Multiply India Retrospect

"when can we get together?" Nathan and Sam both pressed me.  We found a free Thursday evening, and booked in at Kings for tea.  Nathan and Sam had heard very little about Steve being in South India and then Myanmar and UAE.  I hadn't got their full story from Cuttack, Odisha, either. "Come on, Steve." Nathan encouraged.

Steve reminded us that we'd ruined his attempt at snatching some rest before flying south to Kerala, when we discovered Nathan's laptop was missing at Bangalore airport.  His flight was uneventful, but Daniel, who was due to follow an hour later, found his service was cancelled.  Steve waited several hours in the inhospitable airport until Daniel finally arrived on the last scheduled flight of the day.  Their time spent with Daniel's friend, Dennis, has been a delight.  But later, in Thrissur, the hotel was dingy and the delegates attending the conference not the promising catchment they'd hoped for.  Checking in for the onward flight to Myanmar, Daniel found out that visas aren't available for Indian nationals on arrival.  Steve was left to head for Kuala Lumpur on his own, as so grateful to find me waiting in Yangon airport.

Nathan took up his account of the Church on the Streets staged in Aizawl, Mizoram.  The young people's group that had promised to support the scene had been brave and spontaneous.  Next day, Colney took Nathan and Sam to the Jesus Army rehab out of the city.  They'd immediately clicked with the team there, working in very sparse conditions.  "What do you need?" Nathan had asked.  "A carpenter to build us more furniture here, and then teach the guys some skills, so they can move on from their addictions to something constructive."  Nathan asked him to put a figure on this.  Something like £5,000 would see it sorted.  Back at Colney's home, Nathan put out a Facebook page, and within hours netted some hundreds of pounds of pledges.  That's now been passed over to one of our veteran church members, who has the business experience and time to see it comes to fruition.

"Cuttack was something else," Sam chipped in.  "We arrived in the middle of a Hindu festival.  I found it quite intimidating. This group of young guys came up to me and were trying to get me to dance. 'C'mon, dance for the god!' they pushed me about."  Hannah, Sam's missus nodded vigorously.  Sam had experienced a few scary moments on the trip, including the road accident in Bangalore when his autorickshow had run into a van.  However, the visit to the boys home/orphanage had melted his heart, and been more than compensation.  "They all lined up yo welcome us, in red cross teeshirts.  Oh, the enthusiasm in their worship!".  "Yea, that's what got me in Mizoram, too." Nathan added.  "I wanna do a video that will inspire us to get into worship like that."  Sam and Nathan rounded off with their comedy-film routine of getting through security at Mumbai airport.

"I was chewed up about some of the things that went wrong," I confided.  "We had these big misunderstandings about what Steve's described about Thrissur; Butch arriving in Myanmar and how the whole budget for Yangon got out of schedule.  I'm trying to pick my way through it all."  I wasn't sure whether to go into detail.  "We've always said that every new Multiply activity we embark on stretches our leadership relationships more."

Nathan got us back to a more positive note.  "Who are we going to follow up?"   "Ah, the MILC conference in May/June next year is going to have three tracks."  I explained,  "One for the existing AMEN guys, then two each invitees that they see as key players either in their home scene or for a new place; then a J Gen track for younger folks, or leaders working with them like we do at RAW - again, about two each."  "Wow, that's great!"  Nathan and Sam were excited.  They fired off a load of names they're in contact with on Facebook.  "And don't forget the Intern scheme," I added.

"While we're on follow up," Steve joined in, "Greatheart, you really must get someone to take on some of the admin side.  I watched you dealing with the travel, the finances, the conference equipment - and after you'd done all the planning...  It was too much."  "Well, it was first time for you guys, so I wanted to smooth the way."  I explained.  "Yeah, but you're going to tell me the same about Zambia next year," he persisted.  He's right, there's still lots to work on.

Dave stuck his head round the door and offered us all tea and flapjack.  "Tell the others about the train home," I nodded at Steve.  "From Manchester airport, I fell asleep and went right past Crewe, so I had to double back from Sandbach," Steve explained.  "I did 20,000 miles in 15 days on eight flights, like clockwork, then missed my train connection!  The whole household turned out at Rugby station - with flags.  The other passengers were gobsmacked!"   "C'mon Greatheart, when are we going again?"  Nathan spoke for all of us.  "I think next it's got to be Delhi, to try to cover the northern third of India.  Who knows?"   It was way past 11.00pm, and I had to drive back to Sheffield.  It had been special. 

Multiply India Countdown

Three days to go, and it's been manic.  First, I found a quiet hour to browse the Lonely Planet guide to Myanmar.  I re-read the guidance on currency in Yangon: 'US dollar bills must be the latest version (multi-coloured bills from 2006 or later) and in absolutely perfect condition: no folds, stamps, stains, writing or tears.  ATMs don't accept international cards; you must take all the cash you'll need in $US.'  I did a quick review of our budget.  With three conferences ahead of reaching Yangon (Bangalore, Thrissur and Aizawl), each potentially throwing up unforeseen costs, I reckoned we'd cut ourselves too short.  At 4.00am, this realisation hit me, and I didn't sleep thereafter.  And I thought I'd been really smart downloading a currency converter app to my phone.

Then Farhad texted me to say I must do enough video to make a decent presentation for Sheffield Praise Day on 19th October.  We have two cameras - one's so old it uses tapes and no current software will edit it, and one decent one that came to Africa last year.  As we divide forces after Bangalore, we need two decent ones.  And then the Multiply Europe trip will also be going to Romania while we're away, and want to take a camera.  So whatever happens we'll only get half the story.  Farhad's weighing up if we should just get a new second decent camera.  I haven't yet worked out if it will be worth taking the digital sound recorder, too.  Maybe a useful fall-back for delegates if video isn't forthcoming.

I'd done an extensive risk assessment for our travel and medical insurance.  It included Foreign and Commonwealth Office reports on UAE, India and Myanmar.  I knew that travel 'up country' wasn't recommended in Myanmar, but we're staying in the south.  Pete took me on one side at the marquee and asked if I'd read the latest report on the Indian North Eastern states where there's an outbreak of swine fever (or similar).  The border with Burma is closed.  It turns out it's Manipur not Mizoram, but he was anxious to know what would happen if people movements were prevented.  Wise heads will deliberate on all this on Monday, which is too close to flying for us to make any contingencies.

The travel agents sent a revised flights schedule for me, Nathan and Sam.  The painfully early start from Bangalore to Kolkata next Saturday morning now leaves even earlier.  But that's not a patch on the problem we had last time (November 2011).  Kingfisher Airlines was tottering on the point of liquidation, and regular schedules were being slashed all over the place.  However, what was more worrying was that I looked up the check-in baggage allowance on the flight.  I found that, being domestic not international, it's only 15kg, not the 20kg I'd somehow got in my mind.  This is pretty worrying.  (Sorry guys for misleading you.)  The excess charge is about £2.50/kg, so we may just have to cough up.

Oh, there's more.  The IT kit.  Because we're dividing forces, we need two laptops kitted out with the all powerpoints, videos, SongShow GFX player, and webmail applications.  I've spent more time at the Jesus Centre than was decent downloading second/duplicate copies of RealPlayer, HTC Sync, libraries of presentation material, etc.  Then I found the second laptop mysteriously won't run fast enough on phone tethering to refresh web pages.  This limits emails and blogs. 

I mentioned to Viv that the broadband at home was running painfully slowly.  I'd worried that my laptop was about to collapse.  He hmm'd and announced that we've exceeded the download quota, and our provider has put is into lockdown until the end of the month.  "Thanks", I said.  "Yea, well I got an email saying you'd reached 80%, but nobody takes any notice," was the disaffected reply.  At least he updated my SongShow GFX file.

Kelly said, "Get a break before you go".  I'd even thought of taking Mary out for a quiet meal.  But that would be useless if I was still preoccupied.  Well, we've ended up at Kings for Saturday night, as I'm talking Sunday morning's meeting in Coventry.  And we've had a warm invitation to pop and see Andrew, Ellen and the four youngsters, which will be thoroughly absorbing!  Tim emailed me to say the London congregation has raised £150 for kit for Colney's orphanage.  People have been brilliant.

Sam's missus, Hannah, has promised us bacon sandwiches for pack-up lunch to eat at Birmingham Airport.