Holy Week - Easter

During this period we only had Year 10 and 12 girls with us as the other year levels had already started their Summer break. This is a total of 30 children. Those that could get home to their houses were allowed to go home for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That left us with eight girls.

Holy Week

We volunteered to lead the evening prayer devotions for Holy Week. We did an abbreviated Stations of the Cross where we followed Jesus from the trial through to the Resurrection. Each evening Gary spoke about what the bible passage said and then he encouraged everyone to put themselves into the story to reflect on what it is saying today in our times of challenge. Lynn sang a meditative song on our theme of the evening and then we prayed together. The girls responded very well to this. The overall theme of this week was letting God’s message travel from your head to your heart.

Easter Weekend

Friday

Once again we started late from the school because the bus driver didn’t arrive until 7.00 am – the starting time for the Good Friday service. We ended up sitting right in the front couple of rows so that the girls could see the projection screen for the songs etc. If you sit in the side seats of the church you actually can’t see the screen so you can’t participate.

The choir played a major part in this service - songs interspersed with bible readings. There was a relatively short (by Indian standards) sermon which was challenging. We have had difficulties with the accents of some of the preachers but managed to understand this preacher quite well.

Anna had told us that when she was in India the girls enjoyed watching the “Sound of Music”. So after some hunting we found a copy and spent the afternoon with the girls watching it and explaining every ten minutes what was going on. It highlighted to us that although the girls speak relatively good English, their comprehension levels are very low. They did enjoy this especially when Lynn not only sang every song, but recited most of the dialogue as well.

Saturday

Our big discovery today was that the eight girls who stayed on had never been out of the school grounds except to travel home and return to school. Some of these girls have been in the hostel for 5 years. We asked the hostel warden if we could take the girls out but she said we would have to get the Principal’s approval. Lynn rang the Principal and she granted permission – “as long as the girls behaved”.

We took them for a walk up to “Tower Park” (named because of the tower in the middle). Sadly this used to be a water park with lots of different water features but because of lack of maintenance, fountains are only turned on for special occasions. The tower is about 100 feet high with a circular ramp around the outside which has also been blocked off because of lack of maintenance - very sad. It could be a lovely oasis in the middle of the “dirt”.

There are also swings, slippery slides and see-saws. We had a bit of fun there and then walked through to the other side of the park and decided to go to a shop and let the girls choose a Tamil DVD to play that afternoon. This was more of a problem than we bargained for. Eight girls choosing one DVD turned out to be a major strategic exercise. We ended up going to several stores before we had a consensus. After the trauma of DVD choosing we took the girls to our favourite little coffee shop and shouted them chocolate ice cream because they preferred that to a drink. They were so excited and thankful to do this as it was the first time they had been to a coffee shop as well.

We spent the afternoon with them watching the Tamil DVD, with them giggling excitedly at regular intervals and us needing a translation.

It was a wonderful day for both us and the girls.

Sunday

For some reason there was no bus for Easter Sunday so we went out the school gates to find autos to take us to Church. This had one big benefit – we arrived early and could be seated and relaxed before the service began. The major difficulties on this Sunday were that the sound system sounded like someone had stuffed the speakers full of Easter Egg wrappers. The only reason I know this was not the case is that in India (or at least Chennai) there was not an Easter Egg to be found.

This sound problem made it impossible for us to understand anything that was being said and coupled with what I describe as ‘the organist had a flat battery’, the slow selected hymns were sung at a pace that allowed plenty of time for meditation between words. It should be noted that this caused much difficulty for one of the visiting Australian duo.

The highlight of the day unfortunately didn’t come from the service but occurred after the threefold Amen. As we were leaving the Deputy Principal of our school (both the Principal and Deputy are members of the congregation) said “We will drive you home”. This surprised us as acts such as this have not been forthcoming from any members of the Church so far.

The car was a very small four seater, but that was OK because there were only four people. WRONG!! The Deputy, lovely lady that she is, then proceeded to invite another two adults and their teenage daughter to come as well because the father had to stay behind for the second service. I immediately offered to catch an auto with the girls but she would have none of it.

I looked at the car, did a quick mental calculation of the width of two sets of Wallis hips and silently praised God that He still performed miracles as that is what we would need to get all seven of us in this car.

I was told it would be easy. There were two males, myself and the Deputy’s husband Wesley. We would have the front seat. Great deal. That leaves five people for the back. Lynn was ushered in and made comfortable, and then the miracle began. Three adults and a teenage girl morphed into a mass of Indian humanity that filled every space available from floor to roof, and with an eager helper on the outside slamming the door, we were in.

I glanced over my right shoulder and caught a glimpse of Lynn in her seat relatively unscathed. What followed was a 10 minute drive from Church to School that would cost at least $30/person at any theme park around the world. We went through red lights, we drove on the wrong side of the road, we broke most road rules that I was aware of and all the time being assured by Wesley that it was OK as it was ‘the Indian way’.

Christy (Deputy Principal) also cooked lunch for the girls and us and brought it to hostel later that day. We had a lovely meal of chicken briyianni with Wesley and the girls. Actually it’s the first time I’ve had rice for main course, rice for second course and vermicelli for dessert.

Chicken Briyianni is basically rice with chicken, chilli and other spices (of course) and a couple of veges that we didn’t recognise. This was accompanied by an Indian “salad” which consisted of chopped onion, curd, capsicum, coriander and of course chilli.

The white rice for second course was mixed with curd (yoghurt-like?) and you ate this to relieve the heat of the chilli from the first course. This leaves an aftertaste which is eliminated by the vermicelli in the dessert. I guess it is one way for them to encourage you to eat all three courses???

After lunch (which didn’t start until 2.00 pm), the girls and Lynn sang a few songs for Christy and Wesley and then we retired to our house for a rest, to prepare for the return of the 10s and 12s later in the afternoon.

The weekend finished with our usual 6 pm prayer time with the girls.

In India, Monday after Easter is a normal workday so the girls returned to school as usual.