A final reflection on our Sri Lankan hotel experience that kind of sums the whole thing up.
Hikkaduwa was pretty trashed by the tsunami in 2004. When we stayed there in 2007, the hotel we chose was part of an international chain and had had considerable help in getting itself back on its feet. It was full when we looked at the website ahead of this year's visit - it was also pretty expensive!
The Supercorals where we stayed wasn't so lucky. The sea washed away the ground floor and did quite a bit of damage to the pool and outdoor bar area. Five years later, it's still being rebuilt. Half the hotel was boarded up with workmen coming and going doing major plumbing and electrical work.
Our room was comfortable, the bathroom was excellent, the air conditioning was quiet and wonderfully effective. And given that we were paying the equivalent of £13 per person per night bed and breakfast, we thought that it was good value. And to be honest even after the loss of my mobile phone from our locked room, I'd consider staying there again.
We felt that our presence was a tiny vote of confidence in their reconstruction efforts, their comeback from being all-but washed away by the tsunami.
And our stay was not without its comic moments.
On the first day of multiple occupancy, we came down to breakfast at our usual time of just after 8am. It was laid out for a buffet but there was no food in it yet. 'about ten minutes,' said a bright eyed young waiter. So we sat down. What he'd failed to tell us was that the ensuing ten minutes would offer us some of the best slapstick we've ever witnessed.
In an attempt to light the kerosene burners under each of the large dishes that keep the buffet warm, two waiters managed to set fire to the table cloth. Three foot high flames quickly spread as the kerosene spilled out from the burner. Other waiters arrived with cloths. For the next two or three minutes about half a dozen of them fanned the flames along the table. Eventually a manager with a jug of water and the fact that all the kerosene had burned up meant that the conflagration died down and went out.
In the meantime, another group of waiters was trying to get the toaster working. It was one of those devices where you put the bread in at one end and it falls out two or three minutes later from the other end nicely brown. Except this machine was only producing warm curly bread. One waiter thought that this was because the conveyor belt was moving too quickly, so he was trying to slow it down using spoons. After a moment or two it stopped working altogether.
So there was much frantic fiddling with the plug and cable. Still nothing. This was probably due to the fact that one of the waiters was sitting on the floor with the two ends of the power cable sticking up from his fist, completely separated from the plug in the socket. The manager motioned to him and he proceeded to shove the cable ends back into the live plug and hold them there. The toaster sprang to life - although it continued only to produced warm curly bread unless the same slice was put through it three or four times.
And we were not charged a penny for this floor show! The breakfast that eventually followed it - some half an hour after we first sat down - was pretty good too, though we avoided the fish curry and French toast.
This is a hotel with huge potential - a great location, lots of rooms, a well appointed pool in a lovely garden area with the Indian Ocean as a constant backdrop. But it requires a management revolution and an influx of high-spending tourists to achieve that potential.
In many ways, it's a tiny parable of Sri Lanka as a whole. I for one am up for investing a bit of time and cash in the country. We just need a million or so more.
Showing posts with label Sri Lanka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sri Lanka. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Just like a Friday night in Bromley
The Hikkaduwa beach festival - the second since the tsunami - happened while we were staying at the Supercorals. As a result our hotel, which was deserted when we arrived, filled up with two Sri Lankan families and a host of young people from Colombo.
Two particular memories linger about the festivities.
The first was that on the Friday evening, as we were walking through the town on our way to a restaurant, we saw large numbers of heavily armed paramilitary police, some toting Uzi machine pistols, others with AK47s. You have to wonder what kind of trouble they were expecting!
When we saw the chief of police the following morning, he said that there'd been very little trouble, 'just lots of teenagers being naughty,' he observed. 'mainly drunk and disorderly.' It sounded like Bromley on a Friday night.
The second was the behaviour of the young people staying in our hotel. In common with young people the world over, it seems, a good time is equated with heavy drinking. The haul of bottles removed by cleaners of the rooms after the weekend would have kept a medium-sized recycling plant in business for a month. The drink of choice appeared to be vodka with a variety of mixers but there was also a brewery's worth of beer bottles and a fair haul of empty wine bottles.
Linda observed that she felt like she'd woken up in the middle of a Club 18-30 holiday - incessant noise, doors banging all night!
Alcohol is a problem on the island, like it is everywhere. The Government looks forward to the day when liquor along with cigarettes is a thing of the past. But that is a long way off. It isn't only well-healed young people getting tanked up for a weekend of partying; the poor are also prone to drink. Many of the fathers of the kids at the Hanbamtota project had problems with alcohol - a way of numbing the pain of unemployment and crushing poverty.
Often we risk having an idealised picture of the places we visit. Sri Lanka is a needy country because of poverty and natural disaster but it's needs are exacerbated by human sin and greed, fecklessness, poor government and oppressive religion that makes huge demands on the poor but offers precious little grace.
It's why the country needs a strong church that has grasped what it means to be missional communities, living for and sharing the good news about Jesus at all levels of society. It's why I'll continue to pray for my students at LBC, for the pastors I've met and worked with and the believers struggling to embody Kingdom values in their everyday lives. In fact, I'm praying for them exactly what I'm praying for myself and believers in the UK.
Two particular memories linger about the festivities.
The first was that on the Friday evening, as we were walking through the town on our way to a restaurant, we saw large numbers of heavily armed paramilitary police, some toting Uzi machine pistols, others with AK47s. You have to wonder what kind of trouble they were expecting!
When we saw the chief of police the following morning, he said that there'd been very little trouble, 'just lots of teenagers being naughty,' he observed. 'mainly drunk and disorderly.' It sounded like Bromley on a Friday night.
The second was the behaviour of the young people staying in our hotel. In common with young people the world over, it seems, a good time is equated with heavy drinking. The haul of bottles removed by cleaners of the rooms after the weekend would have kept a medium-sized recycling plant in business for a month. The drink of choice appeared to be vodka with a variety of mixers but there was also a brewery's worth of beer bottles and a fair haul of empty wine bottles.
Linda observed that she felt like she'd woken up in the middle of a Club 18-30 holiday - incessant noise, doors banging all night!
Alcohol is a problem on the island, like it is everywhere. The Government looks forward to the day when liquor along with cigarettes is a thing of the past. But that is a long way off. It isn't only well-healed young people getting tanked up for a weekend of partying; the poor are also prone to drink. Many of the fathers of the kids at the Hanbamtota project had problems with alcohol - a way of numbing the pain of unemployment and crushing poverty.
Often we risk having an idealised picture of the places we visit. Sri Lanka is a needy country because of poverty and natural disaster but it's needs are exacerbated by human sin and greed, fecklessness, poor government and oppressive religion that makes huge demands on the poor but offers precious little grace.
It's why the country needs a strong church that has grasped what it means to be missional communities, living for and sharing the good news about Jesus at all levels of society. It's why I'll continue to pray for my students at LBC, for the pastors I've met and worked with and the believers struggling to embody Kingdom values in their everyday lives. In fact, I'm praying for them exactly what I'm praying for myself and believers in the UK.
Friday, August 21, 2009
An encounter with law enforcement
I'm catching up with stuff and I was reminded yesterday that I hadn't blogged about the last part of our trip to Sri Lanka and especially a couple of episodes that I referred to in passing and promised to elaborate on later.
The first concerns my meeting with the chief of police at Hikkaduwa.
On the Friday we went to Hambantota to visit the Smile school, I left my British mobile phone in my hotel room and it disappeared. Assuming that it wasn't spirited away by aliens, I concluded that it had been stolen. I told the hotel manager as much but he thought it unlikely and wasn't fabulously helpful - though he did allow me to use his phone to ring my operator to report my phone's loss and get it blocked (later he tried to charge me 450 rupees for doing so but waived it when we complained).
For insurance purposes we decided that we would have to go to the police station to report its loss so that we got a crime number to make a claim once we get home.
So we found a tuk tuk driver -Nimal who I blogged about earlier - and went to the relatively newly built, three storey police station on the edge of the town. A man in a smart brown uniform was just getting out of white patrol car with his family and asked what we needed. He turned out to be the chief of police for the area.
He invited us up to his office and showed us to seats in front of his desk. Lifting his jacket, he removed his automatic pistol from his belt and put it on the desk and sat down. It turned out that not only did he speak very good English, but he'd also taken part in exchange trips to police forces in Harrow, Leicester, Cambridge and one or two other places in the UK. Since I come from Leicester and Linda from Harrow, this gave us quite a bit to talk about.
It was the time of the Hikkaduwa beach festival and the police chief lamented the lack of sleep he'd had over the previous 48 hours. 'I don't how I'm supposed to make good decisions when I'm so tired,' he said in between barking orders to various junior officers who came and went from his office.
Turning to the reason for our visit, he asked me to write down what had happened - 'but not in much in detail,' he stressed. I duly complied and in exchange he gave me a signed piece of paper confirming that I had reported the theft of my phone. It was clear that was all the attention its loss was going to get!
Suddenly, he looked down at the gun on his desk and up and me with a hint of embarrassment on his face and then picked the pistol up, apologised for leaving it out in the open and put it in the draw of his filing cabinet. Then he returned to signing the document and handed it to me.
Commiserating with us that we'd suffered such a horrible experience during our holiday, he wished us a pleasant stay and ushered us out of his office - probably keen to get some sleep before the night's festivities demanded his full attention.
The first concerns my meeting with the chief of police at Hikkaduwa.
On the Friday we went to Hambantota to visit the Smile school, I left my British mobile phone in my hotel room and it disappeared. Assuming that it wasn't spirited away by aliens, I concluded that it had been stolen. I told the hotel manager as much but he thought it unlikely and wasn't fabulously helpful - though he did allow me to use his phone to ring my operator to report my phone's loss and get it blocked (later he tried to charge me 450 rupees for doing so but waived it when we complained).
For insurance purposes we decided that we would have to go to the police station to report its loss so that we got a crime number to make a claim once we get home.
So we found a tuk tuk driver -Nimal who I blogged about earlier - and went to the relatively newly built, three storey police station on the edge of the town. A man in a smart brown uniform was just getting out of white patrol car with his family and asked what we needed. He turned out to be the chief of police for the area.
He invited us up to his office and showed us to seats in front of his desk. Lifting his jacket, he removed his automatic pistol from his belt and put it on the desk and sat down. It turned out that not only did he speak very good English, but he'd also taken part in exchange trips to police forces in Harrow, Leicester, Cambridge and one or two other places in the UK. Since I come from Leicester and Linda from Harrow, this gave us quite a bit to talk about.
It was the time of the Hikkaduwa beach festival and the police chief lamented the lack of sleep he'd had over the previous 48 hours. 'I don't how I'm supposed to make good decisions when I'm so tired,' he said in between barking orders to various junior officers who came and went from his office.
Turning to the reason for our visit, he asked me to write down what had happened - 'but not in much in detail,' he stressed. I duly complied and in exchange he gave me a signed piece of paper confirming that I had reported the theft of my phone. It was clear that was all the attention its loss was going to get!
Suddenly, he looked down at the gun on his desk and up and me with a hint of embarrassment on his face and then picked the pistol up, apologised for leaving it out in the open and put it in the draw of his filing cabinet. Then he returned to signing the document and handed it to me.
Commiserating with us that we'd suffered such a horrible experience during our holiday, he wished us a pleasant stay and ushered us out of his office - probably keen to get some sleep before the night's festivities demanded his full attention.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Making connections
We had three encounters during our holiday in Hikkaduwa that have set me thinking about what it means to be a missional disciple. These are the stories that I'll reflect on over the coming weeks.
We were on holiday, staying in a hotel that I'll blog about separately, using the pool, going out to restaurants in the evenings, doing a bit of site-seeing during the day when we could drag ourselves away from the pool and our books (I read Tim Winton's Breath - wonderful - and am halfway through Marilynne Robinson's Gilead - completely stunningly brilliant).
In the course of our idling, we met three people and began to forge a relationship with each of them that threw up for me questions about how sharing our lives is a sharing of our faith, since that's what drives the way we live.
The last guy we met is called Nimal. He runs a turtle farm and we went as punters to see what he does. There are lots of turtle farms but his was the nearest - and hence the cheapest to get to by tuk tuk.
As he showed us round, it was clear that we were in the presence of a man of vision and passion and we connected. Our conversation strayed to his family and why he runs the farm, how he's funded and whether we could keep in touch. Having exchanged emails, we left feeling we had done more than visit a tourist attraction.
Our tuk tuk driver that morning was by a strange coincidence also called Nimal. We'd met him the previous day when we'd come out of our hotel needing a trishaw to take us to the police station to report a theft (more on that later). There were lots of tuk tuk drivers vying for trade, Nimal's red trishaw was on the opposite side of the road, facing the wrong way and yet it was eye that I caught.
This quickly turned out to be a good thing since he spoke really good English. Having got us to and from the police station, we agreed to have him come in the morning to take us to a couple of attractions beyond walking distance (a temple and the turtle farm).
Again, we connected as we chatted about our lives. One question we often asked people in Hikkaduwa is whether they were around during the tsunami time and what happened to them. For Nimal the turtle farm owner, it meant the loss of significant parts of his family, though he himself was in Colombo on the fateful day.
For Nimal our tuk tuk driver, it meant anxious hours searing for his wife and her mother who'd been at the market. He says that God spared them - interesting language from a Sri Lankan Buddhist who technically doesn't believe in an interventionist God. We chatted about how he saw things, including his faith - we were standing on the shore at a Buddhist temple that has a prayer house on a tiny island about 100 metres off shore that many people were going to in a small boat.
Our conversation led to an invitation to go back to his house to meet his family and see how he's getting his life back together. Driving his tuk tuk means he's earning money that he's investing in developing his property. Now he has a house that he can rent out - he showed us round it and it's pretty decent, only lacking air conditioning. We'd seriously consider staying there next time we go - it would cost a seventh of the cost of our hotel!
As we drank tea and chatted with his daughter who's also learning English, looked round his rental property, made suggestions about how it could be more attractive to English tourists, I was aware that this was not the kind of transaction I normally have with a cab driver.
Finally, we reconnected with a seamstress called Kandy. We met her last time we were in Hikkaduwa and she was delighted to see us again. She and her husband had been injured in the tsunami and still need treatment on damaged limbs five years on. Their business was washed away and they've been building it back up ever since. We bought a few things - she insisted on giving a couple of items.
Then she invited us for tea and bananas at her home. So we went. She's living on the top floor of a rented ho
use with virtually no furniture and no windows or doors. We chatted about business, the lack of tourists, the trauma of the tsunami time, the difficulty that the poor and ordinary people (as she called them) have faced in the years since rebuilding their lives with very little outside help.
We were invited for dinner - fish curry, rice, vegetables - and continued the conversation, listening to Kandy tell her story and share her concerns. She has a son, who we also met, who works at an outdoor pursuits centre on the lake behind Hikkaduwa, particularly teaching people to kite surf. This is a family struggling to get on, facing all the pressures that families the world over face making ends meet, staying safe, trying to improve their lot and their lifestyle.
Not once with any of these people did we tell them we were Christians, try to share the gospel with them or suggest they go to church. We spent time - all too brief - listening to them tell their stories, offer hospitality, introduce their families and even share a little of their dreams for the future.
So what's missional about all this?
I don't have any answers about this beyond the really obvious observation that you can only share what's on your heart with someone that you have made a genuine connection with. Otherwise you sound like a double glazing salesman or the purveyor of one more bright idea to file alongside all the other information flooding into people's lives. Mission begins with entering another person's world, connecting with what they think and feel and inviting them to step into your world so they have a similar experience.
The question is why we can't make similar connections with our neighbours, people we see more often than those we meet on holiday?
We were on holiday, staying in a hotel that I'll blog about separately, using the pool, going out to restaurants in the evenings, doing a bit of site-seeing during the day when we could drag ourselves away from the pool and our books (I read Tim Winton's Breath - wonderful - and am halfway through Marilynne Robinson's Gilead - completely stunningly brilliant).
In the course of our idling, we met three people and began to forge a relationship with each of them that threw up for me questions about how sharing our lives is a sharing of our faith, since that's what drives the way we live.
The last guy we met is called Nimal. He runs a turtle farm and we went as punters to see what he does. There are lots of turtle farms but his was the nearest - and hence the cheapest to get to by tuk tuk.
As he showed us round, it was clear that we were in the presence of a man of vision and passion and we connected. Our conversation strayed to his family and why he runs the farm, how he's funded and whether we could keep in touch. Having exchanged emails, we left feeling we had done more than visit a tourist attraction.Our tuk tuk driver that morning was by a strange coincidence also called Nimal. We'd met him the previous day when we'd come out of our hotel needing a trishaw to take us to the police station to report a theft (more on that later). There were lots of tuk tuk drivers vying for trade, Nimal's red trishaw was on the opposite side of the road, facing the wrong way and yet it was eye that I caught.
This quickly turned out to be a good thing since he spoke really good English. Having got us to and from the police station, we agreed to have him come in the morning to take us to a couple of attractions beyond walking distance (a temple and the turtle farm).
Again, we connected as we chatted about our lives. One question we often asked people in Hikkaduwa is whether they were around during the tsunami time and what happened to them. For Nimal the turtle farm owner, it meant the loss of significant parts of his family, though he himself was in Colombo on the fateful day.
For Nimal our tuk tuk driver, it meant anxious hours searing for his wife and her mother who'd been at the market. He says that God spared them - interesting language from a Sri Lankan Buddhist who technically doesn't believe in an interventionist God. We chatted about how he saw things, including his faith - we were standing on the shore at a Buddhist temple that has a prayer house on a tiny island about 100 metres off shore that many people were going to in a small boat.
Our conversation led to an invitation to go back to his house to meet his family and see how he's getting his life back together. Driving his tuk tuk means he's earning money that he's investing in developing his property. Now he has a house that he can rent out - he showed us round it and it's pretty decent, only lacking air conditioning. We'd seriously consider staying there next time we go - it would cost a seventh of the cost of our hotel!As we drank tea and chatted with his daughter who's also learning English, looked round his rental property, made suggestions about how it could be more attractive to English tourists, I was aware that this was not the kind of transaction I normally have with a cab driver.
Finally, we reconnected with a seamstress called Kandy. We met her last time we were in Hikkaduwa and she was delighted to see us again. She and her husband had been injured in the tsunami and still need treatment on damaged limbs five years on. Their business was washed away and they've been building it back up ever since. We bought a few things - she insisted on giving a couple of items.
Then she invited us for tea and bananas at her home. So we went. She's living on the top floor of a rented ho
use with virtually no furniture and no windows or doors. We chatted about business, the lack of tourists, the trauma of the tsunami time, the difficulty that the poor and ordinary people (as she called them) have faced in the years since rebuilding their lives with very little outside help.We were invited for dinner - fish curry, rice, vegetables - and continued the conversation, listening to Kandy tell her story and share her concerns. She has a son, who we also met, who works at an outdoor pursuits centre on the lake behind Hikkaduwa, particularly teaching people to kite surf. This is a family struggling to get on, facing all the pressures that families the world over face making ends meet, staying safe, trying to improve their lot and their lifestyle.
Not once with any of these people did we tell them we were Christians, try to share the gospel with them or suggest they go to church. We spent time - all too brief - listening to them tell their stories, offer hospitality, introduce their families and even share a little of their dreams for the future.
So what's missional about all this?
I don't have any answers about this beyond the really obvious observation that you can only share what's on your heart with someone that you have made a genuine connection with. Otherwise you sound like a double glazing salesman or the purveyor of one more bright idea to file alongside all the other information flooding into people's lives. Mission begins with entering another person's world, connecting with what they think and feel and inviting them to step into your world so they have a similar experience.
The question is why we can't make similar connections with our neighbours, people we see more often than those we meet on holiday?
Friday, August 07, 2009
A hand for the drowning
In the midst of our languishing by the pool in Hikkaduwa last week, we had the opportunity to visit a project in Hambantota on the south coast of the island.
It's a pre-school and after school club run by a UK-based organisation that I don't normally have much time for. But this scheme is truly inspiring, fabulously well run and meeting a real need among some of the poorest children in the town.
Hambantota is where the current president hails from and the Chinese are there building a huge new port. Their workers live in a beautifully constructed temporary village with plant lined roads and air conditioning on the edge of the town (at the end of a new road they've also built which will join up with the toll highway under construction - also by the Chinese - that goes from Hambantota to Colombo).
The school serves the needs of a community of poor families who live behind the dunes on the shoreline. Those dunes saved the community from the worst effects of the tsunami; many others in the city, especially those at the Sunday market, weren't so lucky - the devastation was truly apocalyptic.
Fifty or so three to fives gather each day of the week for breakfast, structured play and learning, ending with lunch before going home. For most of them, it's the only really decent food they get. The workers say that when the kids arrive for breakfast on Monday, they are constantly emptying their plates and asking for more.
Having seen the end of the morning programme and helped to serve lunch, we went off to see the area they come from. There is an effort underway to replace their mud and wood houses with brick built ones but it's going off at half-cock. Terraces of houses (6-8 in a line) are being built by local builders who lack the skill and resources to do a decent job. Many of the would-be homes languish half finished because no one has the money to complete them. They are meant to be two-storey so they all have stairways leading to a hole in what is currently the roof, so none of them are water tight. They also lack windows and doors - though they are supposed to be coming.
But the real issue is water. The local authority owns the land the homes are on and they will supply a tap with a water meter for 15000 rupees (that's £78.23 at today's exchange rate). The authority will pay half that cost for each tap, leaving these abjectly poor people to find 7,500 rupees to make up the balance. You might as well ask them to deposit a million dollars in person on the moon!
So there are squabbles over water and people are left with the indignity of washing outside with their neighbours watching.
The authority has also said that no one can have an indoor kitchen. So most cook on open fires outside their wooden shacks. Some have begun to construct wooden lean-tos against their designated brick house to serve as a kitchen - with an open fire - as and when they move in.
The kids are lively, wide-eyed, craving attention. When they arrived at the project in January, they were all under-weight, averaging just 10 kilos, somewhat less than a well-fed three year old should weigh. The project aims to build them up physically as well as providing a grounding in education - maths, Sinhala and English, social skills and friendship. In many ways the project is a mirror of the pepe projects run by BMS in various places.
I came back to my relatively luxurious hotel full of awe and despair. This little project is a tiny boat in a rough sea of need. What made the despair deepen was seeing rich, sassy Sri Lankan young people, down from Colombo for the Hikkaduwa beach festival, drinking, smoking, playing with their mobiles and camcorders: it was hard to believe we were still in the same country.
It's a pre-school and after school club run by a UK-based organisation that I don't normally have much time for. But this scheme is truly inspiring, fabulously well run and meeting a real need among some of the poorest children in the town.
Hambantota is where the current president hails from and the Chinese are there building a huge new port. Their workers live in a beautifully constructed temporary village with plant lined roads and air conditioning on the edge of the town (at the end of a new road they've also built which will join up with the toll highway under construction - also by the Chinese - that goes from Hambantota to Colombo).
The school serves the needs of a community of poor families who live behind the dunes on the shoreline. Those dunes saved the community from the worst effects of the tsunami; many others in the city, especially those at the Sunday market, weren't so lucky - the devastation was truly apocalyptic.
Fifty or so three to fives gather each day of the week for breakfast, structured play and learning, ending with lunch before going home. For most of them, it's the only really decent food they get. The workers say that when the kids arrive for breakfast on Monday, they are constantly emptying their plates and asking for more.
Having seen the end of the morning programme and helped to serve lunch, we went off to see the area they come from. There is an effort underway to replace their mud and wood houses with brick built ones but it's going off at half-cock. Terraces of houses (6-8 in a line) are being built by local builders who lack the skill and resources to do a decent job. Many of the would-be homes languish half finished because no one has the money to complete them. They are meant to be two-storey so they all have stairways leading to a hole in what is currently the roof, so none of them are water tight. They also lack windows and doors - though they are supposed to be coming.
But the real issue is water. The local authority owns the land the homes are on and they will supply a tap with a water meter for 15000 rupees (that's £78.23 at today's exchange rate). The authority will pay half that cost for each tap, leaving these abjectly poor people to find 7,500 rupees to make up the balance. You might as well ask them to deposit a million dollars in person on the moon!
So there are squabbles over water and people are left with the indignity of washing outside with their neighbours watching.
The authority has also said that no one can have an indoor kitchen. So most cook on open fires outside their wooden shacks. Some have begun to construct wooden lean-tos against their designated brick house to serve as a kitchen - with an open fire - as and when they move in.
The kids are lively, wide-eyed, craving attention. When they arrived at the project in January, they were all under-weight, averaging just 10 kilos, somewhat less than a well-fed three year old should weigh. The project aims to build them up physically as well as providing a grounding in education - maths, Sinhala and English, social skills and friendship. In many ways the project is a mirror of the pepe projects run by BMS in various places.
I came back to my relatively luxurious hotel full of awe and despair. This little project is a tiny boat in a rough sea of need. What made the despair deepen was seeing rich, sassy Sri Lankan young people, down from Colombo for the Hikkaduwa beach festival, drinking, smoking, playing with their mobiles and camcorders: it was hard to believe we were still in the same country.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Touchdown
Back in blighty after 24 hours of travel yesterday. Knackered but in good heart!
I'll catch up with some final Sri Lanka reflections over the next couple of days.
I'll catch up with some final Sri Lanka reflections over the next couple of days.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Final day
Final day in Sri Lanka. I've got lots to catch you up with but that will have to wait our my arrival back in the UK.
For now, we're off to the Galle Face Hotel for high tea - very civilised. As I said in an earlier post, my mother used to dance and drink G+ts when she was stationed here during the war. So I go in memory of her.
Then tomorrow our flight is early and gets back to Heathrow late the same day - though we lose five and a half hours along the way, so it'll be a bit of a marathon
For now, we're off to the Galle Face Hotel for high tea - very civilised. As I said in an earlier post, my mother used to dance and drink G+ts when she was stationed here during the war. So I go in memory of her.
Then tomorrow our flight is early and gets back to Heathrow late the same day - though we lose five and a half hours along the way, so it'll be a bit of a marathon
Monday, July 27, 2009
Reflections on the state of things
We had a lovely evening last Friday with the principal and his wife. It was interesting and inspiring to hear his testimony and his take on the college and the state of theological education here. He's keen to improve what the college is doing for its students which he believes this in turn will strengthen the Sri Lankan church at a time when it really needs strengthening.
He was sharing that having come to faith in the assemblies of God, a church that he still serves, he has found the spirituality of the churches here generally here to be thin. This particularly came home to him when he spent a year at St John’s College, Nottingham and was introduced to other forms of spirituality and liturgical traditions.
It reminded me of a conversation that I had had with a Swiss guy who studied with me both weeks – a glutton for punishment! He’d been asking me whether I thought it appropriate to introduce western theological ideas that could undermine or unsettle people’s faith in the simple scriptures. I can see his point – up to a point.
But Sri Lanka (like most developing nations) is actually awash with ideas and ‘theologies’ from the western church that are no more appropriate here than they are anywhere. So Hillsongs is where it’s at in terms of worship, theological and spiritual support for the state of Israel is a given (odd in a country that is politically seeking alliances with the gulf states and Iran!), and charismatic ministry and prayer styles derived from South Korea are de rigueur.
So the question is not shall we bring ‘western’ ideas – they are here whether we want them or not. And every month one international ministry or another pitches its tent announcing that it is introducing the next wave we've all got to ride. The question is what kind of thinking will strengthen and build the Sri Lankan church? Answering that is a much more subtle affair.
One of the answers I gave my Swiss friend was that I see a huge need for a church leadership that is able to think, to discern what is right and what is wrong, what will help their church and what won’t. My hope is that in a tiny way what I was teaching about the New Testament might help students to see that there are other biblical ways of approaching these issues that might just help them to reflect on their situations and what the scripture is saying about them.
Just like the UK church, the church here is prone to leap on whatever bandwagon is passing. Undoubtedly some churches are growing. But it's worth asking whether current approaches to worship and mission will make significant inroads into the Buddhist community - the evidence seems to suggest not yet.
Unlike the UK church there seems to be a correlation between theology and the funding of work over here. Support for Israel could be a product of the fact that American fundamentalists spend a lot of dollars keeping things going here. And he who pays the piper picks the tune.
Independence of thought and genuinely contextualised theology and church structures are vital for the Christian community if it's going to make Jesus known in ways that appeal to all sections of Sri Lankan society.
And a really cool thing to finish with: One of my students last week is the coach of the Sri Lankan rugby union team. No, I didn’t know they had one either. Apparently, they play in the Asian Five Nations and everything. He's a South African who played his club rugby at Richmond and in the Irish republic. He’s a really nice guy, taking the course to improve his knowledge. Let’s hope it works - though I'm not sure it'll improve his team's performance on the field!
He was sharing that having come to faith in the assemblies of God, a church that he still serves, he has found the spirituality of the churches here generally here to be thin. This particularly came home to him when he spent a year at St John’s College, Nottingham and was introduced to other forms of spirituality and liturgical traditions.
It reminded me of a conversation that I had had with a Swiss guy who studied with me both weeks – a glutton for punishment! He’d been asking me whether I thought it appropriate to introduce western theological ideas that could undermine or unsettle people’s faith in the simple scriptures. I can see his point – up to a point.
But Sri Lanka (like most developing nations) is actually awash with ideas and ‘theologies’ from the western church that are no more appropriate here than they are anywhere. So Hillsongs is where it’s at in terms of worship, theological and spiritual support for the state of Israel is a given (odd in a country that is politically seeking alliances with the gulf states and Iran!), and charismatic ministry and prayer styles derived from South Korea are de rigueur.
So the question is not shall we bring ‘western’ ideas – they are here whether we want them or not. And every month one international ministry or another pitches its tent announcing that it is introducing the next wave we've all got to ride. The question is what kind of thinking will strengthen and build the Sri Lankan church? Answering that is a much more subtle affair.
One of the answers I gave my Swiss friend was that I see a huge need for a church leadership that is able to think, to discern what is right and what is wrong, what will help their church and what won’t. My hope is that in a tiny way what I was teaching about the New Testament might help students to see that there are other biblical ways of approaching these issues that might just help them to reflect on their situations and what the scripture is saying about them.
Just like the UK church, the church here is prone to leap on whatever bandwagon is passing. Undoubtedly some churches are growing. But it's worth asking whether current approaches to worship and mission will make significant inroads into the Buddhist community - the evidence seems to suggest not yet.
Unlike the UK church there seems to be a correlation between theology and the funding of work over here. Support for Israel could be a product of the fact that American fundamentalists spend a lot of dollars keeping things going here. And he who pays the piper picks the tune.
Independence of thought and genuinely contextualised theology and church structures are vital for the Christian community if it's going to make Jesus known in ways that appeal to all sections of Sri Lankan society.
And a really cool thing to finish with: One of my students last week is the coach of the Sri Lankan rugby union team. No, I didn’t know they had one either. Apparently, they play in the Asian Five Nations and everything. He's a South African who played his club rugby at Richmond and in the Irish republic. He’s a really nice guy, taking the course to improve his knowledge. Let’s hope it works - though I'm not sure it'll improve his team's performance on the field!
Mixing with the chic and the fancy
Just got back from shopping at Paradise Road and Odel - these are the two coolest retail places in Colombo. But, my, how they've changed.
I remember going to both in 1999 on my first visit here. Paradise Road sold locally-made arts and crafts, fabrics and candles and smelly things (a bit like the Pier only more authentically Sri Lankan), while Odel sold over-runs of clothes made here for the likes of Gap, M&S, Tommy Hilfiger and others.
Now both stores are brands in their own right. Paradise Road still sells Sri Lankan-made arts and crafts, ceramics, cloth and pictures, but it also has complete kitchen ranges and dinner services in lovely pure white porcelain. It's the kind of place where you'd have your wedding list - and I suspect one or two of the young couples I saw in there this morning were putting one of those together.
Odel has become a mall selling clothes, jewelry, shoes and accessories -many of them at prices that wouldn't be out of place in Harrods. It's busy with chic Sri Lankans and tourists but it's lost something of its character.
I guess both places indicate something of Sri Lanka's development over the past decade. Despite the war, it has been doing OK with garment making for many major brands as well as tourist industry that, judging by the number of new hotels going up in Colombo alone, can't doing that badly.
We'll see what effect the recent granting of an IMF loan will have. Chances are that stringent enforcement of market mechanisms by the IMF will send the cost of basics - like fuel oil, grains, especially rice - through the roof. At the same time the rupee will fall on the open market - assuming the IMF insists that the Government can no longer artificially peg it to the dollar.
The chic in Odel might be OK. The rest of the population could feel quite a pinch.
I remember going to both in 1999 on my first visit here. Paradise Road sold locally-made arts and crafts, fabrics and candles and smelly things (a bit like the Pier only more authentically Sri Lankan), while Odel sold over-runs of clothes made here for the likes of Gap, M&S, Tommy Hilfiger and others.
Now both stores are brands in their own right. Paradise Road still sells Sri Lankan-made arts and crafts, ceramics, cloth and pictures, but it also has complete kitchen ranges and dinner services in lovely pure white porcelain. It's the kind of place where you'd have your wedding list - and I suspect one or two of the young couples I saw in there this morning were putting one of those together.
Odel has become a mall selling clothes, jewelry, shoes and accessories -many of them at prices that wouldn't be out of place in Harrods. It's busy with chic Sri Lankans and tourists but it's lost something of its character.
I guess both places indicate something of Sri Lanka's development over the past decade. Despite the war, it has been doing OK with garment making for many major brands as well as tourist industry that, judging by the number of new hotels going up in Colombo alone, can't doing that badly.
We'll see what effect the recent granting of an IMF loan will have. Chances are that stringent enforcement of market mechanisms by the IMF will send the cost of basics - like fuel oil, grains, especially rice - through the roof. At the same time the rupee will fall on the open market - assuming the IMF insists that the Government can no longer artificially peg it to the dollar.
The chic in Odel might be OK. The rest of the population could feel quite a pinch.
The difference in Colombo
Back in Colombo. As you drive down from Peredeniya, which is only a couple of kilometers from Kandy, to Colombo, you feel the temperature rising. By the time you hit the Colombo suburbs, it's a good 10 degrees Celsius hotter than up country.
Colombo is also noticeable for three other things: the traffic, security and Chinese road builders.
The Colombo traffic is permanently heavy, as though anyone who has a car just loves to be out in it, sitting in the semi-chaos, sounding their horns. Trishaws, buses, lorries and vans compete with cars and bikes and a new phenomenon - 4x4s: there seem many more of these leviathans on Colombo's roads than even three years ago when I was last here. Maybe it's a sign of rising prosperity for some.
Security is much more noticeable in Colombo than elsewhere in the country. On many street corners heavily armed soldiers stand and watch, various buildings have guards posted, some in sand-bagged constructed machine gun posts. Some roads around government buildings are closed; others have been made one way. Occasionally the checkpoints on the edge of the city pull you over to check your identity - though vehicles with foreigners tend not to be stopped.
The Chinese are here are building all sorts of things. The road coming in from Kandy is being widened by gangs of Chinese workers with sparkling new equipment. This is part of China's investment in the country, which includes a new port near Galle. Again, this is a sign of rising prosperity for some.
Around the Galle Face Hotel, complexes of apartments and hotels, with restaurants and leisure clubs, as well as the ubiquitous shopping malls are going up faster than in the gulf states. The skyline in this part of the city will resemble Dubai in no time at all. The question is: who is all this building for? How many of Colombo's current residences can afford to live in such places? As we sat in an Italian restaurant last night, eating reasonable versions of Italian dishes, all the diners, bar one couple, appeared to be foreign, many eating alone on a Sunday evening, indicating that they were business people staying upstairs, here for meetings and deals.
This country feels that is on the cusp of something. Let's pray that it'll be good for all its people.
Colombo is also noticeable for three other things: the traffic, security and Chinese road builders.
The Colombo traffic is permanently heavy, as though anyone who has a car just loves to be out in it, sitting in the semi-chaos, sounding their horns. Trishaws, buses, lorries and vans compete with cars and bikes and a new phenomenon - 4x4s: there seem many more of these leviathans on Colombo's roads than even three years ago when I was last here. Maybe it's a sign of rising prosperity for some.
Security is much more noticeable in Colombo than elsewhere in the country. On many street corners heavily armed soldiers stand and watch, various buildings have guards posted, some in sand-bagged constructed machine gun posts. Some roads around government buildings are closed; others have been made one way. Occasionally the checkpoints on the edge of the city pull you over to check your identity - though vehicles with foreigners tend not to be stopped.
The Chinese are here are building all sorts of things. The road coming in from Kandy is being widened by gangs of Chinese workers with sparkling new equipment. This is part of China's investment in the country, which includes a new port near Galle. Again, this is a sign of rising prosperity for some.
Around the Galle Face Hotel, complexes of apartments and hotels, with restaurants and leisure clubs, as well as the ubiquitous shopping malls are going up faster than in the gulf states. The skyline in this part of the city will resemble Dubai in no time at all. The question is: who is all this building for? How many of Colombo's current residences can afford to live in such places? As we sat in an Italian restaurant last night, eating reasonable versions of Italian dishes, all the diners, bar one couple, appeared to be foreign, many eating alone on a Sunday evening, indicating that they were business people staying upstairs, here for meetings and deals.
This country feels that is on the cusp of something. Let's pray that it'll be good for all its people.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A meeting over the tracks
At the end of my second of week of teaching, I'm feeling a little knackered!
We've been at Perandeniya this week. I say we because Linda and Liv joined me on Tuesday which is great. Their train was delayed by two hours - which wasn't!
The week has been generally good but hard. The students on BTh course are not as competent in English as the MDiv students which makes teaching more challenging. Even more of a challenge is grading papers. I have 25 exam papers to mark this afternoon - blogging is a welcome relief!
Today we went to the elephant orphanage at peniwalla which was fabulous. It was our second visit but Liv's not been before. It's great to large numbers of these amazing animals up close.
While waiting for Linda and Liv's train on Tuesday, a man from another delayed train – one that had been shunted into a siding and all-but abandoned there – came across the tracks to ask what was happening. He looked up from the tracks and asked in Sinhala. I apologised for not speaking his language, so he spoke mine. I explained what was going on as far as I understood it – there had been no announcements over the public address system, no word shouted by station staff to the stranded passengers.
We then got talking about Sri Lanka. He was in the hotel business – as far as I could make out, his family owned a hotel – and he was worried about the world economy and the effect of the war on tourism. He kept asking whether I liked his country. It felt as though he thought I might be the key to its economic turnaround, my tourist rupees alone would cause an upturn! It was an interesting conversation. There was something desperate in his tone, as if he wanted to see his country’s fortunes restored but despaired of them having the wherewithal to do it.
This place is full of such chance meetings.
We've been at Perandeniya this week. I say we because Linda and Liv joined me on Tuesday which is great. Their train was delayed by two hours - which wasn't!
The week has been generally good but hard. The students on BTh course are not as competent in English as the MDiv students which makes teaching more challenging. Even more of a challenge is grading papers. I have 25 exam papers to mark this afternoon - blogging is a welcome relief!
Today we went to the elephant orphanage at peniwalla which was fabulous. It was our second visit but Liv's not been before. It's great to large numbers of these amazing animals up close.
While waiting for Linda and Liv's train on Tuesday, a man from another delayed train – one that had been shunted into a siding and all-but abandoned there – came across the tracks to ask what was happening. He looked up from the tracks and asked in Sinhala. I apologised for not speaking his language, so he spoke mine. I explained what was going on as far as I understood it – there had been no announcements over the public address system, no word shouted by station staff to the stranded passengers.
We then got talking about Sri Lanka. He was in the hotel business – as far as I could make out, his family owned a hotel – and he was worried about the world economy and the effect of the war on tourism. He kept asking whether I liked his country. It felt as though he thought I might be the key to its economic turnaround, my tourist rupees alone would cause an upturn! It was an interesting conversation. There was something desperate in his tone, as if he wanted to see his country’s fortunes restored but despaired of them having the wherewithal to do it.
This place is full of such chance meetings.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Completing the first stage
My first week of teaching yesterday afternoon. I bade a tearful farewell to all my students and then went off to meet an old friend. The students seemed to appreciate the course. They worked pretty hard and joined in class discussion. All the first assignments were way beyond what I was expecting and indicated wide reading, good thinking and the desire to reflect on how this applied personally and to their ministries.
The old friend I met yesterday runs a micro finance project here that now has 4000 project holders and has contributed seven billion rupees to Sri Lanka's GDP. As he says 'not bad for something that started with 200 rupees and faith'!
He spells faith r-i-s-k and is continually putting himself on the line so that the poor on this island get a shot at living. He's one the most inspiring people I know,
Today I'm off to buy a motor bike for another friend who's current bike is clapped out and unroadworthy. I've never bought a motor bike before, so this should be fun.
Tomorrow, it's off to Kandy. Not sure what the internet access will be like up there, so blogging might become a bit light.
The old friend I met yesterday runs a micro finance project here that now has 4000 project holders and has contributed seven billion rupees to Sri Lanka's GDP. As he says 'not bad for something that started with 200 rupees and faith'!
He spells faith r-i-s-k and is continually putting himself on the line so that the poor on this island get a shot at living. He's one the most inspiring people I know,
Today I'm off to buy a motor bike for another friend who's current bike is clapped out and unroadworthy. I've never bought a motor bike before, so this should be fun.
Tomorrow, it's off to Kandy. Not sure what the internet access will be like up there, so blogging might become a bit light.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Trouble with the air con has me camping out
Yesterday evening disappeared in a blur, I'm afraid. It was a busy day and I think I was feeling tired. So here we are - Thursday and that's almost over (at least for me!)
Today opened with torrential rain turning travel round Colombo into chaos. So lots of students were late and dripping when they did get here. But one had stopped off to buy me fruit - how sweet is that? people here are like that.
It was the day of the class photo which was a wonderfully shambolic affair with one of the college handy men standing on a chair taking three pictures on each of about ten different types of digital cameras. Not surprisingly, it took an age to get through - prolonged by lots of fooling around and gales of laughter from all round the room - and no one felt like being photographed by the end.
The rain affected the air conditioning in my room which means I can't sleep in it tonight as it's stiflingly hot. So I am camping out in the faculty office where the air con is so fierce I might need to sleep in a coat! Unlikely. It just makes it very much more comfortable.
So, my nightly routine will be a bit different tonight. But it will end as it has most evenings this week with the final few tracks of Leonard Cohen’s wonderfully uplifting live at the O2 album. It has become my lights out music – two prayers, great playing, the Webb sisters and his voice like angel wings brushing against granite filling the darkness with a sublime wonder. You can't ask for more really!
Tomorrow I'll be catching up with an old Sri Lankan friend and seeing his new office which will be great fun. It's also the last day of lectures with this group - though I discovered that one of them, a Swiss guy who's studying over here, is coming to Kandy to do my course next week. Now he is some glutton for punishment! I'll be sorry to see them go - though I have their assignments to look forward to - because they've been a good group, lively, engaging, wanting to talk, full of questions, keen to learn and aching to be useful to God.
One guy - who really struggles with his English and was deeply apologetic about that - works in the East of the island with displaced people, bringing them aid and the gospel. He spends three months at a time literally camping out, with no air con or creature comforts, sharing God's love and what practical support he can with the people worst affected by the war, those who've lost absolutely everything. He's the reason I'm here. If I can encourage him half as much as hearing his story has encouraged me, then that's worth the air fare - and camping out in the faculty office.
Today opened with torrential rain turning travel round Colombo into chaos. So lots of students were late and dripping when they did get here. But one had stopped off to buy me fruit - how sweet is that? people here are like that.
It was the day of the class photo which was a wonderfully shambolic affair with one of the college handy men standing on a chair taking three pictures on each of about ten different types of digital cameras. Not surprisingly, it took an age to get through - prolonged by lots of fooling around and gales of laughter from all round the room - and no one felt like being photographed by the end.
The rain affected the air conditioning in my room which means I can't sleep in it tonight as it's stiflingly hot. So I am camping out in the faculty office where the air con is so fierce I might need to sleep in a coat! Unlikely. It just makes it very much more comfortable.
So, my nightly routine will be a bit different tonight. But it will end as it has most evenings this week with the final few tracks of Leonard Cohen’s wonderfully uplifting live at the O2 album. It has become my lights out music – two prayers, great playing, the Webb sisters and his voice like angel wings brushing against granite filling the darkness with a sublime wonder. You can't ask for more really!
Tomorrow I'll be catching up with an old Sri Lankan friend and seeing his new office which will be great fun. It's also the last day of lectures with this group - though I discovered that one of them, a Swiss guy who's studying over here, is coming to Kandy to do my course next week. Now he is some glutton for punishment! I'll be sorry to see them go - though I have their assignments to look forward to - because they've been a good group, lively, engaging, wanting to talk, full of questions, keen to learn and aching to be useful to God.
One guy - who really struggles with his English and was deeply apologetic about that - works in the East of the island with displaced people, bringing them aid and the gospel. He spends three months at a time literally camping out, with no air con or creature comforts, sharing God's love and what practical support he can with the people worst affected by the war, those who've lost absolutely everything. He's the reason I'm here. If I can encourage him half as much as hearing his story has encouraged me, then that's worth the air fare - and camping out in the faculty office.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
What a great job for a boy!
Two posts today as it's Sunday (to make up for no posting yesterday!)
I had lunch at the Galle Face Hotel today. This is one of the most civilised experiences to be had on planet earth. The atmosphere is distinctly old colonial, the service is friendly and unassuming – and completely wonderful. The food is great and the view is to die for. 50 feet from our table the rollers crashed on the beach in the bright sunshine.
My mother danced and drank G+ts here during the war. Her memories of it right up to her death were fond and vivid. I always visit when I'm here.
I was hosted by a charming couple and the family matriarch, a dominant force in Sri Lankan Baptist life who is also a vice president of BWA. She is lovely, great company, full of conversation – even waxed lyrical about how amazing Michael Jackson was having watched his memorial service on CNN – but I imagine she is not someone to mess with.
He spoke of his parents coming to dances here at the Galle Face in the 1940s - who knows maybe they met my mum. The couple also had their wedding reception here many years ago.
At the Galle Face they employ a boy (he looked no older than 16), dressed in waiter’s uniform, complete with bow tie and starched shirt, who’s sole job is keep the crows off the guests. To do this, he is armed with a sturdy catapult and he spends his time patrolling the grass by the veranda aiming at crows and occasionally letting off whatever ammunition it is he fires. What a great job for a boy of a certain age! I have to say, he didn’t look too happy – the task is hot and somewhat unrewarding.
This evening I spoke at a seminar at William's church for young couples on family life. I spoke for 40 minutes (William took half that time translating) and then was questioned for an hour and a half. They asked some pretty searching questions. It was a hot and stimulating evening - once again rounded off with great food.
I got back to the college thinking I have a pretty great assignment at the moment (as people keep calling it here). It's a huge privilege to share the lives of these lovely people and have a modest input into their development as disciples. Tomorrow the assignment begins in earnest - 17 MDiv students for a week immersing ourselves in the social history of the New Testament. How cool is that!
I had lunch at the Galle Face Hotel today. This is one of the most civilised experiences to be had on planet earth. The atmosphere is distinctly old colonial, the service is friendly and unassuming – and completely wonderful. The food is great and the view is to die for. 50 feet from our table the rollers crashed on the beach in the bright sunshine.
My mother danced and drank G+ts here during the war. Her memories of it right up to her death were fond and vivid. I always visit when I'm here.
I was hosted by a charming couple and the family matriarch, a dominant force in Sri Lankan Baptist life who is also a vice president of BWA. She is lovely, great company, full of conversation – even waxed lyrical about how amazing Michael Jackson was having watched his memorial service on CNN – but I imagine she is not someone to mess with.
He spoke of his parents coming to dances here at the Galle Face in the 1940s - who knows maybe they met my mum. The couple also had their wedding reception here many years ago.
At the Galle Face they employ a boy (he looked no older than 16), dressed in waiter’s uniform, complete with bow tie and starched shirt, who’s sole job is keep the crows off the guests. To do this, he is armed with a sturdy catapult and he spends his time patrolling the grass by the veranda aiming at crows and occasionally letting off whatever ammunition it is he fires. What a great job for a boy of a certain age! I have to say, he didn’t look too happy – the task is hot and somewhat unrewarding.
This evening I spoke at a seminar at William's church for young couples on family life. I spoke for 40 minutes (William took half that time translating) and then was questioned for an hour and a half. They asked some pretty searching questions. It was a hot and stimulating evening - once again rounded off with great food.
I got back to the college thinking I have a pretty great assignment at the moment (as people keep calling it here). It's a huge privilege to share the lives of these lovely people and have a modest input into their development as disciples. Tomorrow the assignment begins in earnest - 17 MDiv students for a week immersing ourselves in the social history of the New Testament. How cool is that!
Lessons in hospitality and endurance
As I walked by the sea yesterday afternoon, passing rows of broken buildings, a woman hailed me. People often shout hello as you pass by – it’s all the English they know. But this woman called me over asking ‘how are you? Do you live here or visit our country?’ She asked whether I liked Sri Lanka, how long I was staying, what I had come to do, had I been before. She understood all I said in response. She offered me food but I declined because I had to get back to the college (and didn’t want to contract anything, frankly).
But we started talking about tsunami time and I asked whether she’d been in her home when it came. They had run. And lived – all of them, even their small children (one a dot in nothing but her pants was running in and out of what’s left of the back of their home.
She invited me to look round. There wasn’t much to see. Two rooms still had something approaching a roof on it (that's where all the family slept), the rest are open to the elements save for a bit of plastic sheeting tied to the jagged top of the brick work – where the original roof had been torn off in the storm.
I asked why she’s had no assistance from the government. ‘because they been fighting the war, against the tigers. But now we won, help will come. It take long time cause we poor country.’ She is fiercely loyal to her government; their victory is her victory, proud, no doubt, of the banners flying not far away from her home lauding the triumph of the government forces over the terrorist tigers.
But what kind of government keeps it’s loyal people hanging on so long? And how long will she have to wait for the government to finally act on her behalf? And will it insist that she move the other side of the railway line, away from the sea, where her husband ekes out a meagre living as a fisherman?
The 500 rupees I gave her toddler ‘for milk’ (about £2.50) seemed more insult than charity or act of good will. He kid’s face lit up and she beamed a thank you before running off behind a wall where another family member was washing clothes.
If I lived here (grand gesture time…), I think I’d be wanting my church to visit, to assess what could usefully and helpfully be done for these people with them setting the agenda for the kind of assistance they want. I’d like to take William and Gary to visit. I’ve no doubt they’ll tell me that there are hundreds like this family and this little community on the other side of the tracks from relatively prosperous-seeming Dehiwala.
I feel helpless and guilty in the face of such need. I wouldn’t last a night in that house. And having had the sea come and attack me, rip the heart out of my community, tear the roof off my home, how could I lie awake at night and listen to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach 20 feet away from where my head was?
She asked me what I liked about Sri Lanka ‘is it the always smiling people?’ she asked. That’s certainly a big part of it. I left her on the step thanking me for stopping by, hoping I’ll visit again and smiling broadly as I went off along the beach. I’m not sure how or what I feel.
But we started talking about tsunami time and I asked whether she’d been in her home when it came. They had run. And lived – all of them, even their small children (one a dot in nothing but her pants was running in and out of what’s left of the back of their home.
She invited me to look round. There wasn’t much to see. Two rooms still had something approaching a roof on it (that's where all the family slept), the rest are open to the elements save for a bit of plastic sheeting tied to the jagged top of the brick work – where the original roof had been torn off in the storm.
I asked why she’s had no assistance from the government. ‘because they been fighting the war, against the tigers. But now we won, help will come. It take long time cause we poor country.’ She is fiercely loyal to her government; their victory is her victory, proud, no doubt, of the banners flying not far away from her home lauding the triumph of the government forces over the terrorist tigers.
But what kind of government keeps it’s loyal people hanging on so long? And how long will she have to wait for the government to finally act on her behalf? And will it insist that she move the other side of the railway line, away from the sea, where her husband ekes out a meagre living as a fisherman?
The 500 rupees I gave her toddler ‘for milk’ (about £2.50) seemed more insult than charity or act of good will. He kid’s face lit up and she beamed a thank you before running off behind a wall where another family member was washing clothes.
If I lived here (grand gesture time…), I think I’d be wanting my church to visit, to assess what could usefully and helpfully be done for these people with them setting the agenda for the kind of assistance they want. I’d like to take William and Gary to visit. I’ve no doubt they’ll tell me that there are hundreds like this family and this little community on the other side of the tracks from relatively prosperous-seeming Dehiwala.
I feel helpless and guilty in the face of such need. I wouldn’t last a night in that house. And having had the sea come and attack me, rip the heart out of my community, tear the roof off my home, how could I lie awake at night and listen to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach 20 feet away from where my head was?
She asked me what I liked about Sri Lanka ‘is it the always smiling people?’ she asked. That’s certainly a big part of it. I left her on the step thanking me for stopping by, hoping I’ll visit again and smiling broadly as I went off along the beach. I’m not sure how or what I feel.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sweating over discipleship
Spoke at a seminar for Baptist Christians this morning on discipleship. About 60 or so came and listened, joined in with questions and then had lunch together.
It went well. William was translating for me and did an excellent job. I found myself slipping into a rhythm of speaking in sentences without sub-clauses. And while it felt a little stilted, I did feel myself able to focus better and not stray from the point buoyed along by my oratory or flights of fancy.
I do feel sheepish about teaching Sri Lankans about discipleship, however. it seems to me we've a lot to learn from their grasp of the Gospel and commitment to Jesus. I found the question and answer time very challenging and have come away with a lot to process.
What I was reminded of, however, is that there is a lot of nominalism in the church over here. There are still good numbers of people who go to church because it's the thing to do, what their family has always done, where they meet their friends, etc.
Time and again I was asked about how we help, encourage or cajole people to take Jesus more seriously. I said all the obvious things in answer but came away thinking that exactly the same issues beset us in the UK; our churches are awash with Sunday Christians who seemingly want nothing to do with Jesus during the rest of the week.
John was right in his letters to the seven churches in Revelation to stress that apathy was a bigger killer of Christian commitment than persecution. It was then. It is now. And it is no respecter of national boundaries or cultures.
It went well. William was translating for me and did an excellent job. I found myself slipping into a rhythm of speaking in sentences without sub-clauses. And while it felt a little stilted, I did feel myself able to focus better and not stray from the point buoyed along by my oratory or flights of fancy.
I do feel sheepish about teaching Sri Lankans about discipleship, however. it seems to me we've a lot to learn from their grasp of the Gospel and commitment to Jesus. I found the question and answer time very challenging and have come away with a lot to process.
What I was reminded of, however, is that there is a lot of nominalism in the church over here. There are still good numbers of people who go to church because it's the thing to do, what their family has always done, where they meet their friends, etc.
Time and again I was asked about how we help, encourage or cajole people to take Jesus more seriously. I said all the obvious things in answer but came away thinking that exactly the same issues beset us in the UK; our churches are awash with Sunday Christians who seemingly want nothing to do with Jesus during the rest of the week.
John was right in his letters to the seven churches in Revelation to stress that apathy was a bigger killer of Christian commitment than persecution. It was then. It is now. And it is no respecter of national boundaries or cultures.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Day 2 in the Sri Lanka house
Just been for a mid-afternoon stroll to the very hot sunshine to the sea. It’s about a quarter of a mile and half a world away. Down the commercial street with shops at the top, a Dutch reformed church midway down, a couple of banks, rows of buses and tuk-tuks (trishaws – the main taxi) and you reach Dehiwala station – a raised concrete platform with a sign in the middle of the railway tracks. There’s a building in the centre of it where the staff sit and people can buy tickets.
There are groups of mainly men and gaggles of young people walking each way on the tracks. Then on the other side of the tracks between the station and breaking rollers is a fishing community, living in the still-broken remnants of homes smashed in the boxing day tsunami of 2004.
Bright blue signs in Sinhalese, Tamil and English with a bold graphic indicate one’s evacuation route should the sea come again with the ferocity it did on that day. That’s all the evidence there is down here of the government having spent any cash; all except a rather oddly-placed, barbed-wire surrounded outpost of the military with a couple of young soldiers passing the time with a group of equally young men on the other side of the wire.
The people live in homes that look as if they’ve gone the distance with Godzilla and King Kong. Tiled areas indicate where there was once a brick house. Some structures have part of the brick work in tack, the rest of the home being made of sheets of plastic, discarded advertising hoardings promoting fashionable menswear.
Families sit on plastic furniture, half in and half out of these structures. Here, a woman sorts laundry that’s hanging between walls made of pallets; there, a man washing through some clothes; in the distance another tends to his boat’s out-board engine; and everywhere, children play, jumping, hiding and giggling.
It’s hard not to feel a furious rage at the indifference of a government that seems able to man endless checkpoints around the city and pay for vast numbers of billboards everywhere lauding it’s victory in the recent war. In a bid to be fair, it is a poor country and it has been ravaged by a cruel and senseless war (aren’t they all? This one more than most, fuelled by the desire to atomise an already tiny living space, along ethnic, cultural and religious lines, pluralism in action, some might say; human sinfulness and the arrogance of power, some might reply; and so the argument goes on).
Surely somewhere the pittance can be found that would give these people decent hovels in which to live, where they can be near the sea that is their livelihood and rail track that takes their catch to markets along the lines. Surely somewhere the will raise these people’s lives above this level of destitution in a country that is showing signs of prosperity in other places can be found.
I was with my friend, William, earlier today. He’s been involved with a similar fishing village down the coast, near his church, since the tsunami (interestingly, Sri Lankans speak of the tsunami time; sentences often contain the phrase ‘in the tsunami time’). The reconstruction, which was still going on last we visited, has now finished. He’s promised to take me, which will be great. He’s done a wonderful job bringing this community together, helping them to rebuild as they wanted to, offering support with local officials, still there after the aid caravan has long since rolled on. Not surprisingly, some of the families have started coming to his church.
Just behind the beach community, on the other side of the railway track, a 122 appartment block is being built. I can see it from my room at the college, a concrete colossus, wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. It boasts parking and a rooftop swimming pool. It's owners will be able to look down on the shattered fishing community atthe end of a busy day.
There are groups of mainly men and gaggles of young people walking each way on the tracks. Then on the other side of the tracks between the station and breaking rollers is a fishing community, living in the still-broken remnants of homes smashed in the boxing day tsunami of 2004.
Bright blue signs in Sinhalese, Tamil and English with a bold graphic indicate one’s evacuation route should the sea come again with the ferocity it did on that day. That’s all the evidence there is down here of the government having spent any cash; all except a rather oddly-placed, barbed-wire surrounded outpost of the military with a couple of young soldiers passing the time with a group of equally young men on the other side of the wire.
The people live in homes that look as if they’ve gone the distance with Godzilla and King Kong. Tiled areas indicate where there was once a brick house. Some structures have part of the brick work in tack, the rest of the home being made of sheets of plastic, discarded advertising hoardings promoting fashionable menswear.
Families sit on plastic furniture, half in and half out of these structures. Here, a woman sorts laundry that’s hanging between walls made of pallets; there, a man washing through some clothes; in the distance another tends to his boat’s out-board engine; and everywhere, children play, jumping, hiding and giggling.
It’s hard not to feel a furious rage at the indifference of a government that seems able to man endless checkpoints around the city and pay for vast numbers of billboards everywhere lauding it’s victory in the recent war. In a bid to be fair, it is a poor country and it has been ravaged by a cruel and senseless war (aren’t they all? This one more than most, fuelled by the desire to atomise an already tiny living space, along ethnic, cultural and religious lines, pluralism in action, some might say; human sinfulness and the arrogance of power, some might reply; and so the argument goes on).
Surely somewhere the pittance can be found that would give these people decent hovels in which to live, where they can be near the sea that is their livelihood and rail track that takes their catch to markets along the lines. Surely somewhere the will raise these people’s lives above this level of destitution in a country that is showing signs of prosperity in other places can be found.
I was with my friend, William, earlier today. He’s been involved with a similar fishing village down the coast, near his church, since the tsunami (interestingly, Sri Lankans speak of the tsunami time; sentences often contain the phrase ‘in the tsunami time’). The reconstruction, which was still going on last we visited, has now finished. He’s promised to take me, which will be great. He’s done a wonderful job bringing this community together, helping them to rebuild as they wanted to, offering support with local officials, still there after the aid caravan has long since rolled on. Not surprisingly, some of the families have started coming to his church.
Just behind the beach community, on the other side of the railway track, a 122 appartment block is being built. I can see it from my room at the college, a concrete colossus, wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. It boasts parking and a rooftop swimming pool. It's owners will be able to look down on the shattered fishing community atthe end of a busy day.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Touch down
Arrived safely and have been welcomed by folk at the college. Internet access is good and plentiful at the moment. So, here's an account of my trip....
Uneventful departure from a wet heathrow. Good if noisy flight to Doha. Lots of extended middle eastern families running riot in economy. Food OK. Service good. Watched 2001: a space odyssey and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Lion. Both good – seen them before, of course but not for a long time. Did a little reading.
Not much time at Doha because our flight was slightly late. Rushing to get through the door to the bus and the Qatar Airways man asked me to wait. I asked him why and he replied it was because I was flying Business Class to Colombo. Woohoo! I’ve never been upgraded before.
Anyway I couldn’t travel on the coach that was there because it wasn’t a Business Class coach. When that arrived, it had seats rather than making everyone stand.
I’m not sure it’s worth the money, but the service and food and the space, the acres of space after being crammed between large people on the first leg of the journey, was just fabulous.
So I had a glass or two of nicely chilled New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, served with a selection of salted nuts. Followed by my appetizer of mezee (however you spell it!!) and an entre of chicken and green beans and a desert of custard tart and fresh fruit. The coffee wasn’t very good but the chocolate and extra glass or two of sauvignon blanc were just the ticket.
Then I slept for a couple of hours on a seat that went flat at the touch of a button. Who could ask for more?!
Met at a rainy Colombo airport by Chrishnan, the LBC administrator for a long drive to the college through Colombo’s riotous traffic. A melee of vehicles compete for space on the roads, no one gives way and no one waits and seemingly no one gets killed.
Lots of soldiers with Kalashnikov’s, lots of checkpoints – more than last time. That added to the congestion with trishaws being pulled over and passengers asked for papers, lorries being searched and some buses being stopped, all the passengers told to get off while it was searched and they were questioned. One gets a slight impression of needless oppression.
There are lots of pictures of the PM, smiling and waving, with slogans in Sinhalese that I can’t read no doubt lauding him as a hero, victor in the nation’s 25 year civil war.
And now I’m here at the LBC campus in Dehiwala in a well-appointed, if basic, air-conditioned room with a veranda that has a view of the sea in the distance over the roof tops. The sun is shining and, despite my kip in business class, I’m feeling a bit knackered - but very pleased to be here. There’s just the small detail of a course to teach next week!
Uneventful departure from a wet heathrow. Good if noisy flight to Doha. Lots of extended middle eastern families running riot in economy. Food OK. Service good. Watched 2001: a space odyssey and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Lion. Both good – seen them before, of course but not for a long time. Did a little reading.
Not much time at Doha because our flight was slightly late. Rushing to get through the door to the bus and the Qatar Airways man asked me to wait. I asked him why and he replied it was because I was flying Business Class to Colombo. Woohoo! I’ve never been upgraded before.
Anyway I couldn’t travel on the coach that was there because it wasn’t a Business Class coach. When that arrived, it had seats rather than making everyone stand.
I’m not sure it’s worth the money, but the service and food and the space, the acres of space after being crammed between large people on the first leg of the journey, was just fabulous.
So I had a glass or two of nicely chilled New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, served with a selection of salted nuts. Followed by my appetizer of mezee (however you spell it!!) and an entre of chicken and green beans and a desert of custard tart and fresh fruit. The coffee wasn’t very good but the chocolate and extra glass or two of sauvignon blanc were just the ticket.
Then I slept for a couple of hours on a seat that went flat at the touch of a button. Who could ask for more?!
Met at a rainy Colombo airport by Chrishnan, the LBC administrator for a long drive to the college through Colombo’s riotous traffic. A melee of vehicles compete for space on the roads, no one gives way and no one waits and seemingly no one gets killed.
Lots of soldiers with Kalashnikov’s, lots of checkpoints – more than last time. That added to the congestion with trishaws being pulled over and passengers asked for papers, lorries being searched and some buses being stopped, all the passengers told to get off while it was searched and they were questioned. One gets a slight impression of needless oppression.
There are lots of pictures of the PM, smiling and waving, with slogans in Sinhalese that I can’t read no doubt lauding him as a hero, victor in the nation’s 25 year civil war.
And now I’m here at the LBC campus in Dehiwala in a well-appointed, if basic, air-conditioned room with a veranda that has a view of the sea in the distance over the roof tops. The sun is shining and, despite my kip in business class, I’m feeling a bit knackered - but very pleased to be here. There’s just the small detail of a course to teach next week!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
All my ducks in a row
I've spent the morning sorting out my New Testament Theology course for Sri Lanka and then sending papers and articles for distribution to the students. Hopefully, it'll work ok. I have to sort out and send papers for my New Testament Social History course and then I'm all set - apart from jotting a few notes and aide memoires for the lectures themselves.
I am also trying to finish the notes on our church's series on Mark and the next episode of Approaching the Apocalypse. So life's full and challenging, interesting and stimulating. Can't ask for more than that, can you?
I am also trying to finish the notes on our church's series on Mark and the next episode of Approaching the Apocalypse. So life's full and challenging, interesting and stimulating. Can't ask for more than that, can you?
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