Saturday, 23 February 2008

• Currently Listening Magical Moments of Rhythm By Zakir Hussain see related

  What a tremendous Friday night.  We went to Memphis to see Aradhna.  The concert was wonderful.  We saw some friends from Little Rock that we hadn’t seen in a long time which was nice.  The tabla player is from Memphis so there is a way for me to have a teacher.  I began to talk to Fiona Hicks (of Aradhna) and she immediately recognized our name because we had been communicating with them over the last several years but had never met.  Her and Elizabeth got along right from the start, they had a lot in common.  I talked a bit with Peter and Chris and they, as well as I, were glad to meet.  Liz and I did not get a chance to eat beforehand.  The guy that was organizing everything invited us over to the house where Aradhna was staying to hang out and eat.  We had some AWESOME Indian food and conversation.  Thursday we looked online for hotels but did not find anything that we were sure was close to where we were going to be or in our price range so we figured we would stay at some Motel 6 somewhere.  When it was found out that we had not a place to lay our head, the organizer, Basu and his wife, invited us to stay in an extra room they had.  Elizabeth was missing her toothbrush and Basu had an extra packaged one and he gave it to her.  To end the night we had a group prayer time which was blessed.  Basu’s wife Shaliui offered to give Elizabeth a sari.  The next morning we came downstairs where there was prepared chai and biscuits which were excellent.  I got to talk more to Basu and he and Shaliui are Yeshu Bhaktas, Hindu devotees to Christ.  They are Christians that stay as close and true to Hindu culture as possible while worshiping Christ alone.  I had been wanting to meet one of these folks very much over the last few weeks.  He patiently told us many things about the importance of this movement and a little of what it looks like.  He was preaching to my heart.  It meant being the person God made you to be not what others say you should be, being fulfilled totally through the change of Christ in the heart.  Indians can be Indians, Turks can be Turks, so on, uniquely drawing near to Jehovah by the blood of Christ.  This shows the transcendence of Christ; one does not need to be a certain culture or change certain things first and then come to Christ, one simply needs to be who God made them to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  On our way home Shaliui made sandwiches for us for our trip back to Little Rock.  Incredible hospitality.  We now have made good friends with some Yeshu Bhaktas in Memphis and the Hicks in Cincinnati and Chris Hale in Toronto.  We left with full hearts and stomachs.

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