Bees in India
January 23, 2008 email #20
It is 10 pm bedtime and lights out for students. Suddenly, there is this horrible BAM! BANG! the sound of windows crashing, boys yelling and screaming.  We have no idea what is going on!!!  Loren grabs his pants and torch (flashlight) and goes flying out of our room thinking maybe there was a fight or perhaps the boys had caught the burgler.  He then realizes ALL the campus lights are out.  Nevertheless, he heads up the tower staircase and runs into hundreds of bees.  Not the cute little honeybees you see in the movies, but big fat aggressive ones. The day before we had seen what we thought was a large beehive in the very top part of the PBI cathedral tower window.  Loren was talking with Joy (General Director) about it and the House Father overheard the conversation.  He took it upon himself to have about 6 tribal boys. . .who know how to smoke out bees. . .to try and take care of this hive.  ONLY THING, he neglected to tell anyone what was happening.  Loren found the boys all huddled down with blankets over their heads, the House Father is under a table in the Dining Room, other students were hiding in the far end of the building and to say the least there was bedlam.  The window that they were trying to open was puttied shut, and it was NOT a hive, but just a huge cluster of bees, so when the boys banged the window open, the bees swarmed and attacked.  Loren came running back to get our can of Hit (bug spray) and our screen door was covered with bees.  He is yelling at me to turn out all the lights so he can come in.  I am scrambling to do so, but I was on my computer and couldn’t get it turned off.  We ended up with about three or four in our room. After everything kind of calmed down Loren said, “We need to do a bed check.” Sure enough, there were still several students missing from their rooms.  After a search they were found huddled together under a staircase at the far end of the building.  You can’t even imagine the mess we had the next morning.  I know, I know, you would have THUNK the smart thing to have done would have been to make sure all the boys were in their rooms, with the lights out, (the bees are attracted to the light, that is why they were doing it at night) and the doors and windows closed, AND we should have been notified as to what was going to happen.  BUT---if they had, I wouldn’t have had this story to write.  Thankfully, there were only a very few bee stings and after about four cans of Hit the bees are gone or DEAD!

The discussion of strategies for self-reliance is always on going and is a vital part of Prakash’s vision and mission. The goal is to strive for excellence in each program. Today, we found out about a man from New Delhi who attended our Vet-Med Self-Reliant program. He has now started 10 small house churches.  The members are collectively raising chickens.  The work is divided among the members, some doing the raising and others doing the marketing. Consequently, they can completely support themselves and their ministry.  Each little church tithes back to the main organization so it can continue to go elsewhere and help another house church make a start.  This is what I call being an entrepreneur for Jesus!  We were blown away to know that word of the Vet-Med ministry had reached all the way to New Delhi.  Actually, the man found out about the training from a friend in Mumbai who had been an attendee.  Mumbai is 19 hours away by train, and New Delhi 24 hours plus.  It takes an enormous desire and commitment in India to come that far for a four-week training program.

Last year we attended the Hindu funeral and cremation of a dear friend Sho don Mal.  I wrote a long email about the events of that day.  Today was the one year anniversary of his death and so we were invited to the memorial lunch held by the family.  Again, this was certainly an unusual event for us.  I nearly caused a gross error by using my left hand to pick up and place flowers at the base of the picture of Sho don Mal.  There was a lot of grunting and coughing until I realized what I was doing and changed hands.  Loren and I pray that we can be the witness for Jesus that is needed to show these wonderful people the love of our God.

http://www.prakash4india.org
Sylvia H. Eckhardt
Prakash for India