Chillin with the Pauloses

Well, I made it Rameshwaram safely and the trip here was one of the best experiences in my life. I spent twelve hours attempting to communicate with a beautiful family (grandfather, grandmother, mother, daughter, nephew). I slept right between them all on the upper berth (the top slat of the three that constitute the sleeping class). As I slept, two inches from my left shoulder, other than the dividing screen, was a young guy named Hassan who I befriended and took pictures with. Everything about the trip was so genuine, so simple, so liberating, so Indian.

I arrived on the island yesterday at 5:00 am. I was supposed to call Israel Paulose when I arrived, but the phone booth didn't open until 6:00 am. Then, there was a power outage, and my reading light was the only sign of life (besides children crying) in the entire railway station. About twenty minutes later, the power came back on, I got an autorickshaw driver to call Israel, and he took me to the Pauloses house. There I met his newlywed wife, his sister, and her newlywed husband (I feel very out of place amongst these four giggling bundles of joy). Israel took me on a tour of the island, showing the fisherman's shed where the Pauloses slept for a few months when they first arrived on the island. Then he showed me a day care center that they had considerable difficulty building. When they were trying to buy the land, the fundamental Hindus threatened to kill them. When they finally bought the land and, bought the building materials, and had a foreign short-term team ready to start construction, the townspeople threatened them again, only this time they said if the Pauloses tried to build, they would drench themselves in kerosene and burn themselves alive! What kind of place is this? The day care center was built with no harm done a few days after that, and had some happy two-year-olds in it yesterday. Israel told me lots of stories of being beaten and threatened: one time the Hindus told him if he didn't deny Christ, they would peel off all his skin with blades, and he said "Fine, go ahead, I can't deny my Lord." So they went to get the guy who would oversee the skin peeling, but by a miracle that guy was nowhere to be found that day, and the emotions settled down in the next few days.

I also got to play with some little girls who had been rescued from their parents, who were planning to have them killed. One two-year-old girl named Denise was calling me the Tamil equivalent of "Papa" and I almost lost it right there because I realized she probably would never have a father (I did lose it later on when I thought about the girls who were not rescued as these were). Praise the Lord for this ministry and others like it!