Pastor Jaya Kumar and family

Once inside, I was immediately offered the best seat in the house, a hammock-type cloth-woven chair that gently hugged the contour of my body. My mind raced back and forth trying to adjust to the distinctive change in my surroundings.

It was hard to fathom that just thirty some hours ago I was on the other side of the world, sitting in my living room with my husband Ed, in front of a large screen television in an A-frame house with central air conditioning and wall-to-wall carpeting. Here I sat examining the design of the flagstone floor, each piece of stone carefully placed according to its size and shape by Jayas father who had built their house forty-three years ago. Pastor Abraham who had passed on less than a year before had taken great care in the construction of their house and church. The living quarters were down stairs and the church was on the second floor. He actually built it around a coconut tree which serves as good support and shades the top of the building. There were three rooms down stairs, the kitchen to the left, family room in the middle, a bedroom to the right, and Bless his heart.an inside bathroom with a western toilet! This man was a visionary! I say that partly in jest, but he had made adequate planning in the beginning that would later pave the way for such changes as inside plumbing. Outside, in the street was a hand pump shared by all those who lived on that street, but Pastor Abraham had put a hand pump inside their house that was protected from contamination, and was the foundation for what would later be internal plumbing with hot and cold running water. He also had electrical wiring, something few houses on the street had, only the school next door to my knowledge.