V. A Singing Heart: CMC Ludhiana II

We have just rounded to the top of the echoing stairs at Sacred Heart School in Moga, Punjab, and are preparing to enter a roomful of 800 elementary school children who are awaiting our concert. The principal pauses to usher me in, and as she does so, she says offhand: "None of these students is Christian."

I had prepared to give a Christian children's concert.

Nicole and Isaac and I enter the auditorium and, as Isaac describes it, 800 pairs of eyes turn to greet us. Then, as one, the entire group rises to its feet and says: "Good Morning, Mrs Linnea!" My heart sings.

Get on the Jesus Bus

Earlier in the morning, the three of us met Dr Abraham Thomas, world famous director of the CMC Ludhiana. He formally welcomed us with chai and polite conversation in his office before we headed out on the 2 ½ hour journey to the city of Moga. David has fallen to the inevitable intestinal sledgehammer and will not be seen for 36 hours. Patrick is adjusting to India and cannot rise. So, it is toward a solo concert with a new back-up duo that I am headed at Sacred Heart School.

 Our driver is a Sikh man who chats amiably with Rev Stanley while expertly dodging the early morning Punjab traffic. It is foggy. I am learning the rules of engagement of Indian driving – though I will never take it on personally. The rules appear to go something like this: The highway which, in Canada, is 2 lanes with a yellow line to divide and clarify who owns what, is in India a river of possibility. Vehicles are on the left, moving out to the right to pass those slower in front, now aimed directly and headfirst at an oncoming vehicle. Between them, by timing and keen awareness of the proximity of every other vehicle around them, they navigate so that a head-on collision is averted. Someone speeds to pass the bus in front of them, or another vehicle cedes their place, or someone moves off to the shoulder. At any time, there may be 5 cars or scooters spanning the entire width of the road.

This is all done through the clever use of the horn. Where, in Canada, a claxon indicates danger and outrage, here it is part of the give and take of road conversation. In fact, it is required that vehicles honk as they move around each other. A quick meep-meep means "I'm right here." Or "It's mine!" if you are feeling competitive. Trucks have friendly reminders painted on their back end: "Blow Horn".

All of this seems to me to be part of the system for maximum engagement in India. All is crowds, with people brushing and bumping up against each other at all times. The people are so numerous and many jobs so low-paying; it occurs to me that one can either guarantee that each and every job pay a minimum wage or you can scale the wages so that the maximum number of people can be employed. We have made our call in Canada. Here, it seems that many shops have 4-6 men taking on a variety of roles in the business. Official bureaucracy, which can be such a bane, also might be seen to be part of the Indian way of maintaining maximum contact between people. The concept of a lane of road in which you need not acknowledge the presence of those oncoming may appear to us to be the safest – indeed the only – way to drive, but there is a western sterility to even that. It's different rules.

Or, yes, sometimes rule-lessness. We didn't we pull over for the siren-wailing car behind us. Rev Stanley dismisses it: "That is a private siren. You can buy them."

Welcome to Sacred Heart School

So, here I stand at an electronic keyboard whose pedal does not work, without my drummer who makes me sound hip, facing a room of students that stretches back so far I cannot see those at the back. Nicole and Isaac sit at a table beside me, to video and to drum on the furniture. We begin, and Christian it is, as this is nevertheless a Christian school. "Lucky Me" and "Like a Rock" and other songs. I have to coach them to pare down: "How*did*you*go*and*do" (that incrrrrredible thing) to "howdjago&do..." They enjoy! We are a hit.

My happiness is complete when the principal asks if we will stay to sing to a second group of 800 children. This time, we increase the energy and add a couple of silly fun songs in. Success! Indian children – though more darling and polite – are not that different from Canadian kids.

800 voices!

We are hosted at lunch by the principal herself, who tells us that this school provides education to local children at no private school admission charge. It was the vision of her parents, who founded the school.

This week, we offer two mornings of 20-minute devotions for nursing students and staff. The hymn and chorus books used on campus hold a mixture of songs of the gospel, American choruses from the 70's, Hindi short songs.  This allows me to easily lead a variety of songs we all know and ask to hear new AND offer some Linnea pieces as well.

Mrs Renuka surveys the possibilities

Mrs Renuka Prim is head of evangelism at CMC Ludhiana, and our designated caregiver. Everybody seems agreed that westerners can't cope with the pace and nuances of India, so it is up to her to take us out for shopping or repairing or whatever task, and she will not hear of us going off on our own. While David sleeps it off, Mrs Renuka takes Nicole and me out to choose fabric for a tailor to make into two salwar camises for each of us (brilliant tunic-like tops over loose praise-God pants). 

Our Tailor

We sit on a bench before a raised platform on which the seller's staff stand and retrieve fabrics. "Nay, nay," she says as a variety of colours and styles are dropped before us. She takes on the negotiation of price on our behalf. I struggle with an un-Jesus-like impulse to take home everything in the store.

One early morning, Mrs Renuka, head of evangelism, comes to fetch us, so that David and I can join the chaplains for their rounds in the hospital wards. The team of 4 chaplains enters each ward in the building, moving into the waiting room where worried and weary people draw near. There, they ensure that they have the names of all those in care in the ward. Then, Mrs Renuka and I pull our dupattas over our heads and one of the chaplains prays in Hindi. Filled with the mixture of anxiety, tension, exhaustion and longing that hangs in the room, filled with an overwhelming sense of people's reliance on God's healing, filled with a sense that I am somehow participating as one who shares the chaplains' gift of prayer and, above all, filled with a sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, I am overcome.

Talking to singers and friends

David has almost recovered and has joined us for brief appearances at devotions and dress rehearsal for our two Songs for the Voiceless concert. We are a magnificently expanded band: Linnea and David, Patrick on guitar, Nicole on drum, Joseph on the electronic drum kit, another guitarist and Joyance James on bass. The choir is beautiful, colourful, strong and true. 

Like a Rock

After we perform my "Jesus When Did I See You" rap, "Make a Joyful Noise" and "Get on the Jesus Bus", the choir sings a piece by the Purkeys, called "What If I Give My All" – which perfectly sums up how I am feeling after this full year of trying to get just exactly where I am standing at this moment. Here is a wee video of our singing "Like a Rock".

Our Audience

Our shared concert is very well-received and the grand finale is an extremely powerful "choreography" piece that enacts what makes for a strong, healthy and fulfilled life for a young woman (and therefore for India). The crowd bursts into applause in the middle of it.  It turns into an energetic, celebration hip-hop to an Indian pop tune and the evening closes marvelously. Though I stand at the back of the full audience hall to watch the choreo and dance unfold, I am supposed to return to the stage and somehow call it all to a close with thanks and wise words after they triumphantly end.

I run.

*****

IV. Breaking the Sound Barrier - CMC Ludhiana I

 I don't know why, but I am not afraid.

From sunrise to late night the city streets teem with meeping cars, scooters, bicycle and auto rickshaws, lazing dogs, children walking to or from school in uniform, women in brightly coloured salwar camise, handcarts of yarn or vegetables or sugar cane or pipes. Men sit in groups in front of tight-knit shop openings, staring as we pass. Fabrics, dresses, jewelery, potato chips and plastic utensils are all on offer on shop fronts. Alleys open up, like illuminated caves, more dresses, sandals, sweets and fruits geometrically stacked on large plates, incense, strings of marigold...

The traffic in old Ludhiana, where the streets are narrow and winding, is a river. All is reversed. Drivers on the left, look right before you cross. Step out in front of traffic; don't wait for a clear street or you'll be still standing there at midnight. Drivers veer around the vehicle, person or animal in front of them, sliding midway into oncoming traffic who in turn veer away from them. Pedestrians step into the oncoming flow, moving seamlessly to avoid what zooms past behind them, advancing just enough to beat the onrushing mob. Children chat as they slip along beside the throng.

David and I, of course, look left when we should right, and right when the danger is to the other side. And anyway, in these streets of varying widths, who can say whether we ARE the traffic and should walk on the left, or we are pedestrians walking AGAINST the traffic and therefore on the right? We trip on heaves of road, dodge potholes, regret our distraction and – funniest of all – say 'Excuse me' when we bump into someone.

In my presentations at the CMC, I have joked a bit about Canada-Meets-India. I describe western bewilderment with the Indian traffic system – how it has an intelligence of its own but can look like utter lawlessness to the inexperienced eye. I tell them how Canadians are people who have space and who say 'excuse me' and 'sorry' all the time, though we don't know why. The picture of Canadians excusing and sorrying their way through the roiling streets of India is comic indeed.

Rev Stanley Thomas is a beaming and jovial host – the head of the chaplaincy department at the Christian Medical College, a multiple staff team, serving the colleges, the hospital's staff and patients. The CMC is well regarded in India and around the world, with standards of admission and teaching that are high. The college was founded more than 100 years ago by a woman, and is the first women's medical college founded in Asia. They describe themselves this way: The CMC's "primary aim is to educate and train Christian men and women as health professionals, in the spirit of Jesus Christ for the healing ministry of the Church in India. However...this college also offers educational facilities to other young men and women irrespective of religion, caste or community." Students who have been sponsored by the church or the college make a commitment to work for 2 years in a rural clinic in India upon graduation.

Rev Stanley Thomas (Director of Chaplaincy), Linnea, Mrs Renuka Prim (Head of Evangelism)

I can tell there is a little rivalry between Ludhiana and her sister hospital down south because every time Rev Stanley introduces us to groups, he says, "Vellore wanted them to come, but we got them first!" He and his wife are "local guardians" to 74 students who come from outside cities and who need a parent-liaison while living on campus. So, he has the pastor's slow, thoughtful manner and ready smile, combined with the chaplain's busy student pace. He is always answering his cell phone's popeye-the-sailorman ring, making plans for the drums and guitar to be transported from one event back to us, and asking his many assistants or chaplains to bring us some forgotten piece of equipment or show us the lunch room.

After Students' Meeting

There is a respectful gentleness to the students and staff of CMC that is so sweet I am completely disarmed. Everywhere we walk, we are greeted with smiles (yes, some stares) and "Hello, Mam" or "Good afternoon". David is Mr David. Nicole is "Baby" to her elders (much to her chagrin). A quiet patience fills the room after our first evening's "students' association presentation". Young women and men stand around me after we are done, asking a polite question or two and then simply standing after I have finished answering. Should I speak more? Ask more? Are we awaiting another closing prayer? I am not used to such serene attention. Of course the Indian head wiggle does nothing to clear up the question; it can mean 'yes', 'no', 'maybe' or 'don't ask', near as I can tell.

Pre-Concert Pep-talk

 Rev Stanley has wisely decided to convene a CMC student choir (a regular ad hoc occurrence) to share a performance with us and a student "choreography" (dance drama). In this way, we are assured of a large audience. And so, on our first night in town, after we have made our "Cast Your Net" presentation to the students, we stay on for our first of three late-night choir practices. By Thursday and Friday evening, we will be prepared to perform 4 Linnea songs together. The students are strong, true singers although most of them do not read music. After dress rehearsal ostensibly has ended at 11pm on Wednesday evening, I hear that the students have stayed on to practice the choreography and have their photos taken for a poster that the team decided was needed by next morning. They knocked off at 2:30am and we awoke to find that a huge, plastic concert banner had appeared on the front steps of the college chapel. I see such posters magnificently appearing all over the campus, but Rev Stanley bursts into laughter as he explains that his team has moved the one banner from place to place all day long.

"Living in the Light" Songs for the Voiceless concert

So much happens in India at the same time. So many people brushing past one another, so many voices speaking and so many directions taken. It is all held together, somehow co-existing in an orderly chaos. I realize in one moment of choir practise, that 3 small groups are going over their part of "Living in the Light" at the same time. The confluence of notes out of time with one another is no problem at all to them. To Canadian ears, it is indecipherable, hilarious. I have to tell them how Indian this appears to me.

Furthermore, to my great joy, Patrick and Nicole are joining us in performance. Nicole plays percussion and Patrick picks up the guitar quickly to any song we are singing (except the old songs of the gospel with their shmaltzy diminished  7^th moments, unfamiliar to the dub step he produces). They are calm and supportive side musicians. Isaac runs our LCD projections, when needed, with increased mastery and mostly does not steal our show. Still, he is the star of this visiting family, receiving so much attention that he simply does not know how to react. Neither he – nor his sister – knows why people think he is so cute.

As I step out of our guesthouse and greet smile after smile, I feel elated and buoyant. Where I thought that my first couple of weeks in this hemisphere would require a super-human effort to retain my stamina, I feel light and energized. David and I simply can't stop smiling. The sound of Hindi speech, like raindrops tumbling on water, and the rapid fire of Punjabi join with the meeping, the honking, the sirens, the choir, the muezzins nearby, the clank and clamour of the industry around the college, rising like a great call to worship above the CMC walls.

III. The Depths of Delhi

Even if you manage to let go of the idea that the way you have grown up doing things is the RIGHT way, it may be impossible to get over the belief that it is THE way – the template from which everything else is an alternative. It is not even a "belief"; it is just – there.

Take, for example, the Toilet.

I ask you, which is cleaner: a couple of handfuls of toilet paper or a sharp spray of water? The spray of water, of course. Still, I am disoriented by a washroom without TP, embarrassed by the obvious practicality of the hose, afraid of being marooned in the cubicle... And even though I acknowledge that it is a cleaner way, I still marvel at the way India has come up with an "alternative" to THE way.

In the same way, we think we have no accent, but everyone else does, right? Isn't it marvelous how others have made changes to OUR language? Oops – Canada is a borrower, too.

Dancing at the Hindu party

 On our second morning in Delhi, I heard the distinct noise of a sound check in the courtyard below Rajni's apartment. Somehow during our sleep, a sturdy square tent had been erected, draped in satiny reds and golds. A Hindu birthday party or anniversary is celebrated with a live band and then worship service (Is this my happy place..?!). "Would you like to come?" asked Rajni, knowing that we would be welcome, both as friends of apartment dwellers, and also as foreigners. So, my first time in an Indian suit she had helped me buy in the market and wearing its matching "dupatta" or scarf, I followed her into the carpeted interior, removing my sandals as she did. The singer was surrounded by tabla players and singers, all kneeling on a raised, carpetted "stage" - and he was quite a showman. After Hindu songs of faith, encouraging the gathering of women, men and children to join in from time to time, he invited us to sing a Sikh song and a Muslim song. Dancing began at the front and before I knew it, the woman song leader walked over and took me by the hand to come and dance with her as she sang. All I could do was follow.

at the Red Fort with Rajni

Mid-afternoon we found our way to the Red Fort in Old Delhi. It took Bhushan a full hour to park the car – and it would have taken us a long time to pay for our tickets into the Fort, but the foreigners' line-up was infinitely shorter (with a wide difference in admission cost, which I don't begrudge). India Gate followed – a white marble 'arc de triomphe', on which were inscribed the perhaps thousands of names of all those lost in recent major wars. 

Girls surrounded Nicole and me, inviting us to have our hands henna-ed, which we declined, however the woman with them would not hear "nay" and "bas" (enough) and actually began to squeeze a tube of the brown liquid onto my hand before I could slip free. Rajni made the girl scrape it off. This is the only insistent touting we have experienced so far.

The junior Jonsson-Goods have slipped into travel mode with a grace that is beautiful to behold. Though tired and confronted with so much difference, they have fallen into step with the visiting, the extra interpreting of cultural cues, the need for graciousness not natural to North American youth. Patrick still doesn't like getting up in the morning, but he joins us for meals, visiting with our hosts, trips on the town. Nicole remains her shy self, settling into the India diet as if it were her own, demurring at the expectation of being a Canadian ambassador. Isaac – who has been excited and unworried in all our preparations for this trip – is now tired out by jet lag and the pace, socialising and the sheer stimulus. Of course when we are 'home', he craves his electronics constantly. However, his survival mode on the streets and alleys of Delhi is to do constant dance routines from our "Just Dance" programme. Repeatedly, I have had to ask him to rein it in as we walk through crowds, as he risks gutting a passerby with a hip-hop double-arm slice.

Nicole has lunch

We caught our early morning train by the grace of God only, running with backpacks bobbing, dragging our one rolling suitcase of gifts and music supplies, and I with my daypack on my front - hopping onto the coach at one minute before scheduled departure time. This was not really because of the writhing Delhi work traffic and it wasn't really because of the car jam close to the station. It was because a single male like Bhushan cannot fathom how long it takes for a family to actually get on the road even after they have said: "Right! Out the door!" He booked our cabs based on normal time.

India Rail

India Rail is understood to be a reason in itself to visit the country. With bucket seats, tray tables and the India Times, (and having got over the super-yogic breathing to stay calm in traffic) we were comfortable and being served our breakfast: a small bread omelette for us non-veg eaters, and a small thermos and cup with packets of tea and sugar and skim milk.

I must admit that, after having not been out of the sight of our very protective new friends, we felt a slight twinge of satisfaction to be doing something on our own in India. Not for long, however, as I was greeted on our destination's pedestrian overpass by a man with bright eyes and warmly welcoming smile. This was Samuel, assistant to the chaplaincy, and the first face of the Christian Medical College of Ludhiana.

II. Delhi Days

I cried four times on the plane to Delhi.

The first, after days of subdued calm in the face of consulate delays and cancelled flights, I dissolved into sprinklers as we finally seated ourselves on our flight out: we were actually, all together, on the way, in one piece.

After 16 hours of flying, I found myself altogether too deeply moved by the 3^rd in-flight movie...

After 20 hours of flying, in a post-sleep stupor, I mistook the small vegetable on top of the Indian option jasmine rice to be a green bean. Chewed and swallowed the whole thing, catapulting into dinner pyrotechnics. I didn't just weep: I exploded into tears.

After 26 hours of flying, I was a zombie. I had lost my new camera in Hong Kong. I had seen Frankenweinie over my neighbours' shoulders 3 times. Isaac could not string words together into a coherent sentence. Though Nancy Reeves had advised me that 10 minutes of centering prayer every hour would do away with jet lag, still nothing can really prepare the mind for the mush it becomes from a full day's existence in one chair in time suspended.

David spent his birthday above the earth. We left the morning before his day and during the first flight, we set our watches ahead to the destination time (as Nancy advises). "Happy Birthday!" I said to him. By the time we taxied into Delhi, it was midnight and his birthday was over. We will celebrate in many new ways this month.

Delhi Airport is spacious and modern, with welcoming wall art and a queue-ing organization to make any Canadian feel at home. As we emerged from the entry hall and into the large crowd of onlookers outdoors, each with signs and standing behind railing, I turned to my family and said, "I'm not afraid of anything as long as Rajni is here."

Isn't it funny how small things can make real something that is so overwhelming that you can't get a mental hold on it? There stood Rajni, waving a sign that read: "Jonsson-Good Family". In Delhi India, someone is holding a sign that has our name on it.

Rajni is my friend from Facebook. She suddenly appeared as a new friend one day before I had even uttered a word of coming to India. She is a young psychologist. After learning of our travel plans, she invited us to come stay with her in Delhi. She and her friend Bhushan met us with warm smiles and loaded us into their car and one taxi, and we motored through open road and small, undulating street, in the haze of late-night street lamps, to her apartment block. 

***

In 24 hours, I have seen no squat toilet. The boys have, I understand. But in the Female Toilets in the public places we visited on our first day, the seating is standard – with a difference: a high-powered small spray of water from the back of the seat toward the front. I haven't had the experience yet as I thought it was a flush mechanism, but now that I know, I am glad I didn't use it without being ready!

Rajni finally lets us wash dishes

The nights are city quiet, punctuated by the sound of jet liners flying, I think, 10 metres over our apartment block. Rajni lives on the 6^th floor of a cement-walled building, up a small square outdoor spiral staircase. Her home is sparsely furnished – a day bed as soon as you walk in the padlocked metal door, with plastic chairs around a small centre table. She and 2 room mates live here, each room off the centre, a kitchen large enough for one cook and one bothersome visitor. She will not let me help with anything: not cooking, cleaning, washing clothes. She is small, soft-spoken, sweetly accommodating – and with a will of steel. We are immediate friends.

We surprised ourselves by waking at 7am (read: 5:30pm back home) next day. Bhushan had metro cards for all of us (refillable), and we made the hour-and-a-quarter journey into the main city of Delhi, where we entered, through a series of security points and back-pack checks, the Temple of Akshardham. This temple, in honour of Swami Narayan's witness to Hindu faith, was built only seven years ago – impressive and monumentally large. This story was shown in a series of life-like tableaux installations with (for us) English voice-over, through one darkened theatre room into another. The accomplishments of the Indian people: science, mathematics, astrology, the arts, religion, politics, etc, were also shown in life-like representations along the "shores" of the indoor boat ride we took through time. If I didn't think you would think the less of us, I would repeat the Lonely Planet's description: India's spiritual Disneyland.

Walk through Delhi

On the return Metro ride, Rajni, Nicole and I walked forward to one of the first two cars - which are designated for females only. There was not the insane crowdedness that the boys experienced in their push-to-enter car. However, what I really noticed was that Nicole and I were a full 4 inches taller than everyone around us.

Bhushan became busy with both his phones and ran off on the way home, leaving the 6 of us to take a small motorized rickshaw from the station through the darkened streets to the apartment. As I was sitting on Nicole and Rajni's knees, I did wonder whether it would be me that brought the whole thing over sideways as we drove up over dirt medians and potholed back street.

Happy Birthday, David!

We discovered on our return to the apartment that Bhushan had been on the phone to ask the owner of the local bakery to hold off closing up for another half hour as he had ordered a birthday cake for Mr David! We celebrated with our third curry meal of the day and cake. And small cups of chai. Of course.

I. Why Going on Tour is like Dying

An ordinary tour involves 1 hour of packing. The days, weeks and hours of preparation before it are not work for the actual departure; they are ending the life that came before it. Thank-you letters for a tour gone by, laundry that has sat in the hamper, papers to file, canceling the dance lessons, changing the automated voice mail. One's estate must be in order.

Of course, this is no ordinary tour. The packing which, after 2 ½ decades of touring we can now do in our sleep, has spread into weeks of consultations, web-reading and advice-seeking for this tour to India. The leaving has taken on epic proportions and the more intensely each family member feels the anxiety of flying off to a country as distant and different as this one the less able they are to pick up the vacuum and clean the living room.

I have had To-Do lists that covered 3 columns of a page every day for a week. When I have caught a family member taking a moment to read a bit of a book or visit their iPod, I have given them a glare that should have wilted a house plant - futile. I have handed over power of attorney to my administrator, thought of every possible ending or delay, scanned every song I could find to bring with me as digital file.

The preparation for the voyage itself has been over a year. When Jim and Jean Strathdee came back from the Christian Medical College of Vellore a few years ago, with photos, stories and a clearly enriched sense of the bridge-building power of music, I said to myself: "That is us next time." When it felt like our children were at an age that was right for a trip of this proportion, I began to write – as I always do with tours – to invite people to invite us to come and sing with them. The CMC of Vellore (Tamil Nadu) and its sister institution in Ludhiana (Punjab) said, "Come".

On our last day at home, it became obvious that David's and my visas were not going to arrive in time. "In Process" we were told. The children's had come – within a hair's breadth of our departure. I had been so clear that we were meant to go on this journey that I remained unstressed right up until the moment I realized those visas were truly not coming. Is this spiritual maturity or stupidity?

David and I did not sleep the eve of our morning departure. Having spent the afternoon probing the visa question, we were behind in our packing. Patrick did not sleep either – but that is usual for our 16-year-old. We awoke Nicole and Isaac at 3:45am, sleeping in their travel clothes, and drove through the frozen night – without a clear sense of our ultimate destination. "Enjoy the last empty, orderly highway for 2 months," I murmured to the kids. To myself I added: "Enjoy your last calm intestines".

The drive to the airport is as long as the flight to Vancouver, and although I usually consider it my job to keep David on the road by discussing renovations or the relationship, I could not keep my head on top of my neck. So great was his own fatigue that David actually considered doing the unthinkable: asking me to drive. All I could do was pray for protection from the ditches.

Incredibly, we have friends who have invited us to call for help at wee hours. Among them are Lorraine and Michael, who zipped up to the curb in 2 cars, breakfast sandwiches in hand for each of us, motoring us down to the consulate, where we hoped to pick up finished visas in time to get onto our flight to Delhi.

No such luck. Our visas - work-related – were problematic, and had been referred to Delhi. It would take a few days.

There are 2 ways to see an obstacle to travel. One is to wish that the journey would hurry up and begin. The other is to say: THIS is the journey. Whatever is happening now is part of the learning, part of the promise, part of the preparation for what comes next. This kind of sitting, waiting, taking action but not insisting, reminds me of the days before the birth of my children – each of them later than their due-date. It is like the days we spent sitting quietly in David's dad's hospital room at the end of his life. It is prayer, really – the time of breathing, hoping, being forthright and aware, respectful and not enraged. It is surely practice for time in India.

I watch the calendar dates on which we were to have arrived, got settled in to the country, taken the train to Ludhiana and begun our music work, come and go. Even so, I am aware that the outrageous generosity of our hosts and friends in this waiting-room time, the little bit of extra shopping and the advice-sharing dinners and the surprising gentleness that has fallen over the family, these are all gifts that are likely critical in this new stage of our lives - to our journey into this old territory of faith.

As the children said at St Andrew's-Wesley United during theme time in Sunday's service, "You get what you get and you don't get upset." May it be so.

******

Linnea and David seek your prayers and financial support on their journey of musical blessings. We invite you to visit our web Home Page and hit the Donate button. (Guess we should have a Pray button, too!) Many thanks!