Out of India

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Now that I have been back home for several weeks now I guess it’s time to update you about the trip seeing that my updates during the trip were almost non-existent. The primary reason for this was the lack of internet connection and what was had at times for spotty and not reliable, plus I was busy and I hated to stop what I was doing just so I could try and log into a browser and shoot off some emails. I can say that my Twitter updates were a little better, ok, not really, but I did Twitter more than I blogged which I guess some of you are saying isn’t much, so let’s just say I’ll try better next time.

Ok, so what did the trip hold? Much in many ways is the best response I can give and to keep things simple let me say things this way: we traveled to Trichy and dedicated 5 projects which were amazing in themselves. At each place we experienced the power of water and through our interactions with the villagers it was quite clear that what was accomplished in their village with water was truly a life giving effort.

After completing our village dedications we drove about an hour to a place referred to as an interior place and there we were greeted by villagers who had requested a water project. We spent time listening to their needs and documenting their current water situation. What struck me the most about this place was that when their tank was dry because they used all the water and there wasn’t any electricity to turn on the pump motor that the villagers would have to walk to the canal for water, so we went to the canal and like I expected it wasn’t much to look at. There was a lady washing clothes, another one washing a small herd of buffalo, kids were swimming and then there were 2, 6” flexible hoses running down the hill to the water’s edge and these were used for bringing the water up the embankment to the fields and to their buckets.
The harsh reality of this reinforced for me how desperate people really are for water and how much I take what I have for granted. The sad thing is that I didn’t even need to leave that village to be reminded mow much I take my water for granted for as soon as I climbed back in the car I was reaching for my 2 liter water bottle not even realizing that what I was drinking was much cleaner than what these villagers were left with.

The harsh reality in rural India is that clean water isn’t always easily accessible and if it is then one can consider themselves very fortunate for many in the rural parts of India don’t even enjoy that simple access.
I am trying to change this though and my final thought that I want to leave you with is this: what if the provision of water is just the beginning, the access point if you will to the rest of their life? What if we use the water and instead of saying goodbye and run off to the next place to bring water, we stay and see what else we can do to help alleviate their suffering? How cool would that be? I am thinking really cool.

Here’s to a new beginning, a holistic approach to saving lives. More to come later….

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In India

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Aug. 4, 2010

In India.

2 words packed with meaning and if you have never travelled with me here and been engaged in all that is going on these words might seem simplistic. The reality though is these 2 words are packed with meaning.

Just getting here has been a task. When this trip was booked it was done with thoughts of quick connections and flight times, no weather issues to be leery of, and hopefully no setbacks. Why was I dreaming or some might say what was I smoking? Sorry, I don’t smoke so that is out, but whenever you travel I have come to learn that obstacles always find a way of presenting themselves.

This trip was no different, just about a week before departure “things” started happening, team members suffering freak accidents, family members suffering from traumatic events, realizations that school calendars weren’t consulted when setting dates for the trip (thus 2 people will miss their kid’s 1st day back), and what else went on, oh, there were physical injuries and then the unforeseen airline flight delays and yes, even cancellations.

How is it that an airline decides to cancel a flight full of people on a weekday involving an important market, let’s say San Francisco to Chicago and LA to Chicago? No idea why this happens and yet it does but on the day we travel and to us? Nothing like running around covering last minute details before I head off to the airport when you get a call saying I am at the airport and they just cancelled my flight? SHUT UP!!!!!!!!! Is what I utter and the reply is no really, this time I am not messing, the airline just cancelled my flight. Fast forward 30 minutes and another call, Mike, they just cancelled my flight. What is going on? San Francisco and LA both cancelling flights to Chicago, you know how many flights they have and they cancel these with my team members on them? Disgusting I say, utterly disgusting.
Things worked out in the end; Valerie who was leaving from SFO was sent to Hong Kong and then got a connecting flight to Chennai and Michael was put on a series of planes and ultimately will arrive in India a day late, but none the less will arrive…just in time to get some sleep and jump back on another plane.

We all know the ups and downs of travel and no doubt we experienced our share of challenges and yet there are many out there who would say this is nothing and they are probably right. It all depends on one’s perspective which leads me back to my opening 2 words, in India.

India has a way of bringing perspective to life.

Life here is much different than in America. Hopefully in the next 10 days I and others can communicate how much different it really is but one thought to leave you with, maybe this is really the norm and what we have in America is unique.

Think about it.

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Reflection

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Reflection

I finally was able to get some rest thanks to the Day Use Room in the Bangkok Airport now for the long journey home via Taipei and Los Angeles yet by the time this is posted I will mostly likely either be in LA already or even home, funny how that works. 

The down side of these trips I realize each and every time but for some reason at the outset I think things will be different but they never are in fact they really do take on the same form and often meaning.  Intentions are really good especially about blogging and being up to date with such things as keeping facebook current, twittering tweets on twitter, I like that, anyway, if you have been to India with me you know the challenges that are faced and doubly so if you are traveling with me, I can be either macro focused that I miss the micro like where did I put my passport, did I leave my luggage in the lobby because it surely isn’t here at the airport with me, to what day is it and what number of projects have we just completed.   You would think this was all rote for me but it isn’t, each trip I hope to be different and yet the same so sorry, you’ll just have to put up with me.

So how was it?  Good.

Ok, can I be done?  Sorry, back to the trip.

How do you really describe what takes place in these places?  In past entries I have described that what takes place on the village level is really that of a celebration and in all truthfulness it is and yet at the same time not every village feels like it.  Not having a team with me other than Bob I can even more aware of the responses of people as we would arrive into their village and carry out a dedication.  The majority of them were thrilled to have us, especially the children.  The look in their eyes, the excitement on their faces, their misbehaving while I am trying to talk and the adults yelling at them to be quiet and some trying to beat them with a stick…it’s really quite comical even the beating part because they rarely hit them and to see them try and miss is like watching a batter try to hit a changeup, rarely do they succeed.

Yet there are some villages where we roll in, jump out, look around and there are only a handful of people, most of them being with our entourage and then slowly thanks to the cell phone more people appear to welcome the foreigners, the people responsible for bringing life to their village through water which leads me to wonder do they really want us and our project?  Good questions to ask and yet I don’t think I will really know the answer because the reality is what they tell me is what they know I want to hear.  I am not questioning our work in the slightest by this; I’m just being brutally honest with my thoughts when I am there in the moment.  Truth be told they need the water, are they grateful, probably, could they survive without it, probably, they would just have to walk a little farther and maybe it wouldn’t be as clean but they will make do. 

So why then?

I guess the answer is because these responses aren’t the norm they are the exception and I don’t want them to spoil the gift for others and so I continue to give regardless of the reception.  Does this bother me?  No, not really, it just makes me go hmmm and within that I try to pray a simple prayer and ask the Lord to use the project in some form to reveal His love to them as individuals.

Notwithstanding the above, most places as I have explained are totally excited to have us and you can really feel the love concerning our work and in those times I get filled up, most likely these are the blessings from Heaven which keeps me going project after project.

What do I make then of this trip in particular?

Ahhh, a nice relaxing one, almost at least.  It was true that we carried out 15 project dedications between Trichy and Tuni, affecting thousands of lives with water and more over we were able to also dedicate a church building and a generator that Wells for Life provided to the kids at New Life Children’s Home.  We also journeyed out into the Bay of Bengal on a chartered boat and did it covertly by mistake, supposed to go through the port and offer up our passports but chose not too for some reason, luckily a phone call to the Port Authority while at sea yielded no misfortune or undue attention from the Navy.

Anyway, we went by a really slow boat out to a long strip of land they call and island, Hope Island to be exact and the significance here is that these people are really tribal.  Tribal in the sense that there couldn’t have been more than 100 of them and they are fishermen by trade and as fisherman they go fish for stretches of time leaving their families to fend for themselves.  While the men are out at sea or on the mainland selling their fish the women often find opportunity to make some money through various enterprises on the mainland leaving the older folk and children to fend for themselves.  Long story short here, a school was started very recently and taking up by Dr. Premdas and his staff at NASA with cooperative funding from a Canadian NGO and the Indian government.  Reason I was there was to address their water situation and so we did.

Oh, the result, well, I looked at the sand, then the sea, and assessed they needed water, clean, unsalted water.  Pretty easy huh.  Anyone could have ascertained that, so I guess I was there to lend my professional opinion, trying to be funny here but if you’re not laughing then sorry I guess you don’t like my humor, anyway, I think we can do something but it is going to be a little different. 

What’s the solution?

Well according to my hydro-geologist/engineer with whom I consulted when we got to Hyderabad we either spend a lot of cash for a desalination system or we drill a shallow well with a small hand pump, 10 feet up to a maximum of 20 feet and outfit it such that it draws out the sweet water which actually exists below the sand and above the salt water which is a tad deeper below the surface of this small island.  This solution will last 9 to 12 months then will go dry but the glory of it is you can then dismantle the project and go drill a new well and reuse your components.  Your drilling costs are minimal because you would drill this by hand using an auger which you could purchase up front and give to the community and thus enable them to become self sufficient in securing their future water needs. 

If you are wondering what they do now, they dig small shallow pits in the sand and after removing about 5 feet of sand you begin to get water seeping up out of the sand.  You then bail out this water into a water bucket and then let it sit for about a day for everything to settle then start drinking what’s on top; it’s sweet water and has no salt.  Amazing stuff and I actually saw this in widespread practice in Sri Lanka after the tsunami so I know it works and in fact they demonstrated it for us.

So from a water perspective there is hope for Hope Island.  With water, a school for the children, slowly hope is being built and after listening to the leaders talk, they are looking forward to doing whatever they can to build a better future for their kids and having a school is the beginning of this process. 

Hope Island, like so many places we encounter is filled with individuals who need to know that they matter and that their life has meaning and purpose.  One of the things that I enjoyed most about my visit to Hope Island was the opportunity that was afforded to me to talk about Hope and how to get it. 

While sharing with these people it became evident how hopeless people really are.  On the outside it may appear hope exists but when you talk to them and listen to their dreams you begin to realize it is about life here on earth and it begins to take on a strangely familiar hollow sound to it.  How do you tell someone that there is more to life and living that just here on earth but that living really doesn’t start until you live life with a view for the future, for eternity, for Heaven?  Heaven becomes the goal but that really isn’t the goal, that’s the place we refer to, the goal is relationship for eternity with the Creator of the Universe, that my friends is the goal. 

Any part of our life that we live without a view for the future is really selfish living.  Having a view for the future is what should be dictating what all of our actions should be here on earth and in fact is what Jesus had in mind when he was telling his disciples to work for the food that lasts forever.  Why is it we spend so much of our energies working for the food that perishes?  Great question and one that has been asked for centuries and was relevant enough for Jesus to address it thousands of years ago.

This isn’t the place to jump really deep into this but let me just give a quick answer which I hold onto, for me, it’s not a either or proposition but a both and.  You have to work in order to eat; you do the earthly so that you can afford to be active in the spiritual. 

It’s about motivation and heart.  Look inside, what motivates you?  If it’s work for the sake of making money then guess what?  You’re working for the wrong master.  If it’s work to provide for yourself or your family or loved ones and you aren’t neglecting the gifts, talents and abilities God has given you, you view your life as an emissary for the King, well, and you’re working for the food which doesn’t perish.

It’s really quite simple and here is the question to ask to show you your heart in living – Do you do what you do wholeheartedly because you are doing it as an act of service to God or are you doing it because  and you fill in the rest.  Anything less, is well, it’s less than what God wants.

Life, one that is filled with Hope and an expectation for the future has one thing in view; God with His arms outstretched to you, beckoning you to come to Him and be with Him.  That my friends is Hope that will last an eternity and when that is your view, you can undertake anything here on earth because you know that in everything you engage in your are doing it in service of Him, the King, the Creator, our Father, our Friend, our Lover.

(Pictures will come soon.)

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