that we did for these people seems like so much to them that they were willing to give back to us from the little that they had to give. They threw us a tea party!!
We were given flower garlands and served tea, bananas, silver leaf candy, and some of that "North India trail mix" stuff. It seemed fitting that just as we were finishing up, it began to rain, and all the people (including ourselves) were kept dry from our newly plastic-covered roofs!
The second community followed suit with a party of their own. They gave us soft drinks and a charming performance of dance. The man at the left was the dancer at first, but then this little boy in the purple shirt decided to join in as well. At both parties, the people gave us SO MUCH in their attention and sincere gratitude, even aside from the tangible elements of food and drink. I think that we were all moved by this experience.
The baby in this photo makes for quite the story, but I'll make it brief. One day whilst we were working on one of the huts, this mother was rushed into it in a state of labour. Then, one of the Indians started talking with an Indian member of our crew in Telugu, the official language of AP, and every once in a while, they'd both glance at Adele. She'd been working on this hut, and was now standing aside and watching these two Indians converse and take glances at her. So, she thought to herself, "Oh my gosh! They want me to deliver the baby"! Well, it turned out that the mother had asked if Adele would pray for the baby and its family. It was one of those rare instances where we, and especially Adele, were able to taste some of the fruits of the seeds planted by our ministry. Within another half hour, this healthy and hairy baby was born!!
There seemed to be quite a few holidays going on whilst we were in India. One of them was a holiday for sisters. Sisters would tie these wrist ornaments to their brothers as a sign of their sisterhood, amongst other things which have since slipped from my memory. So, here I am with my Indian sister, Diske!
This is a photo of our final devotions with the Indian Crew. It was a traditional Indian, Christian worship service, complete with singing in Telugu and Holy Communion with coconut and coconut milk as the body and blood of Christ. The altar is constructed of flowers, which we exchanged with one another as we shared the peace of Christ, and tools from our Labour, which symbolised how our work was a form of worship to God.
This photograph was taken at our last meal that we shared with the Indian Crew. Pictured in the circle are (clockwise from left) Sudhakar, Ben, Thomas, and Abraham (Lulu). In the back and to the left are Erika and Gina. We ate our food using our right hands...no silverware!
This is one of our cooks. He has a name, and I'm sure that we were introduced when we arrived on the first day. But, we affectionately called him "Mr. Cookman, Sir". I think he understood. :-)
We spent our final evening in India having ice cream at Sunitha's house...a sort of goodbye treat, if you will. Here is one of the photos that I shot from the roof of her building.
And, here's another nifty photo of the night sky, again shot from Sunitha's roof. Pretty cool, eh?
It was difficult to say goodbye to India and all of the new friendships that we formed there, but the goodbyes came and went. So, here we are back at Concordia University in St. Paul, MN for debriefing and Impact '98. This photo shows all of us making our presentation at Impact '98, where we had the opportunity to share our experiences of India at this assembly as well as at an elective session. Impact is a family missions festival that wraps up the Side By Side programme as well as the year for other Youth Encounter ministry teams.
THE END!!
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