We drove to a zoo in Chennai to meet Matt after he was done teaching pastors before we would continue our trip to Chengelput to teach VBS. We only had a short time to spend at the zoo, so to make the most of our experience, we rented bicycles to ride through the zoo. I was a little unsure of riding a bike through the zoo in the long skirt I was wearing, but there wasn't much I could do about it so I hopped on the pink bike that the zoo employee gave me and did my best to avoid getting my skirt caught in the pedals or chains. I was doing pretty well but eventually my skirt got caught, and my bike tipped over. The first time was quite a dramatic display of clumsiness that I amused many Indians around me, though I also appreciated that some of them looked rather concerned for my well-being. After several more times of my skirt getting caught in the bike, I finally shouted in frustration to Matt who was riding ahead of me, "I'm going to be immodest and hike my skirt up!" Well, I suddenly was reminded that some Indian people do understand English, as one young man who was walking nearby immediately turned his head and grinned at me with amusement. I pedaled away embarrassed and attempted to retain as much modesty as possible while also pedaling the bike. :)
I learned during this trip that many Indian children love lions -- an animal that I had not really expected to be their favorite. During my introduction to my lesson, I would ask the kids questions such as "What is your favorite color?", "What is your favorite food?", and "What is your favorite animal?" and almost all of the children in every village we visited would shout out "singkam!" (not sure of the spelling) which I learned means lion in Tamil. So I was delighted to see the "Asiatic Lions" at the zoo and took lots of photos of them. We also saw peacocks, tiger, leopard, otter, elephants, among a few other animals. I told Matt that if he helped me sneak in and ride the elephant I could cross that dream off of my bucket list, but I didn't convince him. ;)
We taught VBS in Pastor Deepak's church, which was the first time that we had a different translator other than D. Paul. It felt different at first to have someone else translating since I had become comfortable with D. Paul translating every day, but it still worked out well and Deepak was very helpful. I enjoyed my time at Deepak's church and was glad I had the chance to work with him and meet his family. The church was decorated beautifully with paintings on the wall of The Lord's Prayer, The Apostle's Creed, The Ten Commandments, and other words that I couldn't read because they were written in Tamil (or Telugu...some of the churches we visited spoke Tamil and other Telugu, and some both so I don't remember which was which). The VBS group was a tough crowd -- very noisy and distracted but still lots of fun. As I was teaching my lesson, two toddler girls kept crawling up to me and trying to play with my feet and children were shouting things to us in the middle of our lessons, so this evening took a lot of concentration to get through our teaching. Pastor Deepak was wonderful though and did a great job of regaining the children's attention with his animated translating.
When we sang the song "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", Deepak requested that we repeat the song three times. He even asked Matt to write the words on a whiteboard for them to read as they sang. Deepak sang with us and really encouraged the children to do the actions. Before our last round of singing, Deepak turned to me with a deep smile and said something along the lines of: "If you teach the songs with the actions, they will remember. And every time they sing this song, they will remember you, Sister Rebecca. And brother Andrew. And Sister Vanessa. And Pastor Ude." He smiled so warmly and was so happy for us to be teaching the children of his congregation that it touched my heart. I felt guilty because I had not approached it initially with as much enthusiasm as I had in the early lessons of the trip, but I tried to sing with all my heart after that!
The kids became more and more squirrely and noisy - Matt even said to them before his lesson "You are really good at making noise!" which made Deepak's wife laugh. We pushed through the rest of the lessons and finally handed out the gifts to the children...surprisingly they all sat completely still and silent while waiting for their gifts! :)
The people waved goodbye and followed us to the car. Deepak thanked us for coming and told us to come again and keep them in our prayers. Later I got to talk to Deepak personally and thanked him for having us come. I then told him that I would be keeping him and all of them in my prayers. When I said that, he looked surprised at first, but then smiled and said he would also keep us in his prayers. The little girl who had been touching my feet during the lesson and babbling things to me when I was trying to teach came running up and gave Deepak a hug. I asked if she was his daughter and he said yes and that her name is Angelina. I excitedly told him that I had a student in America who had the same name. Matt told Deepak that is daughter has "a lot of energy" which made Deepak laugh and nod in agreement.
That night we returned to Chennai quite late, but Matt still grilled up the burgers and we enjoyed our 4th of July meal...then promptly went to bed in preparation for the next day of traveling around six hours (?) to Madanapalle for a two night stay in a hotel, our last VBS lesson, and a worship service.
Becky McKenney
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