Noise Pollution

Add to the pollution of the ordinary sort in India noise pollution, too. I arrived back at Skinner’s Garden compound at 12:39 a.m. from a village meeting in which I had preached, and at which five souls responded to be baptized. Then, a few short hours later the continual buzzing of the ceiling fan ceased with the daily failure of electric power, but the noise of the ceiling fan was quickly replaced with the compound morning bell, calling the children’s home residents to 5 a.m. chapel services. About the same time, a Hindu temple not too far away evidently began blaring incessantly the banter of its religious dogma; throughout Asia, anyone’s music or radio or point of view is broadcast at any hour of day or night nonstop to as far as the volume knob can carry the sound waves. Did I mention that our bedroom is three stories above the din and adjacent to the compound wall bordering the road; trucks, three-wheeled autos, motorcycles and bicycles all have horns or bells, and the operators know how to use them – and often. The other day an American brother and some Indian brethren were traveling when the car horn became stuck on. Do you know what the difference is in India between a car horn stuck on and the frequency with which Indians typically blow the vehicles’ horns – there isn’t any difference!

Scalding hot water in an aluminum bucket arrived at 6:58 a.m. courtesy of two young Indian boys, each of whom had a hand grasping the bucket bail. At 7:35 a.m., brother John Dean wanted to bring breakfast into our room, but we were not dressed yet; I was getting dressed, and Bonnie was still applying the bucket and cup bathing. Another American, Cleo Turner was passing through, had spent the night and was preparing to leave, but the Indian brethren wanted to feed him first. The problem was that our lodging is for our sleeping and bathing, but it is also the dining area for visitors. We hurriedly finished dressing. Somehow, neither Bonnie nor I feel overly rested; we are looking forward to our bed back in Winona, MS.

Throughout the day (five hours), I taught Bible Geography to 48 Gospel preachers, for which they were very thankful since they had not had an occasion to study this background material to the biblical text. Bonnie taught 40 ladies for 2½ hours on Sapphira and Dorcas Bible characters. For the evening meeting, Bonnie and I traveled to a village about an hour away where we had a street meeting – up to 90 attendees seated on a tarp placed on a street that had been commandeered for the occasion. I spoke for an hour about The One True Church of the Bible – before and after which brethren provided Bonne and me each a bottle of cold Sprite, plus fruit and cookies as we boarded the bus for our return jaunt. We arrived back at Skinner’s Garden compound at about 11:30 p.m. It had been another full day, a good day of service to the Lord Jesus.

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