Just About Made It

Looks like I'll just squeak in with our Friday feature - Cool Person Of The Week. It's Saturday morning here and I'm back in Mumbai, but it's still Friday back home in the USA.

We finished the Pastors Conference yesterday and those who attended were very appreciative of all the teaching. In a country with no resources available to church leaders, these guys got enough material to help them with their ministry for several months to come.

We flew back here last night on Jet Airways, the Rolls Royce of economy airline travel. Trust me, Delta, American, US Airways, United, and even my favorite Jet Blue, could all learn a lesson from Jet. They actually treat you like people. Before take-off there is a drink and candy, during the flight they serve a full meal and they are the most courteous airline staff I have ever encountered. All this during a sixty minutes flight by the way. Now it may seem as if my rating of their service is based on the amount of food provided, but we all know that would be an unfair conclusion to come to!!!

HERE IT IS ... SUPERCOOL PERSON OF THE WEEK
It will come as no surprise I'm sure to learn that my Supercool Person Of The Week comes from the Indian sub-continent. It is our host for the Pastors Conference that has just concluded in Udaipur, Pastor Manohar (don't worry about his last name, iot's unpronouncable and I can never remember it anyway!)

Manohar has done a great job planting a good church in this tourist city in the state of Rajestan. From the church he does a lot of outreach into the surrounding villages and he is now in the process of training ten young men who will move out next year and plant another ten churches. He works tirelesly, loves people who need Jesus and is the most courteous host you could imagine. By the way he also did a great job of translating for us for the whole conference.

Here's the bit that struck me - Manohar, his wife and teenage daughters live in the balcony of the church. They work with people who are dirt poor and I suppose a tithe of next to nothing is very little indeed. His income must be tiny, far below what he would need to rent or buy a home, so they have put a couple of sheets of plywood up against the rail of the balcony for some privacy and they all live there.

I never had to live in the church in all my years of ministry. We've always had a home to go back to. I really admire this man. He's totally sold out to what he's doing. So he's my hero as I look at the past week.

Of course I'd love to see him in a place of his own, but we'll chat about that later!