Let the Kids ride free

The night before we left India we reflected on the trip so far. It was with a tear in the eye we said farewell to a country we’d grown to appreciate, not just as a chaotic jungle but a place with immense character and a people with heart. (We’d made so many friends here, we wondered if we would ever return and if so when? So many more people we could have visited, so much more we could have done).

As we stood at the border of Pakistan, ready to go through the gate to the other side the feeling of trepidation gripped us again. It was that same feeling we felt before arriving in India. What was Pakistan going to be like? What would they do when they found out we were Christians? Should we tell anybody? Or should we say nothing? We had very little knowledge of Pakistan and now sitting here at the border ready to go in we didn’t know what to expect.

What we found is a Paskistan different from what the media would have you believe and certainly from what we expected to find. The very first person we met in Pakistan was a Christian auto-rickshaw driver who helped us negotiate the labyrinth of Lahore.  Here in Pakistan the police pull you over frequently to buy you cups of chai (tea), the visa staff are friendly, strangers invite you into their homes and indeed the opportunities for mission - far from being restricted - are ripe.

Just your average Pakistani Home…

On crossing from the North of India into what was described to us as ‘Pakistan’s Melbourne’ - Lahore- we were prompty seconded into the home of a Muslim brother Julian met in a photocopy shop, adjacent to the hotel where Nathan was getting well aquainted with the bathroom and toilet (a parting gift from India). 

Our new friend became affectionately known as “Fuzzy” - Farhard and his family looked after us well - they lived in the back alleys of old Lahore. For safe keeping they also allowed us to store the moto in their goat shed.  These guys helped us organise a quick trip to Islamabad to sort out Irani visas.

Islamabad is a planned city much like Canberra where things appear quite sanitary and organised. We went to catch a film while we were in Islamabad but found that the cinema’s had been turned into hospitals for people hurt in the October 8 earthquake - keep the prayers up as winter in the earthquake area rolls on.

Fuzzy became something of a mother figure for us - calling us regularly to check ‘we were ok’ throughout our time in Pakistan. Although a devout Muslim, observing his daily nammaaz (his father was away on Haj while we were there) he even came to check out church with us. Fuzzy and his family showed us some serious hospitality…

The Sonnemans (just your average Melbourne family…)

We are just on the flipside of spending a solid week with the Sonnemans - a young family from Melbourne that have been working for the good Lord in Pakistan with CMS for 5 years now.  Steve and Jenny have two young children - Timmy 3 and little Lizzy just 4 months old.  They like playing 500 and eating dark chocolate (which isn’t available in Pakistan - hint hint!!!) and drive a dual cab hilux. They are a really nice family who would not necessarily be out of place in the burbs of Sydney or Melbourne - perhaps working for a church or teaching at a bible college - but they have chosen a different life here. 

Their first two years were spent up in the North of Pakistan doing intensive language training in the local dialect, Urdu. They have also made a concerted effort to integrate pretty hard-core into the local culture, dressing pretty locally and having an eastern style ‘squatter’ toilet in their house :) 

Along with many foreign NGO workers they were pulled out after September 11. They soon returned despite a spait of other terrorist attacks on Western targets in Pakistan (you may remember the Christian school shooting in Murree).  Steve now heads up a Bible college in Southern Pakistan (BTC) that aims to train up a generation of locals to preach the good word. You can read all about them on their CMS web page.

It was really nice to spend some time with these guys and catch how life works for missionaries here in Pakistan. We had a busy week as they introduced us to much of the work going on about the place. We took the local pastor, Saleem, for a ride visiting villages (we managed to take a little tumble from the bike into the mud and dirty Saleem’s Sunday best - sorry brother). We met with the local Christian student group (PFES - Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students), saw a goat get sacrified for the Muslim Eid, traded English for Urdu and had some rumbles with the BTC students. We also checked out some of the aid and health projects going on in the area and even got a bit of insight into how the parenting thing works feeding the Sonnemans’ kids.

The Sonnemans were honest about some of the hardships faced in mission work in Pakistan -  Timmy has spent much of his young life with diarrhoea, boils, meningitis and other illnesses associated with third world living conditions. They are far from the family and friends they have grown up with and living a life in a culture that is foreign to their own.  But the Sonnemans are unwavering in their commitment to ministry in Pakistan. They are doing the Lord’s work here and are secure in their faith and vision that there is potential for a great change in the hearts of the Pakistani people they are working with. “That’s what keeps us here,” Steve said over the washing up one night. These guys are a good crew and they certainly challanged us about thinking about mission.

Before we arrived at the Sonnemans we were expecting to find a family marooned in a village hammering out a path for the gospel. What we found was a community of believers from different countries working in different ministries but for a common cause.

There are great opportunities for work here and the possibilities for ministry are in no way limited to ‘bible teaching’ in a classical sense. There are opportunities in:
- Teaching kids (Tim and Lizzie are up for some schooling soon)
- English language teaching (many Pakistanis are hungry to improve their English)
- Engineering (buliding and water management projects)
- Administration (staff desperately required to help with administration at bible college) and many more; all skills are useful here.

Pakistan is definitely a county that will surprise you. Forget about what you see on the TV or what you hear from people that haven’t been there. If you come here you’ll see Pakistan for what it is - a country that labours under western predjudice but doesn’t hold that against its foreign visitors. You will only experience warmth and freindship as we did - wherever we trod.

The water boy

One of the guys the Sonnemans introduced us to was Maurice, a Christian brother from the UK in Pakistan with his charming wife Laura.  There is some seriously nasty water in Pakistan; quality is not a high priority with families who are struggling to keep body and soul together. The same waterways here that are used for cooking and drinking are also polluted by washing, disposal of rubbish, human waste and farming and indistry run off. It’s a bad scene if you live downstream. 

Maurice is working here with an NGO on ways to get clean water for those living in villages where it is not readily avalable, using local materials that are cheap in cost.  His backyard, otherwise something of an english garden, is full of different inventions and concepts. We were able to check out a somewhat ingenious water filter that uses two clay pots and a series of different grades of sand media to make filthy canal water drinkable. We were also able to help construct the prototype of a new concept he was working on - a cheap desalination plant for salty ground water.  Maurice is busy educating villagers on the construction and maintenance of these biological sand water filters and in doing so is improving the health and wellbeing of many.  He’s always up for some more input or just a wall to bounce ideas off. Check out more about his work at [url=http://www.cms-uk.org/water/concept.htm]http://www.cms-uk.org/water/concept.htm[/url]

Pakistani Petrol Smugglers

So now we are in Balouchistan - the Pakistani state that borders Iran and Afganistan- riding for Iran.  Because fuel is so cheap in Iran it is illegally smuggled across the border at night and sold roadside from small vendors. It’s all straight from the barrel to you.  Our experience is that the fuel and the vendors both tend to be of dubious repute. The measure they use doesn’t seem to be the metric litre. When we tried to point out to one vendor he made it quite clear with a piece of 4X2 in his hand that his measure was not negotiable. So, live and learn, next fill we used our own measure. Chuffed with ourselves for getting the right amount of fuel we rolled on down the road through the heart of the Baluochistan desert. Suddenly without warning the XT sputtered to a halt, dead as a stone. We were stranded in the desert. However the good Lord came through. A ute stopped and we loaded the XT and caught a ride to the Pak/ Iran border. It turns out the guys that gave us a ride were also petrol smugglers - doing an empty run to to Iran to pick up fuel:) The post mortem revealed poor quality fuel (maybe 1/4th some other liquid) which wasn’t a great drop for the motorbike.

Apart from this minor setback things have been running pretty well. We hit a dog the other day + few minor spills, but as always the good Lord rides with us. The problem’s rectified now and we’re back on the road, off into unknown territory, sights set on Iran.

nb + jp