A Season of Lent

A Season of Lent

Our season of Lent began as we boarded the plane in California to make the long trek home to India. Both Barb and Jeff left parents and siblings who had reunited to celebrate Barb’s father’s 90^th birthday. Our sons, Chris and Cole, joined us as we gave up the familiar American culture, comfort and cuisine, for a life committed to service in India. Our senses were heightened as we awaited our return to simplicity, the cozy community of Woodstock School students and staff, our church family and small town life in Mussoorie, India. We marveled at the beauty of the varied topography of the US – desert to mountains to snow-covered plains, then across the ocean to the greenness of the UK. We knew we were almost home when we saw the snowy impassable mountains of Afghanistan and the green fertile plains of Pakistan, then recognizing the incredible sprawl of the city of Delhi. The eighteen hours in the air was a time of awe at God’s creation, and to spiritually recommit ourselves to our calling.

Local Color

Driving six hours from Delhi to Dehra Dun, we counted miles of walnut plantations, sugar cane, rice, mustard, and tea fields along the way, each with a scarecrow or Hindu shrine, each separated by stands of eucalyptus or low brick walls. Often sharing the roads with us were brahma bulls and cows, oxen and waterbuffalo – their dung carefully shaped and dried in huge mounds roadside, to be used for heating fuel. Sheep, goats and shepherds took turns with gangs of uniformed school children slowing traffic. Huge trucks took whatever lane they wanted as they went around oxcarts, bicycles, and pedestrians without slowing down. Billboards abounded and most homes in even the smallest villages had sold out one wall for advertising cement, or for retirement comunities in the holy city of Haridwar. We travelled on India’s Republic Day, so there were special handcart displays of vegetables, lined up in the orange, white, and green stripes of the Indian flag. Signs for malls to be constructed soon showed the promise (or threat) of western influence. Schools everywhere, for technology, business administration, medical, dental, show how young India intends to become a superpower in the future. Men sleeping on woven bed frames in the open air, others smoking hookahs – show old India, waiting. Another hour driving 4,000 winding feet up into the mountains, and we were in Mussoorie which – after eighteen months here – now feels like home.

Joys!

While in the US, we were able to connect with Mission Recruitment Division of the PC(USA), which we visited in Louisville, Kentucky. After a whirlwind day of interviews and testing, we were offered positions as Long-Term Volunteer Mission Workers. Now we begin the process of raising money for the partial support we will get from the denomination – pension contributions and US medical insurance. This indeed is an answer to many prayers!

Both Chris and Cole did well on their mid-year grade reports – and we thank those who held them in prayer during the semester.

Heartfelt Thanks

The Thomas family was invited to share about our work in India with the congregation of Leisure World Community Church in Seal Beach, California. Jeff and Barb preached, and Chris and Cole later on did a great job telling about life at Woodstock School, enhanced by a powerpoint presentation of photos. We are truly grateful for the generosity and hospitality of LWCC. It was an uplifting time – our first mission interpretation experience. We hope, with the help of PC(USA), to be able to visit other church partners in the near future.

Requests for Prayers

Barb will have surgery in April. Decisions need to be made about where to have it: at the small community hospital where convalescence at home is just a taxi ride away, or at the big hospital in Delhi where things are likely safer but far from home. Please pray for right decisions.

Woodstock School is still in transition from the leaving of our principal to an interim, a search committee and finally a new head of the school. Please pray that the right person will be selected to do God’s will in this school. Spirits are high and positive so far!

Opportunities

In a previous newsletter, we told about our involvement with helping a young woman with her nursing school expenses, as well as raising funds for improving school employees’ housing. If you would like to support or know more about either of these projects, as well as our work with the students of Woodstock School, please contact us at our school address below. We would love to hear from you. Further, if you know of others who might be interested in supporting our work and/or receiving our newsletters, please let us know. We will be happy to add them to our mailing list or send them our CD of photos from Mussoorie. Thanks for your help!

In His Service,

Jeff, Barb, Chris and Coleman Thomas