The Manslater

(HT: Josh Harris)

Try this out!

Scroll to the bottom of your Facebook page where it says in little blue letters, "English (UK)" or "US", or whatever you selected. Click on it. When the language box pops up, click on the arrow next to "English (US) and select "English (Pirate)."

Kindness

Here's a recent recording of a song that was written by our former pastor and sung by Steve Bell, a Canadian contemporary singer.

http://stevebell.com/wp-content/jld_ecards_files/02-Kindness.mp3

It's a beautiful song.

You can also check out the whole album of Bell's, here:

http://stevebell.com/kindness/about/

Love,
juliana

Sick Bay

It has been Sick Season at our home these last weeks.

First affected was Namrata. She developed cholera. We still do not know how or where she managed to pick this bug up, but with her uncanny ability to zero in on anything 'interesting' and put it straight in the mouth, this was a disaster waiting to happen.

We watched as her intake of fluids became progressively inadequate to compensate for the amount of fluid she was losing, and she became dehydrated, dull and drowsy. We knew that if she was not able to drink enough fluid, we would perhaps have to admit her for IV fluids, but we also knew the trauma associated with repeated pokes to get an IV access in a small, dehydrated child, and the further difficulty in trying to keep this line going. Invariably, she would have been kept restrained and yet, an IV line would have had to be restarted in a few hours....all in all, an unhappy option.

And so, we decided to rehydrate her by passing a fine naso-gastric tube directly into her stomach (you can hardly see the tube in the picture!) through which we fed her about 30 ml of Oral rehydrating solution (ORS) every half an hour through the night, while she slept.

I'm happy to tell you that by morning she was well hydrated, passing enough urine, and generally more cheerful. By evening, her diarrhoea had settled, and she has now completely recovered.

(Important disclaimer: Arpita and I can afford to do this sort of thing, and take these 'apparent' risks because
1. We are doctors and know how the system works, what to look for, and signs of danger developing
2. We are surrounded by other doctors, and have other safeguards in place to ensure we are not doing something abjectly stupid. Vinod (my cousin, a paediatrician) dropped in from time to time to see her, and we also spoke on the phone with Dr Puliyel in Delhi
3. The hospital is always only 2 minutes away.
Even so, I will confess that I was very scared, and a lot of prayer went up that night for this little helpless baby girl.
Please do not try doing something like this unsupervised!)

Next down was Anand. His peculiar sickness was a single episode of fever (about 101F) that lasted about an hour, before coming down and lingering for some more time. However, during this fever (about 3am to 4am) he was wide awake, happy, exuberant, bursting with creativity, and, wait for it, talking in rhyme! We were amused and yet wondered whether this was some vague manifestation of delirium, or something else! By the next day he was perfectly well.

And then it has been my turn. Since Monday I have been having high fever and severe body aches. From Wednesday onwards, I have been on sick leave, and I feel totally drained and run down. From Thursday, I began vomiting. Yesterday, briefly, my temperatures reached normal, but were up again by night. Today, finally, I have started feeling better. All in all, it looks like a severe viral infection, though I am being treated for typhoid.

But let me say, it has been such a privilege to stay at home, and be entertained by the three cutest people you could imagine! I wish I could record the various things that keep going on all through the day.

Please do pray for Arpita. With all the stress she is under, she cannot afford to fall sick. And continue to pray for the rest of us as well.

an interesting discussion on Summer/Winter Christians:

This helps me as I seek to try and apply 1 Philippians 2:1 - ...

http://preachermike.com/2011/01/11/summer-christians-winter-christians-and-the-narrative-of-injury

I can identify with both types but also not totally with either. So, this article was also helpful for me.

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2007/04/summer-and-winter-christians.html

I would consider myself a Winter/Autumn. How about you?

Juju to Mubarak

Some priceless advice to President Mubarak of Egypt from an eight year old girl Juju in Saudi Arabia

A Clever Analysis of a Typical Facebook Argument

(HT: 22Words)

Another Martin Luther King quote

(via Between Two Worlds)

From MLK’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” delivered on November 17, 1957, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama:

To our most bitter opponents we say:

“We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering.

We shall meet your physical force with soul force.

Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.

We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

Throw us in jail and we shall still love you.

Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you.

Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you.

But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves.

We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.”

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Listen to his "I have a Dream" speech...



and his last speech



(HT: JT and Z)

An inspiring video

Well worth 18 minutes of your time....



(HT: The Rebelution)

Nab Barsh ke Shubh Kamanaye

Spent New Year’s Eve on a train…from Madhepura, Bihar to Sealdah, Kolkata. Was visiting a hospital to help out with designs. As always, Kolkata, has this ability to overwhelm…. The noise, the bustle, the crowds, the very visible poverty….But my recent visits to the city have been balanced by hours spent in Asha Niketan. On a plot adjacent to the Missionaries of Charity in Tangra, it is a haven of peace and the minutes spent with Madhu da or Bulani da or little Kusum help me see the humanness in everyone and remind me to search for it even in the masses of Kolkata. I leave in a bit to Howrah station to catch another train back to Orissa. From my many rambling thoughts, I leave you with this prayer that I have been pondering over as a blessing for the new year!
Oh and a new year greeting for you that I received from an elderly Bihari gentleman on the train "Nab Barsh Mangal me rahe!" (May you be blessed/happy in the new year)

A Four-fold Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.
And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide,
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.
AMEN

For those who love apples and blackberries

Sounds like some of my blog posts!

Christmas 2.0

(HT: Z)

If a Larger Population meant more Land, this is what the World Map would look like...

And where would Australia, for example, be?!

(HT: 22 Words)

What You Celebrate as a Church Is Just as Important as What You Believe

This is so true, and so important.

Trevin Wax writes:

"What your congregation celebrates corporately is just as important as what your church affirms doctrinally. Celebrate the gospel, and cross-cultural ministry will bubble up in surprising ways. Celebrate your church’s preferential distinctions, and your congregation will become an insular group of like-minded individuals."

Do click over to his blog to read examples of what he means, and his justification for this statement.

Some more Quotes to think about

1. "To preach instead over people’s heads, is to forget who they are. As Spurgeon once commented, ‘Christ said, “Feed my sheep … Feed my lambs.” Some preachers, however, put the food so high that neither lambs nor sheep can reach it. They seem to have read the text, “Feed my giraffes” "

John Stott Between Two Worlds

(HT: Doug Wolter)


(Doug Wolter has also written another article worth thinking about : 7 reasons why Pastors should teach a Preschool Class





2. "I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” – Augustine

(HT: It's a Beautiful Gospel)

3.
"Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be
an evangelical hypocrite,
who sins more safely because grace abounds,
who tells his lusts that Christ's blood
cleanseth them,
who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell,
for he is saved,
who loves evangelical preaching, churches,
Christians, but lives unholily.

A Puritan prayer from the book Valley of Vision.

(HT: Josh Harris)

How to speak Christianese

(HT: 22 Words)

Namrata's first birthday

It was such a joy to celebrate Namrata's birthday in Kerala, surrounded by the 24RR family. Arpita had taken a cake from Vellore.









We love you, so much, little girl! Though it has been such a short time, it feels like we have known you forever! You have added so much life and fun to our home. We are so glad God has given you to us.

(PS: more pictures from our Kerala trip can be found at Flickr)

Dad-da!

These are some of the most exhilarating and satisfying moments of the day....when Namrata tries to catch my attention with a loud "Dad-da!"

I think she enjoys it as much as I do!

I will put up a birthday post soon.....