What gives

It is almost morning and I am at the library hitting away at the key-board .Just finished a caeserian section.I will be travelling in the next few days all the way to the chill of the mussoorie hills.Six days is a long time to hole myself in a retreat centre .Looking forward to visiting 'Kakeda' in CP with my sister and cousin on my way back.I doubt if I will be able to enjoy the heavy stuff they serve anymore.I have this special fascination for these desi hubs...Lord teach me to rest in you and to trust you to take care of my responsibilities.....teach me to experience the peace of just being etched in the palm of your hand....just being your child......teach me to be a good child,a good leader,follower,daughter,friend,colleague,aunt, a good human being .

What a strange way to celebrate my birthday.For the first time in my life I did not own it .It was like as though I was just a spectator standing some steps behind and watching it all from a distance.Almost everybody who mattered remembered my birthday-it seemed atlleast most of them did and the staffs were overwhelming in their generosity with blessings.I got flowers and more flowers-got me worried about the campus flowers and yet the excitement of the history which was made yesterday made it all so insignificant. The telephone lines were down and so in-coming was all that was possible-one by one one people remembered.....dad,mom,agya,aie mimi,amchung,sanu machi,agya PG,aie diki,Johnson,sheba who very sweetly prayed for me...the juniors and the mess guys...the staffs...the TB guys who did an inspirational prayer,CHDP guys,Pradhans,the OT people.........the office guys...... I still have not wished myself a happy birthday as yet!

Strange, the chord an election so far away can strike here in one distant corner of India.As a child, reading about the american civil right movement,Martin Luther King Jnr became my childhood hero.I remember carrying his autobiography close to my chest even as I devoured his eloquence,his passion ,his commitment to christ and therefore his commitment to the cause that ultimately cost him his life.I mugged up his 'I have a dream speech..'and like a lunatic used to rattle those speeches in front of the mirror. I am a sikkimese ,born and brought up in India,a women to boot and now a missionary of sort. Yet today when the much awaited american election news poured in there were tears in my eyes...why did I want Obama to win...america to win so badly??

Leaning across the table pastor sandy asks me what is your biggest challenge? Without hesistation I say ‘myself’. I have been working on myself eversince. Two more weeks and I become a year older. The last year has been a defining year full of hopes and joy,dissapointments and killing depression,a year when I have had to redefine the values and priorities in my life...a year when I have had to disown many baggages,a year when I have surprised myself beyond my own understanding and also a year when i have withnessed the Hand of the lord first hand...It has been a year when I have seen life at its cruellest best and yet I have survived.It has been the year I really grew up. Three cheers for the miraculous human spirit that God has created !!

After running around from Kolkotta to Delhi and back,reminiscing and going back to the college days,meeting up with friends one had left behind long back…walking into the German embasy to see gracious people who made the visa procedure simple...i fly to Berlin for the ERS. The congress is at Messe Damm.The church guest house where i am to stay is five stations away.Walking on the street from the station to the venue there are scores of people from just everywhere walking with me....i meet a professor from NewYork based in Puerto Rico who walks with me as all of us are searching for the venue...he says he has many indian friends and they are very loyal...a picture of a warm hearted sardar comes to my mind. I get myself registered and am walking back and who do i see?Dr.Peter Davies walking along...casually.We plan to meet the next day during the congress and I walk on back to my guest house. The guest house is a decent arrangement with a furnished bath and an attatched fully furnished k...

Things are happening around us every day.We hear about churches being burnt,christians being killed in Orissa,in Mangalore and God knows where.We have seen many a TV channels flashing the news gallore.Many gracious Indians speaking against the violence.. In all that is happening around us how do we as christians respond? In the mayhem and confusion where do we go to look for the grace that apparently alludes us.There will be baggages and more baggages....pray that the lor will help as many or all to overcome so that they may get the crown of life...Amen.

The work is killing .I hardly find time to myself.The little time I get I often find myself slumped in front of the telivision.Got a cable connection just a week back and I am already having doubts about it.I haven't been able to find one intelligent channel that keeps me interested or teaches me anything of value.My lap-top lies neglected in one corner of the room un-touched ,beckoning me to write something beyond my own personal pain and struggles.The adjacent states of Bihar and Orissa are drowning and burning literally.One by the element of man's interference on nature and the other on quirkiness of man's nature.Orissa is burning..burning...and burning,whereas Bihar is drowning...drowning ...and drowning.How will the balance be brought,wil Orissa drown again like it did the last time and will Bihar burn once the public get their breath back.