Mount Zion!

On Sunday afternoon, Joel Kumar and I caught a flight south to Madurai. Once we got there, we hopped in a Gospel Friends van with a couple of guys from the college for a 2 hour trip to Mt. Zion, the town where Living Hope is.

We were driving along and suddenly stopped because there was a big crowd of people doing something in the road. Some of them were lighting some fireworks in the middle of the road. After a few seconds I figured out that not only had we reached our destination, but that all of the people were part of the Living Hope family who had turned out to welcome me there! They had a little fireworks show and then we hopped out of the van. Somebody threw the Indian equivalent of a Hawaiian lei around my neck and then I got mobbed by about 50 kids who all wanted to shake my hand, ask my name, and say, "hi, how are you." It was a pretty awesome welcome. They had a prayer and then took me to my room. I'll put some pics of my room up on facebook, but it's pretty nice to say the least. I've actually got more room there than I do at home, haha.

Well, I woke up the next morning at about 3 due to jetlag, I guess. I figured since I could sleep, I might as well do something useful, so I went ahead and did devotions, some reading, etc. At about 6, I thought I heard someone knocking, so I went to the door and found two Indian girls who had brought me coffee. I came to find out that they do this for you at least twice a day. This is just a small example of how these folks will bend overbackwards to show you hospitality. It's still taking me some time to get used to all the stuff they want to do for you.

Monday morning there was a chapel service for a few minutes at 8:30, then a little while later, a guy named Muto Kumar started taking me around to see some of the classes. We walked into the first room and it was actually a Greek class! Apparently they've had at least a little bit of exposure to it so far. Anyway, we walked in and everyone automatically stood up like the president had walked in or something. Muto said something to the guy who was teaching. The teacher started packing up his books, which seemed odd to me. Muto turns to me and says, "Okay, you can teach for about 45 minutes." I was caught more than a little off guard...I mean, I've beem prepping for weeks to teach Greek, but I didn't have a Greek bible or anything with me. So, I ran back to my room and grabbed some books. When I got back, I worked through John 1:1 with them, breaking it down so that they could understand it. It really went pretty well, but I think some of them weren't quite up to snuff on their grammar, so it might have gone over a few heads.

After I got done lecturing in the Greek class, we took a break and then went and sat in on another class. In this one, the guy was teaching on the Psalms. After a few minutes, he looks up and says to me, "Okay, you can teach for 5 minutes." So, I got up and tried to act like I knew more than I did about Psalm 91 for a few minutes, haha.

Joel told me that Living Hope is a family, and it really seems like it's true. I was walking around campus last night and ran into a bunch of the kids who had greeted me when I got there on Sunday. They all kept asking my name, and the ones who remembered it called me "Uncle Friedeman", haha. They all tried to get me to remember their names, but there were at least 20 of them, so it wasn't really happening. I came to find out that most of these kids on campus are orphans who go to Living Hope's primary school. They're not around much during the day, but I think I'm definitely going to have to try to invest some time with them in the evenings and stuff. They're just too cute : )

Well, that's all for now. As far as prayer requests go, keep praying for Vairavan, the guy I witnessed to on the plane. Also, I'm meeting with Ghuna and the principal tomorrow to talk about class schedules, and will probably start teaching in earnest on Thursday, so be praying for that. Other than that, just pray that I'd be able to build some good relationships with the folks here. Later...