Preach the word. Be prepared in Season and out. 2 Timothy 4:2
After 39 hours of travel, our team had only one thing in mind - bed. As we sat in Bishop John's office though, we (or rather I should say I) had a shocking revelation. Just before we left Birmingham I had received word from Dr. Joshua Raj - the executive director of South Asia Mission - that he would not be able to make the trip with us due to a family emergency. As an ordained minister in the Anglican Orthodox Church, Dr. Raj had been scheduled to bring the message today (Sunday) in Eluru. As we sat in Bishop John's office (actually as we were preparing to leave to come back to the hotel to go to bed), Bishop John dropped the bomb... I would be bringing the message the next morning in church (cue a skipped heartbeat and a jawon the floor). I sat in shock for a moment attempting to pick my jaw off the floor. We all thought of course that he was joking - but as it turned out he was not.
Normally, it takes me about a week or perhaps two to put a good sermon together. Even when I was preaching every week at the assisted living center in Clay, I was always preparing 3 or 4 weeks ahead. Sure, I have one or two sermons that I keep in my back pocket that - with one or two day's notice I could pull together...but one night? And being as tired as we were? And to make it worse, I couldn't pull out one of those Psuedo-prepared messages - despite the fact that I had several of them saved on my iPad. No...Bishop John wanted me to preach from the scripture established on the Anglican almanac. I had to go to the hotel room exhausted and prepare a message from scratch from Matthew 4:12-23.
Oh yeah, I had to wear the orthodox vestments in order to preach.
Be prepared in season and out. Well I suppose if I had the Anglican Church almanac I might have been prepared better, but I suppose - given a passage like Matthew 4:12-23 - someone who claims to be a preacher can come up with something to preach on. I guess the best thing about God's word is that it really does preach itself if you let it. No, it wasn't the best sermon or the longest sermon I had ever preached. Given more time, I might have done something to really impress those guys, but then again it wasn't really about me. A simple, 15 minute sermon on Repentance and Following Jesus was just what God had in mind for the day (read the scripture and you'll get the just).
After church, we went just a few minutes out of town to Madepalla Village to see the new church they are trying to build there. Being the only white people for miles and miles and miles (we literally have not seen another Caucasian since we arrived in Hyderabad), we were treated as guests of honor. And of course, being the "reverend" of our group, Bishop John asked me to speak briefly there as well. This time I was able to get away with a simple word of welcome and introduction.
The rest of the day was not as stressful. We prepared the water filters and then I drank filtered water that came from some really gross looking rain drainage.
Afterwards we played with the kids at the orphanage a while before coming back to the hotel for dinner.
Post report:
In case you we wondering whether the rumors were true, oxen and buffalo really do roam the streets of India unimpaired.
They lay down in the middle of the street and people simply drive around them. They wander down the street like one of the vehicles. And sometimes they ram things.
We asked who took care of them or how they managed and Bishop John informed us that the cattle actually preferred to wander around free. Apparently, some of them have started resorting to begging. Homeless cows begging for food. Unfortunately, he also says that sometimes they are misbehaved - even when the police are around. Imagine that - the cattle do not listen to the police. You would think they were people or something.
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