PILGRIMAGE TO INDIA DECEMBER 2011
By Anne and Murdoch MacKenzie
Having not been to India since 2004 we felt the urge to return, mainly in order to meet old friends.Thus we flew by Emirates from Glasgow arriving in Chennai on 14th December. Apart from two nights in Kodai we were in Chennai for three weeks in all. Most of the time we stayed in the YWCA International Guest House but also had a final few days enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Joshua Thangaraj and his family.
When we left what was then Madras, in 1978 there were 3 million people in the city. Today in Chennai there are 4.68 million within the area administered by the municipal corporation and an extended metropolitan population of nine million. Murdoch’s final sermon in 1978 had the title ‘Be Indian. Buy Indian’. A lot has happened since then. India is shining but not for everyone. With a population of 1 billion, 140 million people over 30 per cent of India’s citizens still live in dire poverty. In a discussion we had with a young lady she told us that it was more like 80 per cent! On December 18th 2011 the Times News Network reported a subsidy in exemptions to the rich in India in 2010-2011 of Rs 4.60 lakh crore* while the subsidy to the poor is now down to Rs 1.44 lakh crore for 2011-2012. Of course the same kind of thing is happening here in the United Kingdom and it is a scandal.
Traffic, which on the first day seemed horrific, soon became quite normal. Within 24 hours we became convinced that Indian babies are now born with cell-phones in their hands. Huge shopping plazas are everywhere. The Connemara is now one of five Taj hotels in Chennai. In Kodai huge bisons roam around and can destroy a garden in minutes. Reputedly they can jump a six foot fence from a standing start. Coaker’s Walk, the Van Allen Hospital and St Peter’s Church are in excellent condition as is Annleigh, former Church of Scotland Mission bungalow now cared for by the Madurai Diocese. A cyclone centred on Cuddalore delayed our return on the Pandyan. In Chennai we lunched with Leela and Israel Selvanayagam at the Gurukul Theological College which still produces the excellent Gurukul Daily Devotion by far the best notes for daily devotion available anywhere.
We attended the Christmas programme at the Madras Club, had a tumultuous welcome in Vyasarpady with huge bill boards on various street corners announcing our forthcoming arrival and with drums and dancing in the streets. When Rowan Williams visited Chennai in 2010 he requested to preach in a slum church of Anglican origin. Thus he went to St Peter’s Vyasarpady where Murdoch worked in the late 1960s. In those days the weekly offering was less than Rs2. It is now about Rs25,000. Murdoch preached there to a full to overflowing congregation. There is now a large brass plaque on the wall recording the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury preached there!
Murdoch also preached in St Andrew’s Kirk on New Year’s Day to several hundred people. At the beginning of our ministry there in 1972 Lesslie Newbigin challenged us ‘to preach the gospel to those who had not heard it, to serve people in the slums and the hospitals, and to support the work of the church throughout the hundreds of scattered villages in our diocese.’ We began in small ways with 20 children in the day care centre and work in 3 poor villages near Pulicat. Today there seems to be no end to the outreach of the Kirk. We marvelled at the vibrancy of the Women’s Fellowship, Sunday School and Youth Fellowship, at the excellence of the music and the Choir and their amazing DVDs The Old Rugged Cross, Ancient of Days and Lead Kindly Light.
We also rejoiced at the Vacation Bible Schools, the Camps and Retreats, Bible studies, Healing Services, Prayer Cell meetings, House Church, District Meetings, Monthly Fasting and Prayer, 23 young people confirmed on 2nd October 2011, the Hospital Visiting Programme, the Asha Project among mentally challenged young people and the Day Care Centre at present with 90 children, the leprosy work at Balramapuram in Villivakkam, the Centre for Continuing Education,the Friendship Club, the Evangelism Project with new congregations and splendid church buildings in Thirupalaivanam, Kosapur and presently being built in Avariwakkam.
The small clinic at Thirupalaivanam is now replaced by a hospital unit which cost Rs60 lakhs serving villages far and wide. All this is but a glimpse of what we experienced on our recent pilgrimage to India.
*1 lakh = 100,000 1 crore = 10,000,000 10 million
One lakh crore rupees (or Rs.1 lakh cr) = Rs.(100,000 × 10,000,000) = Rs. 1 trillion
We are quite prepared to give a talk about our pilgrimage should anybody want to know more about it. Just have a word with us and we will see what can be done.
Anne and Murdoch MacKenzie
By Anne and Murdoch MacKenzie
Having not been to India since 2004 we felt the urge to return, mainly in order to meet old friends.Thus we flew by Emirates from Glasgow arriving in Chennai on 14th December. Apart from two nights in Kodai we were in Chennai for three weeks in all. Most of the time we stayed in the YWCA International Guest House but also had a final few days enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Joshua Thangaraj and his family.
When we left what was then Madras, in 1978 there were 3 million people in the city. Today in Chennai there are 4.68 million within the area administered by the municipal corporation and an extended metropolitan population of nine million. Murdoch’s final sermon in 1978 had the title ‘Be Indian. Buy Indian’. A lot has happened since then. India is shining but not for everyone. With a population of 1 billion, 140 million people over 30 per cent of India’s citizens still live in dire poverty. In a discussion we had with a young lady she told us that it was more like 80 per cent! On December 18th 2011 the Times News Network reported a subsidy in exemptions to the rich in India in 2010-2011 of Rs 4.60 lakh crore* while the subsidy to the poor is now down to Rs 1.44 lakh crore for 2011-2012. Of course the same kind of thing is happening here in the United Kingdom and it is a scandal.
Traffic, which on the first day seemed horrific, soon became quite normal. Within 24 hours we became convinced that Indian babies are now born with cell-phones in their hands. Huge shopping plazas are everywhere. The Connemara is now one of five Taj hotels in Chennai. In Kodai huge bisons roam around and can destroy a garden in minutes. Reputedly they can jump a six foot fence from a standing start. Coaker’s Walk, the Van Allen Hospital and St Peter’s Church are in excellent condition as is Annleigh, former Church of Scotland Mission bungalow now cared for by the Madurai Diocese. A cyclone centred on Cuddalore delayed our return on the Pandyan. In Chennai we lunched with Leela and Israel Selvanayagam at the Gurukul Theological College which still produces the excellent Gurukul Daily Devotion by far the best notes for daily devotion available anywhere.
We attended the Christmas programme at the Madras Club, had a tumultuous welcome in Vyasarpady with huge bill boards on various street corners announcing our forthcoming arrival and with drums and dancing in the streets. When Rowan Williams visited Chennai in 2010 he requested to preach in a slum church of Anglican origin. Thus he went to St Peter’s Vyasarpady where Murdoch worked in the late 1960s. In those days the weekly offering was less than Rs2. It is now about Rs25,000. Murdoch preached there to a full to overflowing congregation. There is now a large brass plaque on the wall recording the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury preached there!
Murdoch also preached in St Andrew’s Kirk on New Year’s Day to several hundred people. At the beginning of our ministry there in 1972 Lesslie Newbigin challenged us ‘to preach the gospel to those who had not heard it, to serve people in the slums and the hospitals, and to support the work of the church throughout the hundreds of scattered villages in our diocese.’ We began in small ways with 20 children in the day care centre and work in 3 poor villages near Pulicat. Today there seems to be no end to the outreach of the Kirk. We marvelled at the vibrancy of the Women’s Fellowship, Sunday School and Youth Fellowship, at the excellence of the music and the Choir and their amazing DVDs The Old Rugged Cross, Ancient of Days and Lead Kindly Light.
We also rejoiced at the Vacation Bible Schools, the Camps and Retreats, Bible studies, Healing Services, Prayer Cell meetings, House Church, District Meetings, Monthly Fasting and Prayer, 23 young people confirmed on 2nd October 2011, the Hospital Visiting Programme, the Asha Project among mentally challenged young people and the Day Care Centre at present with 90 children, the leprosy work at Balramapuram in Villivakkam, the Centre for Continuing Education,the Friendship Club, the Evangelism Project with new congregations and splendid church buildings in Thirupalaivanam, Kosapur and presently being built in Avariwakkam.
The small clinic at Thirupalaivanam is now replaced by a hospital unit which cost Rs60 lakhs serving villages far and wide. All this is but a glimpse of what we experienced on our recent pilgrimage to India.
*1 lakh = 100,000 1 crore = 10,000,000 10 million
One lakh crore rupees (or Rs.1 lakh cr) = Rs.(100,000 × 10,000,000) = Rs. 1 trillion
We are quite prepared to give a talk about our pilgrimage should anybody want to know more about it. Just have a word with us and we will see what can be done.
Anne and Murdoch MacKenzie
