It was a very noisy morning today with the Hindu Temple loudspeaker starting up with a staccato rapid fire rhetoric at 5 am. It sounded like a military takeover by a Chinese dictator and went on forever before the more familiar chanting took its place for another two hours. A man was pumping water outside my window at the same time and making guttural noises to spit for another fifteen minutes. Nothing is private here and one has to get used to life in a very basic and raw expression.

At a more humane hour we shared breakfast with another family in the village… the wife of an elder in the church served us a simple but tasty meal. We learned that most of the village was burned down in 2000 and many of the thatched houses have been replaced with brick – made possible by government grants.

Then we embarked on a longish bumpy ride to a small village church built last year as a minimal but adequate structure. The normal format unfolded – 1 1/2 hrs singing… some prayer and then Jim and I spoke. Jim shared again his powerful testimony and I spoke about how Jesus reveals the love of the Father to say yes to us…. so press in, don’t give up… and using the feeding of the 5,000 give him something to work with.

We returned via the rice fields to check that the one being farmed for the orphanage was undamaged. Mercifully all was well… others were working to tie flattened plants in bundles to stay upright and thus at least rescuing something from the disaster. Left alone the rice will just re germinate in the water and be useless.Meanwhile the water buffalo are everywhere and more often than not looking for water to be lovingly washed and cooled by their owners.