MISSION PARTNER NEWSLETTER FROM SRI LANKA – MARCH 2006
Greetings from Sri Lanka and welcome to our third quarterly Newsletter.
When we wrote last time we were busy adjusting to life in the wet season. We were looking forward to January and February, which are traditionally dry. However, it transpired that these months, although drier, were unusually wet – just like most other months since we arrived! The reservoirs are full, including the one behind the huge Victoria dam, which is overflowing for the first time in twenty years.
But we were fortunate that the weather was dry over the Christmas and New Year period when our mission partner friends, Kate and Walley Kohn, visited from Nepal. We had a lovely, relaxed time with them. After church on Christmas Day we walked through the beautiful Hantana Tea Estate near Kandy. Later we visited the ancient capital, Pollonaruwa – much more spectacular than anticipated – and Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka’s highest town, otherwise known as “Little England.” Situated amongst the tea estates producing the desirable “high-grown” tea, Nuwara Eliya (5800ft), is a cross between Kendal in the Lake District and a small racing town like Lingfield. Here, the Colombo rich come to escape the April heat and gamble on the horses. A little higher is the Horton Plains National Park where elephants roamed until the nineteenth century - all shot by British hunters - and where unique montane forest is daily enveloped in cloud. Later in January we enjoyed seeing Chris Elliot, our boss from Methodist HQ in London, who was visiting the Sri Lankan church.
Typical scene on Horton Plains just before the cloud closes in.
But we wouldn’t want our friends in UK to think that we are spending all our time idly touring the beauty spots of Sri Lanka! Even before Walley and Kate returned to (a very troubled) Nepal, James had begun his new role as “Development Officer”. Rosemary has been busy teaching – mainly Old Testament, which has been quite taxing – and planning a conference to mark 25 years since the first woman ordinand came to TCL.
James is rapidly becoming familiar with the infrastructure issues on the campus. Building maintenance, the clean water system and soil erosion on a wet, hilly site all need constant attention. The latter has caused some expensive trouble with sewage systems that have had to be emptied. There are only a few people prepared to do this work and they charge accordingly. Meanwhile, two tea estate workers building a dry stonewall to prevent soil erosion are charging a mere 16 rupees (about 9p) per cubic foot of wall for their back-breaking work. And James has learned that there is no point in his getting quotes for materials or services – local staff will always get a better price. Wednesday is Maintenance Day when the three gardeners, the office assistant (the admirable Christy, an excellent colleague) and James (with his trusty toolbox) tackle the jobs mounting up in the maintenance file.
A
recent urgent matter was a sudden degradation in water quality – to put it
mildly – and water flow. The
tap water was a brown colour and floating on top were a few snake scales.
By a process of elimination we narrowed down the likely location of the
blockage to a 100 yard stretch. We
then dug a hole and cut the pipe and, by some great good fortune, found the dead
snake – 6ft long in a 1¼ inch
pipe. Much cleaning followed.
A pile of rubbish alongside a paddy field near the college
Another issue at TCL is solid waste disposal. At present most of this is buried, including plastic bags that will never decompose. Some College waste is burned but not much. Some composting of leaves is being done but vegetable waste from the kitchen (of which there is much) is not composted. In the towns and villages there are unsightly heaps and open pits, which encourage dogs (all vegetarian here) and other less appealing creatures. The TCL Ecology Interest Group hopes to change the attitudes of the staff, students and families, and to provide means of recycling and composting. This is a very interesting “hearts and minds” challenge. Fortunately, there is no shortage of good local advice. (Plastic bags on campus – to ban or not to ban?).
As you can imagine plants and trees grow very quickly here with sunshine and rain being plentiful. Just keeping the 13-acre TCL campus tidy is a big job. Last year the steeply sloping road frontage was transformed from jungle to a large grassy area with ornamental trees and plants – adding to the gardeners’ workload. However, this does give visitors and local people a good impression of TCL and indicates that the college cares about its land – which has been lost through encroachment in the past. And the relationship with the local Sinhala Buddhist community is taken very seriously here, both because we are a Christian community amongst Buddhists and also we are a community with a Tamil majority in a Sinhalese area. To help the local villagers, the college runs a weekday nursery and Saturday classes for the older ones. The nursery is about to move into a brand new building, while the older children should soon benefit from a special library. Local teenagers use the cricket field almost every afternoon playing a very fast game with a tennis ball. Recently, the students helped the local villagers dig a ditch for a new water pipe. Rosemary surprised them all by wielding a “mamati” vigorously.
Anurruddha, Deepthi, Sanath and Manjuka help the locals dig a ditch using “mamatis”. Saman and Wesley are in the background.
But, it’s not all work; recently the college had its own Olympic games. Rosemary was a winner in the women’s doubles badminton competition and James was a winner in the men’s doubles table tennis. More surprisingly Rosemary, the oldest competitor, entered a 2.5 km road race! She was the first woman home and even beat a man! She slept very well that night!
We are getting to know the English speaking congregation at Kandy Methodist Church, as well as other people in the city. The 20-30 strong congregation is mostly elderly Sinhalese. Government policies in the past promoted Sinhala at the expense of English and Tamil with the result that grandparents speak much better English than their grandchildren. Services are traditional and very similar to services in UK thirty or more years ago. Even organists here can think they know all the best tunes! Recently the appointed pianist at Kandy Methodist Church didn’t turn up because Rosemary had chosen hymns from the 1983 rather than 1933 hymnbook! Beyond the church, and the college, there is swimming and getting to know our new friends Paul and Ina Watson (CMS Mission Partners) and their two daughters Abigail and Hannah.
The end of the academic year (June to April) is fast approaching and the students are busy completing assignments and revising for exams. It is an exciting and emotional time for the fourth year students as they prepare to move to the posts allocated by their sponsoring churches. In four years of living closely together strong bonds can be created between “batch mates” – a term used by everyone, even those in retirement, when talking of contemporaries. The Valedictory Service is on April 1st and Rosemary will be wearing a sari for the first time for the annual College photo.
Exams are taken very seriously here. Everyone wants more and more qualifications. Schools, even top private schools, are not considered good enough – everyone sends their children to extra tuition classes – often stretching their finances. Rosemary and James are also on the tuition treadmill. Required by the Sri Lankan Methodist Conference to learn a local language, we have weekly Sinhala tuition classes. We’re getting to grips with the curvaceous Sinhala script for the purposes of understanding signs and names. The written language is different to the spoken one, which is quite hard enough.
Everyone is relieved that talks between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) have taken place. The result seems to be a mutual desire to keep talking. This might not seem like much but it is a start after three months of escalating violence preceded by four years of “ceasefire” in which murders were routine. And somehow the government seems to have kept its extreme elements on board.
We send you
blessings for the coming Easter season.
Rev’d
Rosemary Fletcher and James Rowley. Theological College of Lanka, Nandana Uyana,
Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka
Rosemary dips into an advanced Sinhala book
There are more photos on our website: www.rosemaryandjames.methodistchurch.co.uk
For more about TCL see: www.tclsl.org
Please consider the following prayer points:
Ž For the continuing peace talks.
Ž For the eight fourth year students leaving TCL for ministry all over Sri Lanka. For the other students as they begin their fieldwork in the long vacation.
Ž For the TCL Faculty as we review the year’s work and plan for the new academic year starting in June.
Ž For the College and local churches to become more aware of their responsibilities for God’s creation.
Ž For the planning of the Celebrating the Theological Education of Women Conference July 23rd to 26th.
Ž To end, a blessing written by the Reverend Malini Devananda. She is an ordained Anglican deacon in Colombo. The whole prayer is on the website.
May
God’s breath cleanse and empower us
May
God’s strength lead us in times of temptation
May
God’s guidance help us to seek
for alternatives
May God’s sensitivity make us tread lightly on his/her creation. Amen.
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