Mission

This summer, a handful of young adults from EFCC will be leaving San Diego and heading to the Andhra Pradesh province of India for a three-week, short-term project in July. While there, we will be helping an Indian organization by way of teaching English to college students on campus. These students have joined church planting teams so they can go out all across India to plant churches and assist in certain needs of many different communities (social work). In the first year, the students (called Freshers) come to campus for two months to learn English (by the way, all of their classes are taught only in English), and take other Christian courses as well (i.e., Spiritual Development, Penteteuch, Discipleship, SMS- research & citation, etc). If, after four years, they pass all their classes they will graduate with a degree in either theology or in Christian Studies which will help them in their church planting ventures.

Mark 16:15-- He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."

Thursday, July 18, 2013

I'm 'Kind Of A Big Deal' in India

This past Sunday we visited a landmark called Golkonda Fort which is about 11 km away from Hyderabad. It was built in the 13th century by the Kakatiyas. In the 16th century Golkonda was the capital city of the Qutb Shahi kingdom. The city was home to one of the most powerful Muslim sultanates of the region and was the flourishing center of the diamond trade. This is where man has unearthed some of the most coveted diamonds and gems in history, including : the Hope Diamond, Idol's Eye, the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-i-Noor. There's your history lesson for the day everyone. Thanks Wikipedia, haha!

So, as I was saying, we visited the fort because it is a big tourist attraction and it is very impressive. However, things didn't go quite how I had planned. After entering the fort I started noticing that I was getting a lot of stares and strange looks. A couple brave young men came up to me and asked if I would take a picture with them. I figured that was fair enough. The further along we got on our tour the more young men came up and asked for pictures with me. I was basically mobbed over and over by groups of men who were so interested in me only because of my skin color. At first I thought it was kind of cool but it quickly lost its appeal. I started getting a little agitated to be perfectly honest. Now I know how celebrities feel when they are constantly approached by fans and paparazzi, haha! Back in America I'm just a normal white dude, whereas here, I'm a mysterious and fascinating white man, even though I'm just that, a man. I'm no different than anyone else except for my skin color! It was a very strange feeling. The one thing I took away from that experience was that I don't want to be famous, haha!

Thanks for reading and we'll be writing more soon!
-Chris

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