Completing the first stage

My first week of teaching yesterday afternoon. I bade a tearful farewell to all my students and then went off to meet an old friend. The students seemed to appreciate the course. They worked pretty hard and joined in class discussion. All the first assignments were way beyond what I was expecting and indicated wide reading, good thinking and the desire to reflect on how this applied personally and to their ministries.

The old friend I met yesterday runs a micro finance project here that now has 4000 project holders and has contributed seven billion rupees to Sri Lanka's GDP. As he says 'not bad for something that started with 200 rupees and faith'!

He spells faith r-i-s-k and is continually putting himself on the line so that the poor on this island get a shot at living. He's one the most inspiring people I know,

Today I'm off to buy a motor bike for another friend who's current bike is clapped out and unroadworthy. I've never bought a motor bike before, so this should be fun.

Tomorrow, it's off to Kandy. Not sure what the internet access will be like up there, so blogging might become a bit light.

Trouble with the air con has me camping out

Yesterday evening disappeared in a blur, I'm afraid. It was a busy day and I think I was feeling tired. So here we are - Thursday and that's almost over (at least for me!)

Today opened with torrential rain turning travel round Colombo into chaos. So lots of students were late and dripping when they did get here. But one had stopped off to buy me fruit - how sweet is that? people here are like that.

It was the day of the class photo which was a wonderfully shambolic affair with one of the college handy men standing on a chair taking three pictures on each of about ten different types of digital cameras. Not surprisingly, it took an age to get through - prolonged by lots of fooling around and gales of laughter from all round the room - and no one felt like being photographed by the end.

The rain affected the air conditioning in my room which means I can't sleep in it tonight as it's stiflingly hot. So I am camping out in the faculty office where the air con is so fierce I might need to sleep in a coat! Unlikely. It just makes it very much more comfortable.

So, my nightly routine will be a bit different tonight. But it will end as it has most evenings this week with the final few tracks of Leonard Cohen’s wonderfully uplifting live at the O2 album. It has become my lights out music – two prayers, great playing, the Webb sisters and his voice like angel wings brushing against granite filling the darkness with a sublime wonder. You can't ask for more really!

Tomorrow I'll be catching up with an old Sri Lankan friend and seeing his new office which will be great fun. It's also the last day of lectures with this group - though I discovered that one of them, a Swiss guy who's studying over here, is coming to Kandy to do my course next week. Now he is some glutton for punishment! I'll be sorry to see them go - though I have their assignments to look forward to - because they've been a good group, lively, engaging, wanting to talk, full of questions, keen to learn and aching to be useful to God.

One guy - who really struggles with his English and was deeply apologetic about that - works in the East of the island with displaced people, bringing them aid and the gospel. He spends three months at a time literally camping out, with no air con or creature comforts, sharing God's love and what practical support he can with the people worst affected by the war, those who've lost absolutely everything. He's the reason I'm here. If I can encourage him half as much as hearing his story has encouraged me, then that's worth the air fare - and camping out in the faculty office.

Healing wounds

Another full day of teaching. The students were fairly responsive, which is good. Some of the assignments I read last night were very good indeed – much better than I was expecting. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by things!

I visited the health centre where one of my students works and am going back in the morning to lead their devotions at 8:30am.

It's a place where a friend of worked for some time and which we visited three years ago. It continues to be an amazing place, offering primary health care to all kinds of people, some of whom can pay something and some of whom can pay nothing. It has Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Tamil and Sinhala people all receiving the same standard of care.

Steve, the director, explained to me that, following the experience of the tsunami, where they went out to people in need, the staff are very keen to do more outreach work, taking medical care to where the people who need it are and not just waiting for them to come to the clinic.

After all, he says, most of the word God is go!

They already run a medical outreach programme in the North East, a spin-off of their tsunami response. There are lots of places where such work is still needed in Sri Lanka.

The recession means that finances are stretched, however. The Sri Lankan rupee is linked to the dollar but most of the clinic's donations come in sterling which has fallen against the dollar. Added to that, Sri Lankan inflation is running at 25%. It all means that a pound doesn’t go anything like as far as it did a couple of years ago.

Sri Lanka is in the throes of agreeing an IMF loan. One of the conditions for that loan will probably be that the rupee is allowed to float free of the dollar. In purely financial terms that probably makes sense. But it will be catastrophic for inflation in the country as the rupee will plummet and prices of imports, especially oil and other essential raw materials will go up. That means bus fares will rise and other basic costs for already hard-pressed people.

Added to that, the recession in the West has cost about 100,000 jobs in the garment industry. Because we are not buying as much from Marks & Spencer, Gap, Top Shop and other high street names who source a lot of clothes from this country, people are losing their jobs. Recessions always bite hardest on the poorest. Tightening our belts – by not buying new trousers or belts – means families here often lose their single wage earner.

And who says they don’t believe in structural sin, in systems that unravel and hurt the least able to cope?

The challenge for the church on this island is growing by the day. But if the students I have in my class are anything to go by, there are lots of people in the churches able to rise to this challenge and make a tangible difference to the real lives of thousands of people here.

The health centre is in the throes of redoing its publicity. Everything it produces is in three languages – Sinhala, Tamil and English. I have noticed that around the college here too – signs in the toilets asking you to leave them clean for the next user, the sign announcing the opening times of the library and other notices are all in three languages.

Sadly this is rare these days in Sri Lanka. Many places have signs in just one language. For instance, many doctors serve either the Tamil or the Sinhala communities and all their signage is in one language only – this despite the two communities living cheek by jowl with one another. In the state hospitals, signs are increasingly in Sinhala and English only.

Is this a symptom of a society coming together after the war or of the continuing division between the two peoples that populate this beautiful place?

And the real work begins

First day of lectures. I was apprehensive but the group was a manageable size – 14 students, a mixture of men and women, a good number of lay people, including two doctors. After introductions we got down to business. I think most of them appreciated what we are doing. Certainly a number joined in the discussion in the afternoon. This is a step up from my group last year.

I was teaching from 9am to 4pm with some breaks (see below). it felt a bit gruelling!

One of my students is a doctor from a medical centre that a friend of mine used to work at and I have discovered that it is literally two doors down the road. This is why the junction near the college seemed vaguely familiar – I have been here before!

It runs from 4pm-7pm offering services mainly to poorer people who can't pay for medical treatment. So I’m going to visit tomorrow afternoon after classes.

The system here is slightly odd. Each class has a monitor appointed who’s job is to help the lecturer. They will get hand outs from the office and distribute them to the class. Mine has decided that I need help remembering when the breaks are due and so has got a bell which he pings loudly, grinning broadly, when I need to stop.

Another thing I’m struggling to remember is that when a Sri Lankan agrees with you, they shake their head from side-to-side. To move the head up and down means disagreement. So when I nod and say ‘yes’ people get confused. Body language is so culture specific!

I went for a walk along the Galle Road after class in search of a supermarket. I was determined to buy my own cornflakes (I’ve run out). About half a mile or so down the busy drag I duly found one and got bread, milk and cornflakes for just over 500 rupees (a bit under £3). I think things are more expensive here than they were. But I walked back in the sunshine (pretty hot) feeling really chuffed that I'd managed to negotiate such a complex task!!

Tonight I have eight assignments to read. Most of the students were completely daunted by what I set them, an assignment I thought was fairly straight-forward. I asked them to write too many words (2,500 – is that unreasonable for a post-grad assignment? Not in England but probably it is when English is your second or third language!) and – apparently – the reading was hard. But the hardest bit was that I asked them to reflect on their own experience and how what they were reading – on the supper in 1 Corinthians 11 – might make them think differently about the way they do meals at their church. Ah well. We’ll see what they make of it.

What a great job for a boy!

Two posts today as it's Sunday (to make up for no posting yesterday!)

I had lunch at the Galle Face Hotel today. This is one of the most civilised experiences to be had on planet earth. The atmosphere is distinctly old colonial, the service is friendly and unassuming – and completely wonderful. The food is great and the view is to die for. 50 feet from our table the rollers crashed on the beach in the bright sunshine.

My mother danced and drank G+ts here during the war. Her memories of it right up to her death were fond and vivid. I always visit when I'm here.

I was hosted by a charming couple and the family matriarch, a dominant force in Sri Lankan Baptist life who is also a vice president of BWA. She is lovely, great company, full of conversation – even waxed lyrical about how amazing Michael Jackson was having watched his memorial service on CNN – but I imagine she is not someone to mess with.

He spoke of his parents coming to dances here at the Galle Face in the 1940s - who knows maybe they met my mum. The couple also had their wedding reception here many years ago.

At the Galle Face they employ a boy (he looked no older than 16), dressed in waiter’s uniform, complete with bow tie and starched shirt, who’s sole job is keep the crows off the guests. To do this, he is armed with a sturdy catapult and he spends his time patrolling the grass by the veranda aiming at crows and occasionally letting off whatever ammunition it is he fires. What a great job for a boy of a certain age! I have to say, he didn’t look too happy – the task is hot and somewhat unrewarding.

This evening I spoke at a seminar at William's church for young couples on family life. I spoke for 40 minutes (William took half that time translating) and then was questioned for an hour and a half. They asked some pretty searching questions. It was a hot and stimulating evening - once again rounded off with great food.

I got back to the college thinking I have a pretty great assignment at the moment (as people keep calling it here). It's a huge privilege to share the lives of these lovely people and have a modest input into their development as disciples. Tomorrow the assignment begins in earnest - 17 MDiv students for a week immersing ourselves in the social history of the New Testament. How cool is that!

Lessons in hospitality and endurance

As I walked by the sea yesterday afternoon, passing rows of broken buildings, a woman hailed me. People often shout hello as you pass by – it’s all the English they know. But this woman called me over asking ‘how are you? Do you live here or visit our country?’ She asked whether I liked Sri Lanka, how long I was staying, what I had come to do, had I been before. She understood all I said in response. She offered me food but I declined because I had to get back to the college (and didn’t want to contract anything, frankly).

But we started talking about tsunami time and I asked whether she’d been in her home when it came. They had run. And lived – all of them, even their small children (one a dot in nothing but her pants was running in and out of what’s left of the back of their home.

She invited me to look round. There wasn’t much to see. Two rooms still had something approaching a roof on it (that's where all the family slept), the rest are open to the elements save for a bit of plastic sheeting tied to the jagged top of the brick work – where the original roof had been torn off in the storm.

I asked why she’s had no assistance from the government. ‘because they been fighting the war, against the tigers. But now we won, help will come. It take long time cause we poor country.’ She is fiercely loyal to her government; their victory is her victory, proud, no doubt, of the banners flying not far away from her home lauding the triumph of the government forces over the terrorist tigers.

But what kind of government keeps it’s loyal people hanging on so long? And how long will she have to wait for the government to finally act on her behalf? And will it insist that she move the other side of the railway line, away from the sea, where her husband ekes out a meagre living as a fisherman?

The 500 rupees I gave her toddler ‘for milk’ (about £2.50) seemed more insult than charity or act of good will. He kid’s face lit up and she beamed a thank you before running off behind a wall where another family member was washing clothes.

If I lived here (grand gesture time…), I think I’d be wanting my church to visit, to assess what could usefully and helpfully be done for these people with them setting the agenda for the kind of assistance they want. I’d like to take William and Gary to visit. I’ve no doubt they’ll tell me that there are hundreds like this family and this little community on the other side of the tracks from relatively prosperous-seeming Dehiwala.

I feel helpless and guilty in the face of such need. I wouldn’t last a night in that house. And having had the sea come and attack me, rip the heart out of my community, tear the roof off my home, how could I lie awake at night and listen to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach 20 feet away from where my head was?

She asked me what I liked about Sri Lanka ‘is it the always smiling people?’ she asked. That’s certainly a big part of it. I left her on the step thanking me for stopping by, hoping I’ll visit again and smiling broadly as I went off along the beach. I’m not sure how or what I feel.

Sweating over discipleship

Spoke at a seminar for Baptist Christians this morning on discipleship. About 60 or so came and listened, joined in with questions and then had lunch together.

It went well. William was translating for me and did an excellent job. I found myself slipping into a rhythm of speaking in sentences without sub-clauses. And while it felt a little stilted, I did feel myself able to focus better and not stray from the point buoyed along by my oratory or flights of fancy.

I do feel sheepish about teaching Sri Lankans about discipleship, however. it seems to me we've a lot to learn from their grasp of the Gospel and commitment to Jesus. I found the question and answer time very challenging and have come away with a lot to process.

What I was reminded of, however, is that there is a lot of nominalism in the church over here. There are still good numbers of people who go to church because it's the thing to do, what their family has always done, where they meet their friends, etc.

Time and again I was asked about how we help, encourage or cajole people to take Jesus more seriously. I said all the obvious things in answer but came away thinking that exactly the same issues beset us in the UK; our churches are awash with Sunday Christians who seemingly want nothing to do with Jesus during the rest of the week.

John was right in his letters to the seven churches in Revelation to stress that apathy was a bigger killer of Christian commitment than persecution. It was then. It is now. And it is no respecter of national boundaries or cultures.

Day 2 in the Sri Lanka house

Just been for a mid-afternoon stroll to the very hot sunshine to the sea. It’s about a quarter of a mile and half a world away. Down the commercial street with shops at the top, a Dutch reformed church midway down, a couple of banks, rows of buses and tuk-tuks (trishaws – the main taxi) and you reach Dehiwala station – a raised concrete platform with a sign in the middle of the railway tracks. There’s a building in the centre of it where the staff sit and people can buy tickets.

There are groups of mainly men and gaggles of young people walking each way on the tracks. Then on the other side of the tracks between the station and breaking rollers is a fishing community, living in the still-broken remnants of homes smashed in the boxing day tsunami of 2004.

Bright blue signs in Sinhalese, Tamil and English with a bold graphic indicate one’s evacuation route should the sea come again with the ferocity it did on that day. That’s all the evidence there is down here of the government having spent any cash; all except a rather oddly-placed, barbed-wire surrounded outpost of the military with a couple of young soldiers passing the time with a group of equally young men on the other side of the wire.

The people live in homes that look as if they’ve gone the distance with Godzilla and King Kong. Tiled areas indicate where there was once a brick house. Some structures have part of the brick work in tack, the rest of the home being made of sheets of plastic, discarded advertising hoardings promoting fashionable menswear.

Families sit on plastic furniture, half in and half out of these structures. Here, a woman sorts laundry that’s hanging between walls made of pallets; there, a man washing through some clothes; in the distance another tends to his boat’s out-board engine; and everywhere, children play, jumping, hiding and giggling.

It’s hard not to feel a furious rage at the indifference of a government that seems able to man endless checkpoints around the city and pay for vast numbers of billboards everywhere lauding it’s victory in the recent war. In a bid to be fair, it is a poor country and it has been ravaged by a cruel and senseless war (aren’t they all? This one more than most, fuelled by the desire to atomise an already tiny living space, along ethnic, cultural and religious lines, pluralism in action, some might say; human sinfulness and the arrogance of power, some might reply; and so the argument goes on).

Surely somewhere the pittance can be found that would give these people decent hovels in which to live, where they can be near the sea that is their livelihood and rail track that takes their catch to markets along the lines. Surely somewhere the will raise these people’s lives above this level of destitution in a country that is showing signs of prosperity in other places can be found.

I was with my friend, William, earlier today. He’s been involved with a similar fishing village down the coast, near his church, since the tsunami (interestingly, Sri Lankans speak of the tsunami time; sentences often contain the phrase ‘in the tsunami time’). The reconstruction, which was still going on last we visited, has now finished. He’s promised to take me, which will be great. He’s done a wonderful job bringing this community together, helping them to rebuild as they wanted to, offering support with local officials, still there after the aid caravan has long since rolled on. Not surprisingly, some of the families have started coming to his church.

Just behind the beach community, on the other side of the railway track, a 122 appartment block is being built. I can see it from my room at the college, a concrete colossus, wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. It boasts parking and a rooftop swimming pool. It's owners will be able to look down on the shattered fishing community atthe end of a busy day.