Dad and I scootered to the new training center, where it'll be dedicated. Riding a scooter (moped) through the streets of India is no small thing. Especially when carrying an electronic keyboard, as I was doing. The training center is about 2 miles away. About 35 men and 10 women attended. Dad said many were involved in church planting among the poor and are quite influential. One of the women and one of the men worked for World Vision India. Much time was spent divided up in prayer in separate rooms.
The training center is being donated by a family who lives next door. The elderly couple living there originally built the home to house their daughter and son-in-law. But the daughter and son-in-law moved to the son-in-law's parents to care for them, since they are ill. So the couple (the husband was a colonel in the Indian army) and the son-in-law decided to rent it out to Sram Ashram as a training center instead.
We ate a large lunch with everyone. Most people sat orderly on the floor. "L" and I sat with the colonel, his wife, Mom, and Uncle "V" and his son (who live across the street from us). The colonel asked me questions about why Americans don't know much about India, even tho' Indians dominate fields there such as medicine and technology. I told him that the only people who could inform Americans about India are people from India and that Indians need to share about India via media vehicles in the same way people in India learn about America (e.g. TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc). Simply put, Americans don't subscribe to Indian stations the way Indians subscribe to CNN, ESPN, MTV, etc. I don't see that as Americans being disinterested in India as I see it Indians being fascinated by America. Overall, it was a spirited discussion, which I enjoyed. I like the colonel....a pleasant guy to talk with.
Speaking of newspapers, I'm very surprised to see how much is written about the U.S. in the local Indian newspapers, like the Deccan Chronicle. They even print editorials written by American columnists like Maureen Dowd ranting about "Bush's failed policies with Social Security". Now why Indians halfway around the world would concern themselves with things like America's Social Security policies is beyond me (other than the local Indian press eagerly print anything that denigrates Bush, which is quite common here, I'm finding).
Back to the colonel....colonel served in the 3 most recent wars India fought, including one with West Pakistan in 1971. India apparently sided with East Pakistan at the time, winning their independence from West Pakistan and helping them transform into Bangladesh. The colonel said, however, that Bangladesh is now even more hostile to India than Pakistan is. He feels it's mainly because of religion and "jihad", that Muslims in Bangladesh may have felt ashamed to have been liberated by non-Muslims and express their humiliation as animosity against their liberators.
We went to the Hillsong concert. We went with a few families, piling into two cars. The Hillsong concert was at Nazim College in Hyderabad, about a 25-minute drive. The concert was outdoors, attended by perhaps 10,000 or more. Someone said 30,000 attended yesterday. We sat in the VIP section, since Uncle "A" is a leader of Gospel Mission India (GMI). We drove backstage and walked to the section. A talented Telugu band played first, singing Telugu praise songs. The music was quite loud. Cotton balls in ears helped. The stage was filled with technical gadgets. A video on AIDS and abstinence, featuring Indian actors, interviewees, and narrators, was shown. "L" was quite surprised by its overtness (using words like "sex" and "condom" freely). The Hillsong group consisted of 8 British and 8 Australian members. They jumped and danced about a lot. Most of the audience up front did likewise, jumping up and down in a "mosh" style. Mostly teen boys did, but some girls in saris and chittidars did as well, which was curious to watch. A woman named Christine Caine gave a forceful message and altar call. Several hundred people raised hands making a profession of faith in Christ. I asked if this was against the law, since I thought foreigners weren't allowed to share the Gospel. Uncle "A" and Dad told me that having Hillsong deliver an anti-AIDS message may have helped their cause a bit, along with the possibility that the Indian gov't may not have cared to enforce it anyway.
Someone in our group opined that the messages delivered by Hillsong may have gotten lost on the crowd because the main speaker was a woman, white, and a Westerner with a checkered past (born illegitimately and abandoned by her biological parents), who dared to lecture "holier-than-thou" Indians on moral and purity issues. They thought this may have been seen as hypocritical within the larger Indian society.
