India Trip Day 4

Our V.B.S. experience that day was brief but fun. We sang songs for what seemed like an hour, some familiar and some invented by the seminary students who taught. Young people turned around to see if we were doing the motions. We did our best.

The teachers and children come from different states. One young woman's state has a lot of tribal fighting. "She comes from a rough place," Shajy stated.

Everyone communicated in English. It served as the common language.

Most of the songs were in English. We also sang a song in Hindi, Mizo, Kannada and Malayan. The song leader was born in Myanmar,and Mizo is his main language. That was the most popular song as it involved shouting.

Whether they understood the songs or not, the kids seemed to enjoy them. I'm sure the shouting factored in to that.

The boys and girls sat on opposite sides of the church building. The teachers did the same regardless of where they met. It took a while, but I adjusted.

After singing we followed the teachers of two different Intermediate classes. I sat in one with two seminary students and children ages 12 to 14. At first, I didn't know if I could visit the girl's side to talk. But I got over my cultural ignorance eventually.

Both the teachers were men, so I followed their examples. International crisis averted.

We did two 45 minute lessons. I started the first one and sort of took over the second. Not by choice, mind you.

One boy, Ashish, was equally interested in the lessons and this strange American in his class. He tried to figure out where I live in Korea. After no small effort on both our parts I admitted it's not as well-known as Seoul. He bobbled his agreement.

The bobbles in this group resembled a side-to-side movement. It threw me off at first. I repeated instructions a few times before I figured it out.

For the second class the boys drew a picture of godly people and the girls drew the ungodly people. The godly people were a happy-looking bunch, but most of the ungodly had horns. One looked innocent enough, but a bit grumpy. Under it a girl wrote, "He may kill someone." Okay, that's scary.

After classes we all returned to the church building. It was time for me to share a devotional with everyone.

After we sang a few songs, I heard my name and walked forward. I grabbed a cordless mike and asked the children what they learned. I added 2 cents here and there, but they did most of the talking.

The boys were eager to answer first, but the girls warmed up to it eventually. There were 200 kids, so I can't say everyone had a chance to talk. But I tried to get as close as we could.

As I went to my seat, a young man smiled and said "Good speech." As long as I'm not doing the talking, I agree.

We met with the Vice Principal of Little Rock Indian School. It teaches elementary through high school. The workload is sufficient for students, but the homework is light. That would be nice.

I heard the best reason for having uniforms. Some students may be able to dress nicer than others due to gaps in class systems. Uniforms lessen the issue.

The teachers also wear uniforms at times. It's their goal to model simplicity. The vice principal chuckled as she noted students' comments to parents and in evaluations. "My teacher is simple." I can't recall the last time I considered that word a compliment.

Between classes one and two at V.B.S. the children had recess for a few minutes. One young man noticed my camera and asked, "Is it digital?" No, I replied. It's old-fashioned.

As he replied I realized my error. He said something to the effect of "It's still a nice camera."

I wonder when I started assigning so much value to things. It doesn't seem very simple.

Shajy drove us to his house for dinner. As we got closer to his house the windy narrow roads became more windy and narrow. Once we hit a thin, curved path of dirt we
were almost there. It was dark, so he flashed his lights generously. Thankfully, there wasn't any traffic so we didn't have to pull off the road.

We enjoyed dinner while we admired the art on the walls composed of scribblings. Shajy said that yes, this was his son's work. He couldn't discourage it because maybe Shine will become a famous artist someday. You don't want to hurt the potential.

Other than the artwork we didn't see many decorations. Our host especially pointed out the absence of crosses. Worshiping objects is a big deal in India; Shajy wanted to avoid that.

We asked about persecution. It's more on an individual basis or by extremist groups. The government is more worried about the extremists than anyone else.

We thanked Shajy and his wife, Betzy for dinner. Shajy drove us home, which gave us a chance to thank him a hundred more times or so. He and Shine saw us home, where we waved goodbye, said goodnight to each other and soon slept like logs.