Police follow-up in Chennai

We confronted yet one more unexpected event every day on the last leg in our short-term India missions trip to Chennai and back up to Dehli. Chennai is on the southeastern coast of India.

I am making plans for our next missions trip to the Congo beginning May 1 with Nate Bean, and Greg and Rhonda Von Tobel.

When we got to Chennai, we connected with Prem Raj, our PFC missionary for the southern part of India, and Charles Finney, who is working with Prem Raj.  We participated in two teaching conferences and visited the Basilica of St. Thomas and the St. Thomas Mount around Chennai.

We visited Chennai's beach, recognized as the largest in the world and the site of a chilling tsunami in 2004 and tremors from an 8.6 Indonesian earthquake in April of 2012.

We also visited an Christian orphanage with 46 children Charles Finney helps to oversee.  Looking out over the children on that sunny day, I actively prayed for several couples in our Faith Baptist Church family who adopted children over the past many years.  

Families take orphans one by one.  The remaining children stay where they are. There are teams of faithful workers who care for these precious youth until the kids are 18.  What a quiet ministry.  Some orphanages care for children of inmates.

Greg led prayer

Just before departing for Dehli, our team visited with Charles in his Chennai home.  In the adjacent picture, Greg Von Tobel and our team prayed with Scott Minter, Prem Raj, Charles Finney, and me.  Don Szolomayer rested on that day.

Police follow-up in Chennai
During the conferences, I taught sessions on working with prison officer staff members and the code of conduct, knowing and following the rules in the jails and prisons where we serve.  

We learned the police visited the host church where we presented the second conference after we departed--another chapter to take a deep breath and surrender the trip to the Lord.  It appears the police wanted to know what we, the foreign missionaries, were presenting or what we were doing there.

The exact reason for the police follow-up was never made clear.  After our initial experiences at the prayer conference the previous week, we asked among ourselves if there was some kind of connection between the two events. What kinds of spiritual warfare might have been active around us?  As we prayed, we asked Him for discernment concerning our time in India.  We still don't know the direct answers to our questions.

When we are sharing with people in the country and traveling, I now see why we identify ourselves as tourists and emphasize the places we visit.  I shared once about teaching conferences and described it as character development. 

I was cautioned about quietly singing hymns on a previous trip.


Dehli included the Red Fort

Red Fort in Old Dehli

Before returning home, we completed a shopping tour in Dehli and visited the outside of the Red Fort with Joshua Gawda, our PFC missionary in the northern part of India.  

Wikipedia notes the Red Fort was built in 1638:

The Red Fort covers a total area of about 254.67 acres enclosed within 2.4 kilometres of defence walls.^[1] The walls are punctuated by turrets and bastions. They vary in height from 18 m on the river side to 33 m on the city side. The fort is shaped like an octagon with the north-south axis longer than the east-west axis. The use of marble, floral decorations, double domes in the buildings inside the fort exemplifies the later phase of Mughal architecture.^[20]

It showcases a very high level of art form and ornamental work. It is believed that the Kohinoor diamond was a part of the furniture. The art work in the Fort is a synthesis of Persian, European and Indian art which resulted in the development of unique Shahjahani style which is very rich in form, expression and color. Red Fort is one of the important building complexes of India which encapsulates a long period of Indian history and its arts. Even before its notification as a monument of national importance in the year 1913, efforts were made to preserve and conserve the Red Fort, for posterity.

We also had lunches at KFC and McDonalds, both more expensive than other restaurants.  While in a foreign country, we don't drink fruit juices or unbottled water.  We don't eat lettuce, uncooked vegetables, or tomato slices.  We are careful what we order. 

I am especially cautious everywhere because I don't handle spicey foods nor curry-flavored items. Yes, that means I watch very carefully and commonly eat smaller meals.  That doesn't hurt anything.  

Apostle Thomas sites were deeply moving

Thomas touching Jesus

Visiting the sites surrounding the Apostle Thomas were more deeply moving for me than I ever anticipated.  He planted several churches in the southern region of India and made in-roads with the Brahman Hindus.  Several of these Brahman chased him to the mountain and speared him in his martyrdom death.

The very clear historical foundation for our Biblical text was clearly established for me.  The apostles all took the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations very seriously, as I wrote before.  We were on location where Thomas evangelized and planted churches.