Month: January 2008

The names have been taken out, to protect their privacy. The pastors on our conference received these letters to encourage our continued prayer. There were topics I’d love to blog about: movies I’ve seen that bring up relevant issues (even with only a 1.5 family friendly rating?), things I’d like to say to my teenagers that a youth pastor probably shouldn’t say (cause they might not like me), etc. But this seemed a heck of a lot more important…
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Dear Friends of India,

I just arrived back in Hyderabad safely. I was able to visit the riot-torn district of Kandhamal in Orissa and meeting with our church members. Kandhamal still shivers with the fear of new attacks. The tragedy has been unprecedented. Thousands have fled into the forests and famished, some times filling their stomach with roots and leaves. People had even licked the dew drops deposited in the leaves to quench their thirst . 925 of our church members including 210 children in 1-12 years have been rendered homeless.
20 of our church buildings have been broken down. Wherever the Hindu extremists could not fully demolish the building, they indulged in desecrating the cross, burning down the furniture, doors and windows, musical instruments, Bibles and books and whatever they could access in the premises.

Here is a couple of testimonies:

Name:
Village: Depaketa
Age: About 58

“24 December 2007. About 10 in the night, hundreds of Sangh Activists attacked our villages armed with chains, swords and axes. They started setting the houses on fire. Everybody ran away into the jungle. I too started running but I was late to leave the village. They chased me and hit me with chains. I fell down. One of them put the sword on my throat and demanded that I recant my faith in Jesus. Others kept shouted: “Kill him, kill him if he did not renounce Christ.”

“Kill me if you wanted but I would not renounce Jesus.” I closed my eyes anticipating the sword to run into my throat. They left me almost dead, burnt my house, looted everything as I watched helplessly. In the darkness of the night I limped my way into the jungle and spent 4 days there in hunger and thirst before I reached our Relief Camp in Raikia.

Our Superintendent Prakash wanted me to file an FIR at the local police station but the sub-inspector refused to accept it. Therefore we went to the Sub-collector of Kandhamal and submitted the FIR at his office.

2. Name:
Village: Kutikia
Age: About 40 yrs

December 28, 2007. Hundreds of RSS activists attacked our village. They had already burnt many villages in the vicinity. Before we could run, they caught 13 of us and demanded that we convert to Hinduism. They led us to the temple at Patakhanada and broke cocoanuts and sacrificed goats before the presiding deity. They called for a village magician, Kameswar Digal, to tonsure our heads by force as a part of the ritual to convert us to Hinduism and gave water mixed with cow-dung to drink at gunpoint. After this they forced us to leave the village at once. Jungle became our home for 3 days and 3 night before our Superintendent Prakash picked us from Balliguda to come to the relief camp set up at Raikia.

On my way to Kandhamal, I participated in a rally in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa, demanding Government action to stop voilence against Christians. Organized by All India Christian Council, it had the support of the non-Christian dalits too. Nearly 10,000 people marched from railways station to the state assembly. This was the first ever rally organized in the state capital for the protection of Christians.

Thank you very much for your prayers and support.
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It’s eye-opening, if anything. This still happens. In places that have websites dedicated to tourism, even. Probably my own ignorance that I forget things like this are taking place, even in this moment.

* Warning – I’m not a political expert, and most of this is probably misunderstood and entirely wrong.

So Decatur’s government has an opportunity to change coming up. A group of people who view our current “weak-mayor” system (City Manager) as antiquated and ineffective, are pushing to change to a “strong-mayor” system. Currently, the city is pretty much run by our City Manager, who seems like a nice guy (although he needs a friendlier picture, maybe one in his favorite scuba outfit?), but was not elected by the people. Not to discredit him…looking at his biography, he’s had some impressive titles, and gotten degrees, etc. He has quite a bit of power, and it leaves our current, part-time mayor (an elected official, who ends up being just another member of the city council) with just a few abilities and ceremonial duties.

Under the proposed plan by ChangeDecatur.com, more of these powers would be under the mayor (an elected official), and a larger group of aldermen (and women) who have been elected to represent different communities within the city. (although I think the current 20-alderman proposal will have way too many people trying to get their voices heard)

Apparently, the original vote was going to be 1. Vote to change from the current system. and 2. Vote to change to the “Strong-Mayor” system.

But those opposing the vote did everything they could to mess things up. Apparently, whoever actually filed to have this ballot created, messed up. This made the 2nd part of the vote get thrown out for now. So all we can do is 1. Vote to change from the current system.

Under current law, if we do away with the current system, but don’t have a new one to replace it, we default to a City Commissioner form of gub-ment. Which is pretty much the same as “City Manager”, except the mayor becomes full-time (a good step) and takes the place of the city manager. Then they hope that in early 2009, we can vote to adopt the “Strong-Mayor/Aldermanic” system they originally hoped to pass.

So all that to say, I think it’s a good move…even if I don’t completely agree with having so many alderman in the kitchen. For those who oppose, who seem to be focusing completely on why the City Commissioner form of gub-ment is so terrible . I say get over it. No one wanted it in the first place, until you fought to get the vote screwed up.

addendum: I’m not sure if we’re doing any favors with websites and videos like this one:

So we’ll see what happens. In the meantime…Strike TV looks like it’s going to be pretty stinkin’ cool. So we can all have something besides American Gladiators (not as good as it used to be, but still entertaining), and Knight Rider (coming in February…pretty stoked).

once upon a time there was a man. this man’s name was AWESOME. AWESOME was a pretty good guy, but life seemed kinda normal to him.

until one day, AWESOME got a sandwich. not just any sandwich, this one was INCREDIBLE. but not because AWESOME had made it that way, but just because it was. no one could have ever described to AWESOME how good this sandwich would be, and even when he tried to tell others, they were still missing a bit of what he tried to convey.

it was one heck of a sandwich. INCREDIBLE even. and it got better every day. it taught AWESOME about life, love, and gave meaning to the simplest of experiences.

AWESOME loved that INCREDIBLE sandwich. he would give his life for it.

but AWESOME learned that a second sandwich was about to enter his life. a sandwich that was sure to be AMAZING. AWESOME was so excited to find out he would have a second sandwich, but it also brought up many questions.

what would his INCREDIBLE sandwich think? could he handle having two sandwiches? what would life look like down the road of more than one sandwich? could he be faithful to these two INCREDIBLE and AMAZING sandwiches that he’d been given by God?

thankfully, AWESOME wasn’t alone. his wife, AWE-SOME was there to help him. it also helped to know that they weren’t the first ones in history to ever have two sandwiches. many people even had more than that! so with a bit of mayo, some mustard, and maybe even some horse-radish….they knew everything would end up being alright. possibly even PHENOMENAL.

this made AWESOME very excited about the arrival of this second sandwich. he grew more and more hungry every day.

the end. (for now)