The congregation totalled over 200 (Tamil speakers of whom about 25 can understand English and about 30 Sinhala)
A Visit to Kalmunai in the East on TCL Sunday (Sunday February 24th 2008)
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| Every year on TCL Sunday groups of students are sent to different places around the island to conduct a service and be exposed to places to which they might never otherwise go. This year we accompanied a group to the eastern coastal town of Kalmunai where Rosemary's friend Jothini is the Methodist minister. The journey over there on Saturday February 23rd was a long one taking us out of the hill country past dams, rivers and some beautiful scenery. We also saw the paddy harvest underway near the east coast. This was the first time we had seen machinery being used for the rice harvest. On our nearly 8 hour journey to Kalmunai we went through 7 checkpoints. | The Methodist Church compound at Kalmunai is a large one that includes a Girls' Home as well as a couple of large halls. This picture was taken in front of a Hall and shows the roots of a large banyan tree that forms a roundabout in the compound. They look like tree trunks but they are actually aerial roots that have managed to establish themselves so as to feed the tree above - not shown in this picture. |
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During the service the students presented a multi-lingual drama in
Sinhala, Tamil and English, about the men in a woman's life and how
unkind they were. The drama worked very well. The lectionary Gospel
was John 4 v 7-26.
Rosemary preached the sermon in English which Jothini translated into
Tamil.
The congregation totalled over 200 (Tamil speakers of whom about 25 can understand English and about 30 Sinhala)
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The Kalmunai church has open sides because the temperatures can get very high. There are some seats around the sides for the more elderly members of the congregation but the main body of the church is without seats. The children from the Girl's Home in the compound attend the Church. The picture shows them attending a Sunday School class after the service. |
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| Kalmunai was damaged in the tsunami and many people lost loved ones and their homes. 32 people from Kalmunai Methodist Church died in the tsunami. This is a picture taken on Saturday evening February 23rd in a rebuilt home belonging to the father of a TCL student, Gunalan. His mother died in the tsunami. Reverend Jothini is in the middle with the yellow flowers. | On our way home on the Sunday we stopped at a Buddhist Temple near Ampara where there was a meeting held by an interfaith peace group. We saw this soldier with his gun and two boy monks. How sad it is that sacred places need protection. |
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