Through the Night

As with the previous entry, I'll post from my dad's journal...

======= Bruce Whitehead =======

Monday, January 21
I didn't leave out Saturday and Sunday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are sort of a mush.On landing there was no customs and immigration to clear and no bags to pick up. We emerged and were greeted by a collection of men who had been waiting for us for almost a day. Two were BFLC pastors who had been sent to meet us and missed their Sunday services, two were parishoners who lived in Hyderabad, and one was the driver of the rented van. The parishoners did not travel with us.

The time at this point was almost midnight. We had a 5 hour drive ahead of us to reach Guntur. Trying to sleep in the back seat of a car when you are really tired and have not laid in a bed for two days, is really awkward. The roads were bumpy so your head would bounce against the window to the rather firm top of the folding bench seat. After experiencing what I might call "suspended sleep" where you think that you might be asleep but don't really know, I decided to stay awake for the rest of the trip. It was a white knuckle trip as expected, and I recommended that the train might have been wiser.

Being almost 24 hours late arriving in Guntur, our time with Paul Dasari was shortened to a few hours. Fortunately Eric was the one who needed the time with Paul and I took catnaps. I met one visiting US pastor who had come for the seminary graduations and was heading for the train. One other visitor was left at the Moriah Home. Pastor Daniel is from St. Louis and heads the Concordia Academy there and is an eager supporter of the BFLC. He hopes to return and bring his wife next year at this time.

We have a long list of tasks to accomplish here. One is to "inventory" the congregations, determine exactly where they are, photograph their building, if they have one, and identify it and the community it serves on Google Earth. We hope to provide all this information on the BFLC web site.

We also hope to make a list of the needs of each congregation. Do they have a building? What repairs and upkeep does it need? Do they have a speaker system? Do they have electricity or only car batteries? If they have a building can it provide emergency shelter and services to the community?

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I (Eric) spoke with Paul briefly about broadband internet connections for the seminary and the Moriah school, and it appears that the situation hasn't changed much since 2006: only 1 provider, the speed is slow (only 512 kbps), and it's not a simple process to get installation. In fact, it isn't even clear that it's available -- you get on a list and they will "let you know" about installation, which could mean anything.