Enjoy!!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Pictures
For those of you who do not read this blog on FaceBook, here are the links for the pictures of the trip:
Saturday, April 10, 2010
My Time Back In Churachandpur
As I mentioned the last time, after we finished the work project in Hmarkawlien, I went back to Churachandpur again.
For the first week, a large part of my time was spent in the studio. I had mentioned in an earlier post that we were working on a recording project with Grace, Jerry, and Christina. They are from Shillong, but were in Churachandpur for a few weeks so we could finish the project. The' Evangelical Free Church of India (the church denomination that Dr. Ro and Mawii started) had its annual general assembly a week after I got back to Churachandpur, and the CD was scheduled to release there on Saturday morning. We worked hard in the studio all week, and by Friday morning we were down to one more song to record. There was only one problem... the musician who was making the soundtracks for all of our songs was busy and, even though he had bent over backwards to help us try to get the project done in time, he had no time to finish the final track. I finally found another musician who was willing to help us out. He dropped everything he was doing that day and recorded the final track for us. We went directly from his studio over to the other studio where we had been recording and did the vocals for that final song. We finished around 4:00 PM, and the engineer worked on the editing until 9:00 PM. The duplicating and printing company picked the master as soon as it was done. They duplicated and packaged all night, and we released the CD at 10:00 the next morning! And it didn't turn out too bad. We were able to do a full 14 song album. It will be released in the United States, hopefully around the end of May. I will let everyone know when it is available.
General Assembly started on Friday night and lasted until Sunday night. Watkin Roberts' (the missionary who brought the Gospel to the Hmar tribe 100 years ago) son and wife arrived in Seilmat on Friday afternoon and were given a huge welcome. The depth of appreciation and respect that the Hmar people have for the Roberts family is amazing.
The 2010 General Assembly was another huge celebration of the Gospel Centenary. Is was a great weekend of worship, singing, dancing, and celebrating. There was another huge feast on Saturday afternoon... 19 cows, 10 pigs, and 100 chickens were killed and cooked. Three hundred cooks worked for two days to prepare everything. They told me it took two pigs just to feed the cooks!
On the Monday following the Assembly was the Trinity College and Seminary graduation. Dr. Paul Robers (Watkin Roberts' son) gave the convocation address to the graduates, most of whom were getting ready to do one of three things... further studies, becoming a pastor, or going to the mission field. After the convocation, the school students from Seilmat Christian Higher Secondary School (Bibles For The World's largest school) put on a performance for all the visiting guests.
After Assembly was over, my time in Seilmat was pretty laid back... the kids were in school, so there was not a whole lot to do during the day. After school, I typically went to one of the kid's houses for the evening.
One highlight during that time was my visit to Northeast Children's Home there in Churachandpur. A friend had asked me to go visit the place. NECH is an orphanage... they have close to sixty kids who live there. They also run a school there at the campus. I had a wonderful time there with the kids and the staff of the children's home. The place seems to be very well run, it's one of the cleanest places I have seen in Northeast India, and the kids are excellent singers! NECH will definitely be a regular stop during my visits to India from now on.
I left Churachandpur on March 18 and flew to Calcutta. I spent the night there and then flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand the next day. A good friend of mine lives there, so we spent a few days in Chiang Mai and then took a 24 hour bus ride to Pnohm Pehn, Cambodia, where we spent another week. After leaving there, I spent another day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and then arrived back in the United States last week.
It was another incredible trip... especially the India portion of it, and the experience of celebrating the coming of the Gospel to the Hmar tribe with the people whose ancestors were headhunters just a few generations ago, was something that I don't think my friends and I will ever forget!
Michael Esh
For the first week, a large part of my time was spent in the studio. I had mentioned in an earlier post that we were working on a recording project with Grace, Jerry, and Christina. They are from Shillong, but were in Churachandpur for a few weeks so we could finish the project. The' Evangelical Free Church of India (the church denomination that Dr. Ro and Mawii started) had its annual general assembly a week after I got back to Churachandpur, and the CD was scheduled to release there on Saturday morning. We worked hard in the studio all week, and by Friday morning we were down to one more song to record. There was only one problem... the musician who was making the soundtracks for all of our songs was busy and, even though he had bent over backwards to help us try to get the project done in time, he had no time to finish the final track. I finally found another musician who was willing to help us out. He dropped everything he was doing that day and recorded the final track for us. We went directly from his studio over to the other studio where we had been recording and did the vocals for that final song. We finished around 4:00 PM, and the engineer worked on the editing until 9:00 PM. The duplicating and printing company picked the master as soon as it was done. They duplicated and packaged all night, and we released the CD at 10:00 the next morning! And it didn't turn out too bad. We were able to do a full 14 song album. It will be released in the United States, hopefully around the end of May. I will let everyone know when it is available.
General Assembly started on Friday night and lasted until Sunday night. Watkin Roberts' (the missionary who brought the Gospel to the Hmar tribe 100 years ago) son and wife arrived in Seilmat on Friday afternoon and were given a huge welcome. The depth of appreciation and respect that the Hmar people have for the Roberts family is amazing.
The 2010 General Assembly was another huge celebration of the Gospel Centenary. Is was a great weekend of worship, singing, dancing, and celebrating. There was another huge feast on Saturday afternoon... 19 cows, 10 pigs, and 100 chickens were killed and cooked. Three hundred cooks worked for two days to prepare everything. They told me it took two pigs just to feed the cooks!
On the Monday following the Assembly was the Trinity College and Seminary graduation. Dr. Paul Robers (Watkin Roberts' son) gave the convocation address to the graduates, most of whom were getting ready to do one of three things... further studies, becoming a pastor, or going to the mission field. After the convocation, the school students from Seilmat Christian Higher Secondary School (Bibles For The World's largest school) put on a performance for all the visiting guests.
After Assembly was over, my time in Seilmat was pretty laid back... the kids were in school, so there was not a whole lot to do during the day. After school, I typically went to one of the kid's houses for the evening.
One highlight during that time was my visit to Northeast Children's Home there in Churachandpur. A friend had asked me to go visit the place. NECH is an orphanage... they have close to sixty kids who live there. They also run a school there at the campus. I had a wonderful time there with the kids and the staff of the children's home. The place seems to be very well run, it's one of the cleanest places I have seen in Northeast India, and the kids are excellent singers! NECH will definitely be a regular stop during my visits to India from now on.
I left Churachandpur on March 18 and flew to Calcutta. I spent the night there and then flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand the next day. A good friend of mine lives there, so we spent a few days in Chiang Mai and then took a 24 hour bus ride to Pnohm Pehn, Cambodia, where we spent another week. After leaving there, I spent another day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and then arrived back in the United States last week.
It was another incredible trip... especially the India portion of it, and the experience of celebrating the coming of the Gospel to the Hmar tribe with the people whose ancestors were headhunters just a few generations ago, was something that I don't think my friends and I will ever forget!
Michael Esh
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Shillong and Hmarkhawlien
After leaving Churachandpur a few weeks ago, my group flew to Guwahati, the largest city here in Northeast India and then took a four hour taxi ride to Shillong, a beautiful city in the state of Meghalaya. We made a lot of friends in Shillong during our last visit there in 2008, and we received a warm welcome back from them. We arrived in Shillong on a Thursday evening and spent the next few days relaxing and hanging out with our friends there.
On Monday morning, my brother, Marv, Mahlon, and I went back to the airport in Guwahati and flew to Delhi. The next day, the three of us went to Chingrawli, a remote village a few hours from Delhi. Bibles For The World runs a school there, the only one they run outside of Northeast India. Ruth, a former India Children’s Choir leader, is a teacher there, and we went mostly to visit her. That evening, back in Delhi, we went to TGI Friday’s with some of our friends from Delhi. I really like Indian food, but it was great to have some good old American food again.
That evening Marv and Mahlon flew out of Delhi and two other guys flew in. Those two guys came to help out with our work project in Hmarkhawlien (more on that in a little bit).
I spent the next day taking the guys to do some sightseeing and shopping in Delhi and then we flew out that evening to Calcutta. We spent one night there in Calcutta and then flew to Silchar early the next morning. Silchar is a town in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. Our destination was a village about an hour from Silchar called Hmarkhawlien.
Hmarkhawlien is the home of the second largest school that is run by Bibles For The World. The school has almost six hundred students in Kindergarten through Class Ten. They are in the process of adding Classes Eleven and Twelve and for that they need expanded facilities, so my team went there to help with the building project for a few weeks.
The other three guys in the group had traveled directly to Hmarkhawlien from Shillong and had already been working for a few days before I arrived with the other two guys. We spent the next ten days working on the new building together with a crew of local guys. We even found some time to mix in some fun stuff like my group playing volleyball against some of the school teachers. We had a great time there in Hmarkhawlien.
From there, all of the guys except for me, left India and went on to Thailand. I flew back to Manipur, and after spending one night in the capital city of Imphal, went back to Churachandpur, my home away from home.
That will be all for now... I will let you know about my time in Churachandpur in my next post.
On Monday morning, my brother, Marv, Mahlon, and I went back to the airport in Guwahati and flew to Delhi. The next day, the three of us went to Chingrawli, a remote village a few hours from Delhi. Bibles For The World runs a school there, the only one they run outside of Northeast India. Ruth, a former India Children’s Choir leader, is a teacher there, and we went mostly to visit her. That evening, back in Delhi, we went to TGI Friday’s with some of our friends from Delhi. I really like Indian food, but it was great to have some good old American food again.
That evening Marv and Mahlon flew out of Delhi and two other guys flew in. Those two guys came to help out with our work project in Hmarkhawlien (more on that in a little bit).
I spent the next day taking the guys to do some sightseeing and shopping in Delhi and then we flew out that evening to Calcutta. We spent one night there in Calcutta and then flew to Silchar early the next morning. Silchar is a town in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. Our destination was a village about an hour from Silchar called Hmarkhawlien.
Hmarkhawlien is the home of the second largest school that is run by Bibles For The World. The school has almost six hundred students in Kindergarten through Class Ten. They are in the process of adding Classes Eleven and Twelve and for that they need expanded facilities, so my team went there to help with the building project for a few weeks.
The other three guys in the group had traveled directly to Hmarkhawlien from Shillong and had already been working for a few days before I arrived with the other two guys. We spent the next ten days working on the new building together with a crew of local guys. We even found some time to mix in some fun stuff like my group playing volleyball against some of the school teachers. We had a great time there in Hmarkhawlien.
From there, all of the guys except for me, left India and went on to Thailand. I flew back to Manipur, and after spending one night in the capital city of Imphal, went back to Churachandpur, my home away from home.
That will be all for now... I will let you know about my time in Churachandpur in my next post.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Churachandpur (My Second Home)
A lot has happened since I last posted here, but I will attempt to give it to you in a nutshell...
The last post ended with us flying into Imphal, the capital city of Manipur. From there we made the hour and a half drive to Churachandpur, or more specifically, to Seilmat, one of the many villages that Churachandpur is made up of. Seilmat is where Partnership Mission (the India side of Bibles For The World) has its headquarters. It is also the location of Seilmat Christian School (Bibles For The Worlds largest school) and Trinity College and Seminary and Seilmat Christian Hospital (both run by Bibles For The World). But that is not the biggest reason why Churachandpur is my "second home."
It's because of the people. You see, approximately 90% of the former India Children's Choir kids live in this general area. Obviously, that makes it a very special place for me. Add to that their families and the many, many other friends I have made their during my trips to India... every time I go there, it's like a homecoming of sorts. I get excited when I land in Imphal airport, and then more and more excited during the drive down to the Churachandpur area. We alway have a wonderful time, and this time was no exception.
I won't bore you with all the details of what we did during our time there, but I will mention a few highlights.
As usual, as soon as we arrive, I start getting invitations for meals. So on a typical day, we would have our morning meal at one of the kid's houses and then spend some time with the family there. We spent quite a bit of time in the market... either shopping for ourselves or taking our sponsored kids shopping. So after the morning meal, and on most days a short shopping excursion, we would return to Trinity College (we stayed in the guest rooms there) and spend a few hours either relaxing or spending time with kids who showed up to hang out. Then it was time for the evening meal, again, usually at one of the kid's houses. After the meal and some time spent there, we would return to Trinity, and usually the kids were waiting for us. On a typical night, thirty or more kids would come there to hang out. Activities ranges from football to looking at pictures to sitting around talking to singing. It was a lot of fun.
A few days after we got there, Jerry, Grace, and Christina, the three former ICC kids from Shillong that I recorded a few songs with last year, came to Churachandpur, so we spend the next three or four days in the studio doing some more recording with them. We are planning to put together a "mini" album, so I will let you know the details on that a little later. Stay tuned... :)
On the few days that we didn't have invitations for a meal, we went out to one of the three little local restaurants that are in Churachandpur. And most of the time, there would be at least a few kids with us.
Our time to Churachandpur came to an end on Thursday. I will be returning there in a few weeks, but other guys in the group will not be, so there were some tearful farewells. A lot of the kids really got attached to them in the few weeks that we were there.
My group is in Shillong now, another city here in Northeast India. We all miss our friends from Churachanpur, but we are having a good time with another set of friends here in Shillong.
By the way, I know I promised some pictures early on in the trip, but the internet connections have been a little inconsistent, and I have just not had a chance yet. I am still planning to post some pictures, even if it has to wait till I get home.
Michael Esh
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Rock Barack River Trip
The Rock Barack River Trip was organized to recreate the a route that Watkin Roberts used to take back in the early 1900’s. He traveled the Barack River by boat and delivered rice and preached along the way.
Before I get into that, one huge highlight of the Centenary for me that I left out of the last post was when I got to represent Watkin Roberts during the carrying in of a page of the 1898 of the Gospel of John. That was the edition that Watkin Roberts first sent to the Hmar tribe. The grandson of the native missionary who accompanied Watkin Roberts, along with some other relatives, and I carried it to the front of the assembly hall and then handed it over to the grandson of the man who was the chief of Senvon at the time of Watkin Roberts. It was a neat experience.
After arriving at our campsite on Monday evening, we set up our tent and ate our dinner. The evening service was already in full swing by the time we got there.
Each day’s schedule was basically the same. The morning service was followed by the morning meal, and then we would load up the boats and head out. There was usually one scheduled stop during the day and then we would arrive at our destination.
Notice that I said one “scheduled” stop. I always knew that Dr. Ro and Mawii were well known and well respected in this region, but I had no idea that it was to this scale. In many of the little villages we passed, people would stand along the banks, just to be able to see Dr. Ro and Mawii pass. And some of the villages wanted them to stop. So we would stop and Dr. Ro would talk to the people from the boat. So besides the scheduled stop each day, there were also a few other stops. And they got a well deserved hero’s welcome at each stop.
On the second night, we camped out at a beautiful spot along the river, and one the third night we stayed at people’s houses in the village of Ankhasu. Our hosts there were awesome, and after two nights of sleeping in a tent along the river, a bed felt really good! On the fourth and final night of the trip, we had a big final service in Hmarkawlien.
Again, words don’t do justice to the experiences we had on the river trip. It was an amazing time with old friends and a great time of meeting new ones.
The next morning (Friday) we flew from Silchar to Imphal and then drove here to Churachandpur where we are now. Churachandpur is when most of the former India Children’s Choir children live and we have been having a great time hanging out with all of them.
Michael
Before I get into that, one huge highlight of the Centenary for me that I left out of the last post was when I got to represent Watkin Roberts during the carrying in of a page of the 1898 of the Gospel of John. That was the edition that Watkin Roberts first sent to the Hmar tribe. The grandson of the native missionary who accompanied Watkin Roberts, along with some other relatives, and I carried it to the front of the assembly hall and then handed it over to the grandson of the man who was the chief of Senvon at the time of Watkin Roberts. It was a neat experience.
After arriving at our campsite on Monday evening, we set up our tent and ate our dinner. The evening service was already in full swing by the time we got there.
Each day’s schedule was basically the same. The morning service was followed by the morning meal, and then we would load up the boats and head out. There was usually one scheduled stop during the day and then we would arrive at our destination.
Notice that I said one “scheduled” stop. I always knew that Dr. Ro and Mawii were well known and well respected in this region, but I had no idea that it was to this scale. In many of the little villages we passed, people would stand along the banks, just to be able to see Dr. Ro and Mawii pass. And some of the villages wanted them to stop. So we would stop and Dr. Ro would talk to the people from the boat. So besides the scheduled stop each day, there were also a few other stops. And they got a well deserved hero’s welcome at each stop.
On the second night, we camped out at a beautiful spot along the river, and one the third night we stayed at people’s houses in the village of Ankhasu. Our hosts there were awesome, and after two nights of sleeping in a tent along the river, a bed felt really good! On the fourth and final night of the trip, we had a big final service in Hmarkawlien.
Again, words don’t do justice to the experiences we had on the river trip. It was an amazing time with old friends and a great time of meeting new ones.
The next morning (Friday) we flew from Silchar to Imphal and then drove here to Churachandpur where we are now. Churachandpur is when most of the former India Children’s Choir children live and we have been having a great time hanging out with all of them.
Michael
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Gospel Centenary Celebration
Wow... where to begin???? I was planning to keep a journal of sorts during our trip to the hills, but there was so much happening there that I didn’t get it done. The experiences we had on this leg of our trip were incredible and I will try to describe some of them to you...
We left the city of Aizawl on the morning of January 20th and drove all day, then spent the night at in a little town called Sawkardai. Even though we were driving through some very mountainous terrain, the roads were not that bad. We stopped at one little village along the way where Merlin got to meet the child he sponsors.
The story with the roads the next day was totally different. They went from bad to worse and then to even worse. We probably average less than 20 miles per hour the entire day!
We finally arrived in Senvon around 4:00 that evening. Senvon is the place where the young Welsh missionary, Watkin Roberts, first preached to the Hmar people in 1910. At that time they were still fierce headhunters and one of the most feared people groups in that whole region. With the help of a missionary from Aizawl, Roberts travelled to Senvon to share the message of the Gospel with these people.
We were greeted in Senvon by quite a few familiar faces. The sleepy little remote village of 3,000 or so people had been transformed into a busy place with people coming from miles and miles around to be a part of the celebration.
The opening service of the Gospel Centenary Celebration was that evening, so after eating dinner and getting cleaned up a little, we went to the service. The opening was so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes. First they turned of all the lights. The grandson of the missionary who helped Watkin Roberts get to Senvon brought in a torch from the back. He lit the torch of the grandson of the chief of Senvon. He then lit the torch of the pastors, who used their torches to light the candles being held by the people. That little ceremony ended with singing and a mass prayer. Considering the fact that there were probably 1,500 people there with candles, plus the torches, it was an impressive sight.
The next few days were filled with worship services, one in the morning and one in the evening. Every service lasted for three hours or more, and one lasted for four and one half hours!
The highlight of the second day there was the arrival of Dr. Ro and Mawii. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Ro’s father was one of the very first Christians from the Hmar tribe. Dr. Ro is the one who translated the Bible into the Hmar language. Besides that, he has had a tremendous impact on Northeast India in other ways. He and his wife planted over 300 churches and many, many schools in the Northeast. They are very well respected and well know in that region.
Dr. Ro’s health has been declining over the last year, and travel over the rough roads was basically impossible, so they flew in by helicopter. Now, that may not sound like of big deal to you, but most of the people in Senvon, even the older ones, had never seen a helicopter before in their lives! So it was a really big deal! Not only were Dr. Ro and Mawii arriving, but they were arriving by helicopter! Thousands of people gather around the makeshift helipad on the outskirts of the village to welcome them and then lined the street that led to the village.
Another big highlight came on the third day... the big feast. Now I have been part of feasts in Northeast India before, but they were only for 500 people or so. But not this one... over 11,000 people attended the feast in Senvon! 37 animals were killed for the feast! It was an impressive gathering to say the least! And, keep in mind that this is a village of 3,000 people.
Other events during the celebration included unveiling the Centenary stone, beating the Centenary drum 100 times and ringing the Centenary bell 100 times. After the final service was over on Sunday night, people stayed and sang and danced for another two hours or so. After having told their story hundreds of times during my time with the India Children’s Choir, it was a huge honor for me to celebrate this event with them. One afternoon we even got to go see the very place where they used to honor the men who would go and fight and bring back heads during the headhunting days. There was a stone there that the warrior would stand on and they would all dance around him.
We headed out of Senvon on Monday morning with a caravan of vehicles and a lot of people... including Dr. Ro and Mawii and some of the other head people from over here. We visited the villages of Parbung and Lungthulien, two villages where there are Bibles For The World schools, and at each place they put on a grand reception for our group.
We worked our way down to the river, but before we got there, we were stopped in another village where the people had planned a reception for Dr. Ro and Mawii, but we didn’t know anything about it. We finally arrived at the campsite around 6:00 that evening.
I will write about our trip down the river within the next few days.
Michael
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Headed To The Hills
Hey everyone,
Just an FYI. My group and I will be heading for the the interior hills of Northeast India tomorrow morning, and that means no internet access for the next ten days or so. I will be keeping a "journal" of our time there so I can share it with you when we get back.
We will be celebrating the 100th year anniversary of the Gospel coming to the Hmar tribe with hundreds, if not thousands, of descendants of former headhunters. It is sure to be an amazing experience.
Michael
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