10/17/10

Today was a big day. We got up at 5 a.m. and went to Etah to church. We were greeted by the former pastor, Rev. Jacob, who was most cordial. The church is a decent size for India – not big by our standards, but about the same size as other churches I've seen. Jimmy preached a short message on Ephesians 2:14-22: Jesus brings the far off people near and people who were once strangers are now friends. Dr. Sheela Prasad translated for him. Then Grace spoke and presented them with pictures of her grandfather, Rev. Albert McGraw and his wife, Ella, who founded the church. I spoke a little and I was very proud of myself that I was able to say 5 sentences in Hindi: Now I am very happy. Yesterday we were strangers. Today we are friends. We are not American or Hindustani but are brothers and sisters, one in Christ Jesus. Dr. Prasad translated into better Hindi for me. :) The service lasted about 2 hrs.

After the service, we were greeted and befriended by 2 women, Asha and Grace, who helped me with my Hindi. Also Anjali and Anamika, 2 young girls from the congregation, chatted with me for awhile and we exchanged addresses. Then we went over to the Girls School, where we were greeted by a brass band and dancing children. They did a little dancing and then we went upstairs for a program. The program was about 2 hours long and featured singing by the children and the staff and speeches by various folks, including ourselves. Lunch was then served, which was delicious and I think made by the ladies of the parish.

Asha had offered to do mehndi on my hands earlier when I complimented her on her hands, so we sat down and she made a beautiful design on my right hand. I had to keep my hand completely still and then I couldn't do anything with it for about an hour, which proved to be challenging. It looks very pretty, though.

Afterwards, we went with Dr. Lyall to his eye clinic, which is really doing wonderful things with people's eyes. For Rs. 5,000 (which doesn't cover their costs) they perform mainly cataract surgery on local people. They do the latest procedure and insert a lens in people's eyes, so many people are able to see better after the surgery than they have at any time in their lives. It's really miraculous. They do a lot of cataract surgery because it is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and is so easily treated.

Then we met together in Dr. Prasad's house with Dr. Lyall and Dr. Lall, the head of the local agricultural college. Dr. Prasad had mentioned in her remarks earlier that the problem they have identified is that girls pass out (graduate) from their program and then don't have enough money to go on to higher education. She said that the $1500-$2000 the Smithtown church has been sending provides education for 12-13 girls every year. They've been doing it long enough that the orginal girls have graduated and new girls are taking their place. The girls who have graduated are now sitting at home, forgetting what they have learned, according to Dr. Prasad. Dr. Lyall told us that it costs Rs. 50,000 (approximately $1,500) per year for 3 ½ years to send a young woman for nursing training. It also costs Rs. 60,000 for one year to send a girl for nurse midwife training. This doesn't seem like much money and would seem to me to be very doable. We're abandoning the bus/van/microfinance idea, because Dr. Prasad is clear that this is what they need.

We discussed also the communication issue. It turns out that Dr. Prasad didn't have an email address until just recently. We're going to try to be in better communication. The problem that the lack of communication created is that we didn't know if they were expecting us and they were expecting us for 3 days and had put together a program for us for those 3 days. It turns out that they were very much looking forward to meeting with us, but we had no idea. Fortunately, we were able to rearrange our schedule and we're going to Etah again tomorrow. We're going to visit Asha's Ashram, Dr. Lyall's hospital and Dr. Lall's Agricultural College. Then we're going to go on to Delhi from there, instead of going back to Agra. It will take less time and we'll get to see the things we want to.