Mel’s short epistle from India, January 2011

Greetings from Ongole in Southeast India near the Bay of Bengal. After
a day of recuperation from traveling and jet-lag, we started our first
day of eye clinics in a village that has an established Baptist Church.
Their present pastor I have known for several years as he was an
evangelist previously working with Paul Joshua the Indian founder and
India connection of our Hands of Compassion. This pastor’s name is Ravi
and he is married and has 2 small children. Fortunately for us, he
speaks English well and was very easy to work with.
Our eye clinic was set up with 4 stations inside the one-room church
building that had 2 doors: a reception table, the examining doctor
area, the evangelism witnessing area, and the eye glass fitting area.
Things moved along smoothly most of the time. All of the patients were
seated outside in a tent that was set up for that purpose. We then
called them into the building 3 or 4 at a time to start moving through
the process.
After a few hours, we took a half hour break and then continued through
the rest of the afternoon until dark. We were able to process 77
patients. There were 7 salivations and 9 who had previously accepted
Christ who committed to follow through with baptism. One special joy
for me was that 3 of the patients who came through the clinic were
believers whom I had baptized 10 years ago. All in all, this has been
a very successful, though tiring day.
On Sunday we traveled two and one-half hours to the location of our 2nd
boarding home as well as our old folks home. We were late in arriving
as 2 cyclones this past year had pretty well torn up the roads. The
church folks in this village had been waiting for us for more than 2
hours. This small, one room church was packed with worshipers sitting
on the floor—probably 200 or so. Due to our late arrival and other
obligations we had with our boarding home children that afternoon
before dark, t he service was not as long after we arrived as it
usually was. Then we retired to the old folks home (just next door—a
short walk) and had a chicken curry meal with rice—very tasty and spicy.
Next came our time with our boarding children. As of this visit, we
have 50 of them at this location. Our time included taking photos of
each of them for those who are sponsored, telling Bible stories and
working a craft that went along with the story, passing our “goodies”
that we had brought for them (pencils, erasers, toothbrushes,
toothpaste, stickers, bracelets, and other school supplies). They were,
needless to say, very happy and excited. There were also “neon”
bracelets that light up when crushed that stay lit for about a day. You
have no idea how meaningful these small items are for these children.
And silly bands are a brand new item here!
We distributed any of the above items that were appropriate for our
elderly women who were sitting on the sidelines observing all this
activity as we were sitting in their court yard carrying out all this
action.
Then we came back “home’ after dark—except now with same bad road but
complicated by the large cargo trucks (called lorries) and they never
dim their lights. In one area, we followed right behind a large lorry
and when it would go into a hole in the road, the bumper would
disappear out of sight right before us only to rise again as the truck
came out of the hole. NOT your normal potholes.
We got back to our longed for beds between 11 and midnight.
Now, today (Monday) is another story—that has not yet been lived nor
written.
Mel on Mission for the Lord. (Monday morning)

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