We've all said our goodbyes to the various projects, we had a debrief with EMC yesterday afternoon and had a team debrief last night, we fly off this evening, and I believe we all have mixed emotions going back.
It feels like I've just got settled, just really started. Monday and Tuesday I was at New Market in the morning and Anandaloy in the afternoon to evening with Leo and Rachael. These were good and full days. Tuesday Timothy was at New Market, along with Tony Sargent who visited the project for the first time. Afterwards Timothy was encouraging the young people to take their memory verses seriously, and as a demonstration he took the challenge for he and I to reel off a load of memory verses. I faltered pretty quickly. The pressure was too great! And somehow "something about shining like stars and holding out the word of truth in Philippians somewhere" doesn't quite cut the mustard.
Above is myself with Shambu on the left and Muhammad on the right at the Anandaloy home. As we parted they gave us gifts and cards. We received a candle made by the lads and I was also given a T-shirt signed by them all. One of my purchasing triumphs yesterday was a set of Carrom coins. Now all I need is to get Paul to make a table.
The last two days I've taken the bus to Anandaloy instead of the Auto, just for the experience. It's just as frenetic but in a different kind of way. The Auto Rickshaw is like a combination of a dodgem car and a go-cart, but amidst the Lorries, taxis and bicycles of Kolkata traffic. Hold on tight or you'll be chucked out as the driver maneuvers around a pot hole. Did I tell you about the ride we had one evening with seven in the one one Auto? Four people in the front! I was perched on the front seat next to the driver, the bus wheels at eye level and a face foot of diesel. Quite a rush. To get on a bus you need to make eye contact with the conductor who is stood in the entrance. He bangs on the sides of the bus to tell the drive to go or stop or whatever. You hope on, stand with everyone else as the bus jerks and sways, and at some point the conductor will ask you where you want to go and you buy the ticket. The real trick is to keep a watch out of the waist level windows to see where you are so that you don't miss your stop. If you do it's no problem, the bus will stop wherever you ask. 
Above is Roshni, in the middle, with her mother, father and brother. Next to her in the white is the leader of the New Market project, and on the far left is her cousin Ravi. Roshni and Ravi both attend the New Market project each morning. On Tuesday I was taken around the New Market slum immediately surrounding the project. It was quite an experience. I think I've described it before. A large building with rooms of around 8ft by 8ft, each it seems with a bed at one end, adults sleeping above and I believe children sleeping underneath. A shelf with pots and pans, Hindu gods, and a colour TV. All cooking is done in the central communal corridor onto which all the rooms open. It's got two storeys, with ladders leading up to the second set of "flats". It was odd to see the happy clean New Market kids going home after the club. Roshni above lives outside the building. Her house is of a similar size, with I understand 5 people living there. She has a covered courtyard of the same size as her house, just outside where they cook, wash and sit. I was offered chai by her father but unfortunately didn't have the time. Maybe some day in the future. Her family were warm and clearly proud of her and the other children. Both Roshni and Ravi are intelligent, talented and bright and along with others had completed their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. It's incongruous to think of this family as "untouchable". It's plain unjust.
It's a close community in every sense! I was trying to think how many my house back home would hold. On a similar basis I think it would take at least eight families of 5 or 6 each. That's about 40 people! As I left for the last day they gave me a guava, which were being handed out to all the kids. Not very juicy as it turns out but I was pleased to have it since it was a warm day.
The project has been going for 12 years, and as well as the Bible club holds clinics for the women and other support meetings. EMC were also able to lobby for the community to get some facilities, like improved toilets, a water pipe, a covered area for the women and children to wash. Now they are hoping to do something better with the pigs who are kept somewhere in the slum. I didn't see the pigs but goats and chickens are milling around in the smokey alleys along with everyone else.
Think I've spoken of Saddam in the past. I may have miss labeled him. It's Saddam who is doing the drawing on the YWCA and it's his brother who is eating the chicken roll. Well the family have now returned to their corner on Park Street. Chatting with another lad it seems that the families moved on after the McDonald's aircon explosion because the place was crawling with police.
Brunch soon and then I probably should start packing. I'll try and put some more considered reflections down upon my return, but for now maybe this will do. Talking at the debrief I noted that the work of EMC is so thorough and complete. For example from the railway to detox to rehab to home environment education and then supported to get a flat and a job. And the gospel running through all of it. Premila replied "but it didn't start like that." They responded to the greatest need each time and the work grew. Vijayan was referred to as a visionary for each project, but it seems the real visionary planning the full extent of EMC's ministry is God who has been piecing it together other many years, directing them in each individual step but not necessarily informing or even equipping them for the eventual size and extent of the work. Faith is required to take one step and trust God. Trust God for that individual step and also trust God that he already knows what the next step it. Like Abraham leaving Ur.
Resolution 2: Faith for small steps to who knows where.
There's a whole bunch of young people in Kolkata who have told me they are praying for my return. I'd very much like to one day, to catch up with my family.
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