Monday 2. March

I woke up early in the morning, freezing. I got up and closed the window, turned off the air condition and put on some socks and a t-shirt. I never expected to freeze in India! But it's a bit chilly in the night here in Nagpur.

Nagpur is called the Orange city, by the way, it's known for growing oranges. There are orange trees outside the hotel also. The oranges in India are a bit different than those we buy in Norway, they're a bit more flat at the top and bottom, and much easier to peel. But the taste is the same, or actually they're a bit sweeter I think. And there are seed in them.

Benjamin does some paper work After breakfast, Benjamin told us some more of what is on his heart, and he shared some of his experiences with us. Who knows, maybe I'll publish my notes one day?

Sofia, Inger and Lars Erik went by autorickshaw for lunch, the rest of us in the jeep. We talked about spiritual warfare and Livets Ord (Word of Life, Uppsala) contrary to Oslo Kristne Senter. Then we discussed raising children and appurtenant topics, for instance whether it's right to bring children when travelling in foreign countries, and to what degree one should leave the children at grand parents or friends when travelling. We found that it''s important not to over-protect the children, but rather make the most of the resources and opportunities we have, according to our faith and how we are led by the Spirit. Meny children would benefit from being more independent, and many parents would benefit from taking a more active part in raising the children instead of leaving everything to the school system.

The Indian girls making chiapatti. The lunch was just as nice as yesterday, and tomorrow I shouldn't eat so much for breakfast if we're going here again. We had both steak and potatoes, in addition to chicken and rice. Christopher almost felt like home. After the warm food they brought some fruit; small, sweet bananas, apples and oranges.

It is really instructive being together with experienced christians and preachers this way. If one is observant, one may learn somthing from their experience that it would be nice to avoid learning the hard way, for instance such thoughts as:

Don't ask "What's wrong with it?", ask "What's good with it?".
Don't try to find out how far from God you can stay without sinning, find out how close to Jesus you can live without getting raptured.
If you can give some hundred thousands when you get a million, why not give a ten when you have a hundred?

We've heart a lot of witnesses about the goodness of God after lunch, how people have given things and God has given back.

Back at the hotel we had a talk about how to handle beggars. Benjamin's advice is this: don't give anything. There are many good actors, and also, if anyone discovers that you give you'll have a bunch of people gathering around you, and in the worst case you might get robbed. So if you want to bless the local people, do it through local churches and organizations. That's also more efficient, as they know where the needs are.

Don't be to eager to lay hands on people on the street either. If you can't speak their language, they won't understand what you're doing, and you risk being followed and gotten into trouble. Pray for people if you want to, but don't lay hands on them. But in churches of course, it's OK.

Sverre going shopping Christopher, Sofia and I went for shopping afterwards. I found a pair of black leather shoes for 300 Rupees, Sofia got herself an alarm clock, and Christopher a pair of shirts. Now we're getting ready for the evening service, but we're meeting at Tone and Lars Erik's room at 17:15 to pray together before we leave.

We had a great prayer meeting together with Jaap, who's going with us tonight. We're going to a slum area in the city, it's not exactly a village says Glyn. Rolf Daniel got a ride with pastor Francis' scooter.

Rolf Daniel rides the scooter And it was slum indeed. The service was held in the yard in front of a house with a rather leaky roof, and a sound equipment which was OK in the beginning, but deteriorated as the service went by. And when they turned on the bright lights they blew the fuse. But they got it fixed in a few minutes.

The local people sang a few songs in the beginning of the service, and as long as the sound equipment didn't work it sounded quiet well. Then Tone and Inger brought a greeting and a witness. After that we changed clothes and played our drama. Inger explained it first. Rolf Daniel operated our small tape recorder and a microphone, as the local cassette players tends to play at a rather varying speed. We had very little room to play, and the ground was rather rough, but we did fine.

After the drama, Jaap preached an excellent message on the salvation in Jesus and he invited the people to accept Jesus. Many wanted to be saved, almost everybody. It was great to hear how especially the kids prayed the prayer of salvation after Jaap. Then we prayed for healing, and before we left we gave balloons to all the children. Some of the kids were eager autograph hunters, so they got some greetings in their books.

We left pretty quickly, they had to use the car to pick up the other team, that is Glyn, Betty, Henk and Cornelius.

Jaap eating garlic nan When we got back to the hotel, Benjamin ordered toast and eggs for us, but Jaap would rather have some rice and curry and garlic nan. So we had toast with chocolate spread and bacon cheese before we had a taste of Tove and Jaap's food. Tove had also ordered something spicy. We had a nice time at the table. Christopher and Jaap talked about sheep while Rolf Daniel talked with Henk.

Afterwards I dropped by at Lars Erik and Tone's room, and we had a nice talk about how the trip had been so far. There was a lot of cracking outside, but we couldn't see anything. We'll just hope nobody will be shot tonight.

We went to bed before 23:30. It's breakfast at 08:30 tomorrow, but we don't know the programme yet, except that Rolf Daniel is going to the bible school at 9 to teach, and Tone is going to teach from about 11:30.