Prayer Meeting

At the pastor's house,where our team stayed, the senior male students of the Bible college had a prayer meeting at 4:30 am!  We guests were invited to take part, and on that first Monday morning, the whole team bravely showed up! A little later, a procession of Hindu devotees walked down the street ringing a bell, chanting, and beating drums or tambourines; I couldn't tell which from my vantage point at the upstairs bedroom window. 

The dozen or so college students sat cross-legged on the cool marble living room floor on a large, beach-type mat, forming two or three neat lines. They had their own tambourines, and played them with great skill and energy as we took our places on chairs around the perimeter of the room . The songs they sang, however, were not like any songs I'd ever heard.  In other parts of the world where Terry and I have been, many times Christian songs were translated into the language of the country, and we could recognize the tune.  These songs seemed to me quite tuneless, and were sung in Hindi.  Sometimes our host pastor would tell us the rough translation of each song. Most of the time, since I didn't understand the words, I made up my own words and sang along.

That first day, we foreigners each took a turn praying aloud for the concerns mentioned, as well as anything else that was on our hearts.  Then the students stood up, and the two pastors prayed over each one individually.  Exactly an hour later, the meeting was over, and the students quickly rolled up their mat, picked up the tambourines and songbooks, and filed out. No jostling or chatting, however.  They left seriously to begin their day of classes, after breakfast, I presume!  Despite the language barrier, I felt refreshed in the spirit, although my body was still tired.
After we returned home to Canada, we would go to bed very early that first week, and wake up around 4:30.  I keep wondering if that was really jet-lag, or had we gotten into some new kind of routine -- prayer at 4:30 am.  Eventually our bodies adjusted to the twelve hour difference in time, and our routines were back to our normal.  I think I have a new appreciation, though, for the discipline of early morning prayer. 

No pictures this time; it was a private sort of time.