Sunday, February 3, 2013

It is Sunday afternoon here.  Today has been a wonderful day.  It began with an early rise at 5:00AM so that several of us could be over in the hostel by 6:00AM.  Our early morning rendezvous with the girls in the hostel was to help us dress in our sarees—we had the sarees, they had the knowledge.  Our diocese helped to build this hostel, and it is home to 30 children.  The children who live here do so for a variety of reasons—some of these children have no parents, some are from the basti, some were about to be sold, sometimes the parents come here and ask if their children can come here.  These girls got up at 6:00AM to dress us.  This will be a memory I will hold forever.  They would dress us and then look at us and determine that it wasn’t just right, take it down and dress us again.  They made us beautiful, and you could tell that they loved doing it.  They very much are our teachers in a thousand different ways.  You could tell that it meant something to the people here, especially the women, that we were dressed in their dress.  Everyone pulled out their very best for today.

We then lined up at 8:00AM for the ceremonial foot washing by the Shantali tribal people.  Talk about humbling.  Just like Peter, it was hard to sit there.  They are Christ incarnate.  Then we processed out of the compound and around the block to St. Michael’s School.  The procession took half of hour.  Everyone processed—and that numbered in the thousands.   We were led by the Bodo Bodo dancers and another tribal group that featured young men.  Both groups were amazing.  The Bodo Bodo dancers were girls who danced backwards that whole procession, barefoot, even over gravel in places.  Their flute player and drummers also played walking backgrounds.  The young men also danced the whole way—their dance is sort of a hip hop step with whistles—powerful dancing.  I don’t know how they danced that whole way.  I got out of breath watching them.

It was particularly wonderful for Norma and me to be with the priests of Durgapur.  There are 24 of them, and they are passionate about their vocation.  I told the Bishop afterwards that he had a fine group of priests.  He has worked hard to get a good cadre of priests and has pushed to get all of them proper training.  All of them study at Bishop’s College in Kolkata.  They range in age, with most of them between 35-40.  You can tell they love their people.  There are 136 churches—they each serve multiple churches with distance between each church.  They leave early on Sunday morning and do not return until the night.  It is one thing to do multiple services on a Sunday, it is quite another to do multiple services and travel the countryside in India to reach the congregations. 

It is quite stunning to experience worship under a tent with thousands of people.  Singing and praying, in many languages.  Nick, the Methodist minister from the UK, preached and the translator was phenomenal.  Mary from St. Martin of Tours Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, MI was the celebrant.  Bishop Dutta is so gracious to include the international guests in these roles, even asking Mary to sing the final blessing.  Bishop Dutta also lifts up girls in a powerful way—two girls were acolytes.  Eight of us brought greetings from different parts of the Christian family from different parts of the world.  US, UK, Bangladesh, the National Council of Churches in India.  The second Daughters of the King Chapter was chartered.  Daughters of the King is an organization for women that is oriented around service, study, and prayer.  Our team leader, Shawnee Irwin, has been instrumental in helping the Daughters of the King Chapters get launched here.  The Durgapur Children once again played in a violin ensemble for the offertory.  There is a young woman 12 years old who has come with the Kalamazoo team.  She has been playing violin for 4 years and joined them.  What a phenomenal experience for her and for them.

The most powerful part of worship for me was assisting in communion.  To serve the beautiful people of this diocese the Body and Blood of Christ—wow.  They do communion by intinction here, meaning that the priest takes the bread, dips it in the chalice, and places it on the tongue of the person receiving communion. 

After the service, it was a sea of people.  It’s funny, we want to take pictures of them, and they want to take pictures of us, so it is a picture fest.  It’s actually a wonderful way to interact with people.  I had a grand time greeting the people—lots of smiles, lots of bows, lots of “Namaskar” and my trusty “To-mar nam ki” and “A-mar nam Cyndi” then a lot more smiles and bows. To greet and be greeted by the tribal peoples is, well, I don’t even have words for how it feels.

This afternoon, I happened to run into the Director of Projects for the Diocese in the hallway outside of the computer room.  He directs their outreach work across the diocese.  He showed me pictures and told me of all the projects they are involved in.  Gender violence, women's empowerment, microfinance.  They are working in four areas of the diocese.  Episcopal Relief and Development is supporting a good bit of this work.  This is systemic transformative change.  The people of Durgapur carrying out this work are amazing, and the vision of ERD to support it makes one proud to be an Episcopalian.  This is Millenium Development Goal work at its best.  This is changing lives for generations to come.

The late afternoon held basketball with the children who live in hostel.  I will admit that bengali basketball is a fairly physical game.  I think I will be sore tomorrow, but ah, I will sleep well tonight.

 

Tomorrow, Jim and Susanne, Libby, Norma and Betty Jo will go to Serenga to tour the hospital there.  They have a nursing school and do amazing work.  Shawnee and I will head to Raniganj to see the newest Child Development Center.  Pray for safe travel for all of us.

In peace,

Cyndi