I present to you some more sights from Ahmedabad.

1. A token Muslim, easily identified by his fabulous beard and cool cap and gown.
2. A “close knit” family in transit. Not two, not four, not even six, but a family of seven on a single motorcycle (You can’t see the baby on the other side). That does it — I’m sold. I am trading in our mini-van for a motorcycle when I return home. I had know idea my whole family would fit.
3. An Indian bottle neck. Your innards begin to quake when all of these are moving — through an intersection of ongoing traffic of equal numbers. Also note that I captured here in the city center one of the select few traffic lights in all of Ahmedabad. It functions as a pretty decoration but nothing more. The people are unaware of its existence. I am not exaggerating when I insist that the light means absolutely nothing — to police or passengers. Every intersection offers a unique free-for-all.
4. A New Yorker’s dream world. You find the words on the back of this truck, “Honk OK Please”, on half the moving vehicles in this city (regardless of their size). They respond in unison with a cacophony of ceaseless beeps day and night. I asked, and, yes, they literally wear out and regularly replace their horns, the only part of a South Carolinian vehicle that goes to the junk yard brand new.
5. A classic Rickshaw in standard green and yellow glory. You find more of these on the streets than hairs on your head. Now picture cramming every last child in our congregation into one these three-wheelers. Some of the numbers we have seen defy calculation.
6. Two corrupt traffic cops in typical tan, armed with a whistle and a stick. They stand on the side of the road, chew the fat and watch the bedlam in the streets. Then in classic tyrannical fashion they arbitrarily flag down some passerby, extract their hard earned money — and cram it into their own pockets, never ever to see the public coffers. Then back to loitering. Hold your breath now. Two days ago they pulled and searched our vehicle — no fourth amendment, mind you. No, I am not writing from an Indian prison, but if I was driving, we could have been sporting a new despotic hood ornament. Do these posts go on the Internet?
7. I have only laid eyes on two white people since we arrived nine days ago — and he is one of them (I am not the other.). Since Randy may read this post, I will wait until I get home to sing his praises. Thank you for praying for his valiant labors.
8. The Hindus built this pretty pyramid as a giant fire-cracker for their pagan festival earlier this week. As we drove home on Wed. (the days blur together now), we passed loads of these pyramids in various sizes (usually 3 feet to 8 feet high), sometimes every 50 yards. I was not present to see it, but at 7:30 that night, the whole city set them ablaze. Everything was closed Thursday, as they smeared everyone and everything in sight with bright colors. Google “images of the Holi festival” for a peak at the evidence.
9. A sample shrine, located a stone’s throw from the front door of the training center. The streets are littered with shrines everywhere you look. As I noted in an earlier post, we have four or five within a 100 yard stretch on the tiny, dirt road in front of the training center.

Lastly, did you know that the world consumes goat more than any other meat? And no wonder, it is scrumptious. I ate it with pleasure again today. What is wrong with Americans? We eat lamb and venison, close cousins — but no goat meat. Isn’t there an advocacy group for American goat farmers in Washington?

A touch of humor supports sanity here, as the sober realities easily overwhelm the soul. The spiritual death toll boggles the mind. If anything above brings a smile, I hope it cements India in your memory and fuels your future prayers for the Sun of Righteous to rise with healing in his wings over the Indian Subcontinent.

When the Free Church of Scotland shipped missionaries to India in the 19th century they disembarked in the south and confined most of their labors to that region. If you hanker for more of that story, you can dip into several histories and biographies available to modern readers. You will profit from the perusal.

But to appreciate the relevance of these posts, I must transport you deeper and higher into the mainland. India consists of 29 states, much like our 50 states in America. If you peak at the map, you will see that Ahmedabad sits as the principal city of the state of Gujarat (pronounced Goo-ja-rat). All of the men attending classes this week hail from the Northwest of India, which encompasses a wide area containing over a half billion souls. Logos (the training center) sends trainers/teachers to 14 different states in the North, representing about 700 main churches (or 2000+ places of worship). These ministers shoulder heavy responsibilities, serving in local churches simultaneous to training other men in ministry. While their teaching equips men preparing for ministry, a significant portion consists of “continuing education” for pastors already in the saddle. They point to the model of 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
They conduct classes at the center in Ahmedabad on a quarterly basis, but they rotate who attends so that only a portion gather at one time. If they did not protect the men by factoring in their time constraints, the classes could crush many already burdened with heavy work loads.

So Logos functions as a decentralized, multi-tiered, mobilized church-planting Bible college . . . of sorts. The structure may defy familiar Western categories, but my heart cheers to see them launch a biblical gospel and basic Reformed doctrine across the landscape of this needy nation.

In an effort to bring all of this closer to home, I include below pictures of a sampling of a half dozen individual ministers, along with a small piece of their story.

1. Vinod lives in the city of Agra, the location of the famous Taj Mahal (The children can google pictures of this Muslim masterpiece, but Nish tells me that once you have toured the Taj Mahal, pictures will never again suffice.) Vinod serves as a trainer over his state of Uttarpradesh (UP). He is married with seven children.
2. Emmanuel lives with his wife and two children in Sirsa. He serves as a trainer for the state of Hariyana. They recently purchased land and hope to erect a new building.
3. Sohan resides in Banswada and has five children almost identical in ages to my own. He bears responsibility for the state of Rajasthan, which includes 32 main churches — with multiple places of worship attached to each of those.
4. Arjun lives in Ranchi in the state of Jharkhand and carries responsibility for training men in his state.
5. Charles hails from Roorkee in the state of Uttarkhand. He is a regional trainer over 5 states, which includes about 150 churches plus additional places of worship.
6. Manoj, who lives in Jejepur, the state of Chhattisgarh, requests prayer regarding the persecution and isolation Christians are facing from the Hindus in his area.

I hope this further information broadens your vision and deepens your prayerful interest in the Great Northwest of India.

The sight of your faces and the sound of your voices via the Skype arrangement this morning (Thurs. morning here; Wed. night there) provided a great boon for me. The singing of Psalm 67 placed icing on the cake. Thank you for your ongoing prayers.

With all Christian affection,
Pastor Rob McCurley

In order to keep things in proper proportion, I offer another post to the kiddos (after all, they constitute a significant percentage of those filling the pews at GPC). If I had to guess, parents probably perk up when I address the children anyway, if posts are anything like sermons. Just do not label me a blogger or hurl other terms of derision at me (I speak, of course, tongue-in-cheek – no offense intended to the valuable contributions of some in the blogosphere).

And now, back to the children, most of whom want to know “what it is like” here.

What did you eat for breakfast? You may have to think for a second, unless you gobble up the same thing every morning. Well, food is one feature that distinguishes countries, people groups and even religions. You probably know that in Mexico (a country) they eat tacos and that Eskimos (a people group) eat fish and that Muslims and Jews (two religions) abstain from pork. Since I flew to India on a Middle-Eastern airline (think Muslims), I anticipated rightly that we would not be eating pork or shell fish over the Atlantic Ocean.

So what do they eat in Ahmedabad? Remember that 8 out every 10 people in India belong to Hinduism. Hindus believe that when you die your “soul” stays in this world and you become another creature (person, animal, insect). If you accomplished enough good deeds in this life, then you might proceed up the food-chain and become a robust Burmese cow, but if you were delinquent, then you might come back as a malaria-infested mosquito on the backside of a dog in the slums. Needless to say, that means Hindus do not eat meat – it may be their great-grandmother they are chewing! Not a pleasant thought. So vegetarians hold the majority in India. But do not worry, this does not confine everyone in India to a paltry diet. The Christians and Muslims strive to balance the scales by consuming more than their fair share of meat along with their vegetables, fruit and everything else.

Next, they enjoy a warm, arid climate, which determines the type of veggies and fruit they can grow and eat. During my time here the weather has been unseasonably cool with highs around 100 degrees (normally it is hotter). Unlike South Carolina, however, the humidity is low, which makes the heat far more bearable than I anticipated.

Enough on the background information. We eat our main meal at lunchtime with the pastors at the training facility. (For supper I munch on a snack or two that Mrs. McCurley packed in my luggage.) If your palate tolerates maximum flavor and a wide array of spices, then you will salivate over the tables in Ahmedabad. To top it off, they use food as medicine. So it tastes scrumptious and improves your health. You might actually suspect that God designed it so. While Mr. Taylor does not share my preference for hot spices (to put it mildly; sorry he loves puns), he would whole-heartedly concur with my assessment about the loads of yummy flavor, even when you insist on mild heat.

The typical main meal consists of several dishes, though I do not remember all the names: a thin flat bread, a meat dish in sauce, a vegetable dish in sauce, steamed rice usually with cumin or another spice, a soup poured over the rice, fried hot green peppers on the side, and fruit (like mango) for dessert. They use no utensils, providing for a tactile feeding experience. They do graciously provide forks and spoons for us Americans, and we put them to work. They pinch the food and soak up the juice with the flat bread and eat everything on their plate with the fingers of their right hand. Sometimes they bring a bowl of warm water with a slice of lemon in it for cleaning their very messy hand at the conclusion of the meal. Please look at the picture of a poor woman cooking the flat bread over an open fire.

Lunch break lasts two hours so that everyone can lie down to rest after the meal. I attached a picture of a man asleep at lunchtime. Many people just lie down on the ground under the shade of a small tree or bush. While they snooze, I compose posts for you, among other things.

They hold a brief tea break mid-morning (10:30 a.m.) and mid-afternoon (4:00 p.m.) every day of the week, at which they serve Masala Chai and a few crackers or chips. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that while I love coffee, I have not met a cup of hot tea that I thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully no one in Scotland reads these posts. Several of our ladies at GPC love their tea, and I am certain that my immature taste buds are at fault and that I am the looser for not having acquired refined taste for tea. But Indian tea (Masala Chai) stands in a league all by itself. Delicious, if not addictive. The addition of several spices and milk leaves no trace of the taste of tea.

In the next post I will return to describing the work here, highlighting especially some specific prayer requests for the men and their ministries. My bedtime is fast approaching now.

Hopefully, children, I have included enough information to satisfy your curiosity and to provide you with a window into the world here. Our gracious God has supplied many types of food to delight our tongues and to nourish our bodies in serving the Savior. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). But all of these temporal gifts serve as pointers to the surpassing pleasure of feeding upon Christ by faith. He is the bread that has come down from heaven, which satiates hungry souls. He is the fountain of living waters, from which, if we drink we shall never thirst.

God’s grace alone creates the spiritual appetite which is dissatisfied with anything less than Christ himself. When you think of India, pray that they will seek this heavenly feast. And pray the same for yourselves.

“And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined” (Isaiah 25:6).

Children, this post is especially for you. I have attached some pictures of wildlife found deep inside Ahmedabad, a city of over 5 million people. I captured all of these sights on roads in between where I sleep and where I teach. Plentiful numbers of cows fill the streets along with a million mopeds and motorcycles.

So here is a question for you: How can cows be as common as cars? More to the point, how do these cows survive without a blade of grass anywhere for miles? Can you guess? Answer: the Hindu people consider cows to be holy, even gods. So whenever a person feeds a cow they believe (wrongly) that they receive a special blessing from the gods. The prospect of blessing motivates 5 million people to fill the faces of these four-footed beasts, even when their own mouths are empty. (It also provides further incentive for not crashing into one – you’d be cursed forever.) I also wondered about who reaps the benefits from this enterprise (besides the ones mooing) – typical capitalist. The people who own the cows get the milk, while all their neighbors foot the feed bill. Now lest I make this sound too rosey, most of these cows look pretty grim (as the pictures reveal) and many spend the day eating scraps of garbage in order to survive.

Include camels and horses in your list of familiar friends along the byways. A couple of less common sights include the picture of the monkey, which I saw this morning about 100 yards from where we stay, and the picture of the saddled elephant, which I also saw this morning for the first time. The Hindus consider both of these animals to be sacred, as well.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” (Romans 1:22, 23)

Children, idolatry breeds spiritual insanity in every soul. Is it not obvious? The cows (their gods) depend on the people for survival. They cannot exert enough “divine” power to even eat, and yet the Hindus are captivated by superstition and slavish fear that the gods will bless or curse them.

Remember these lessons next time you sing Psalm 115.

And remember the words of the Apostle John: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21)