March 5, 2008 – 10:28 (GMT +5:30) – Bapatla, Andrha Pradesh India
Last night, as well as Monday night, we went to visit tribal areas. This means that the people can not read or write and are pretty much the poorest of the poor. After the service last night a couple of the members asked me to pray in their houses. Normally I have to bend to get into their huts, their doorways not being intended for a European, but at one of the houses I had to remain bent. The hut was so small. In fact the parents of the family had to remain bent also. I have honestly been inside tents with more room and higher ceilings than this hut had. But this is where they live. I also measured once one of the churches that we visited. The inside of the building was about 30 feet by 8 feet, and the pastor said they normally fit 75 people in that place.
On Monday night there was no problem with the service itself but shortly after the service I got seriously ill. Last night I was able to go to the meeting and preach, praise the Lord, but I am still weak and unable to eat much as of today. It also still makes me sick to my stomach to even think about eating rice. Which makes it very difficult to find food around here. In the larger cities they have places to buy European/American style cuisine, but Bapatla isn’t exactly rife with diversity.
The village that we visited last night was I am told a community of rat catchers. The farmers pay them to rid their fields of rats. The village members are very good at what they do, but it obviously doesn’t pay much. Sometimes the villagers eat the rats that they catch. As I was teaching last night the part they liked the best is when we read Rev 21:21 where heaven is described with streets paved with gold. That prompted a congregation wide hallelujah.
There were about 35 people gathered in the village last night, and about 200 the previous night.
In India there doesn’t seem to be any speed limits on the roads. But then the poor conditions of the roads, the multitudes of people constantly blocking the roads, and the animals really make it impossible to ever go very fast. I doubt that I have ever been in a vehicle going over 30 mph. Jyothi was telling me last night that the pastor for that village comes from a distance to serve that congregation. He was talking about 8km about 4 or 5 miles. Even with a motorbike that apparently is a long ways in India, with the roads as full of pot holes and other problems as they are.
Today is a special Hindu celebration to lord Shiva. We praise God that at least some of the members of the villages will not be joining the throngs of people on their way to this heathen temple. Even as we continue to pray that more would have their eyes opened by the Lord to understand the uselessness of these traditions, and come to rejoice with us in a God of love.
May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen and establish you all unto the very end.
– Matthew Ude