Shocked in India

This week Karen and I were visiting with the pastor from our Mumbai SDA church here in India. We actually love Pastor Rajan Paul, who graduated from Spicer College in Pune, with a Master's of Religion degree. Since then he has gotten married (arranged) two years ago and now is the senior pastor of the Mumbai Central church. The first time I heard him preach back in late May, I knew I was going to like him and he is known for his preaching style. He is a wonderful young man and always has a smile on his face. Since I graduated from the SDA theological seminary at Andrews University 32 years ago this month, we started comparing notes about studies and the life of a young pastor. Since I had taken a year out of college and gone flying in Botswana for a year, I was 26 years old by the time I finished seminary and headed back to California, where I was a youth pastor at the Redlands SDA church. So, by the time I was finished with graduate school and back in California, I was right about the same station in life where our young pastor is. He has been married for two years and his wife is expecting their first baby around Christmas to early January. Now, here is where the paths of an SDA minister in the USA and one in a developing country widely diverge. Without probing too deeply, I asked the pastor if he was comfortable sharing salary information with me. I well remember before seminary, my first year out of college, this was 1976, and my starting pay was $1,000 USD/month, give or take a little. My ex-wife was working already as a dental hygienist and in California, they were pretty well paid, so she was making roughly twice what I was making, which didn't bother me at all. With two incomes and not much expense, we were able to get by just fine, even though our first year of marriage, I was still in undergraduate theology training. Without too much pressing, and with a smile on his face, I asked our young pastor about his current pay and he revealed that he is working for less than $90/month US. I asked him again, because, for a moment I was in shock. He laughed again and said that because he has his graduate degree and works at the Mumbai church, he is making quite a bit more than some of the other young men. The local conference does take 10% of his pay for rent on the parsonage, which is attached to the church. We have seen it, and it is just a different world than we live in, trust me on that. We pay our housemaid, who only comes in 6 days a week for about two hours, quite a bit more than this, and she has no education at all. Our drivers, who were full time at Jindal in Delhi, were making more than twice this amount of money and, again, they barely spoke English and their main contribution to life was driving a car in bad traffic. This is just so wrong. Not only is that wrong, but now I did a little math and its just obscene the difference between his pay and mine. If a wealthy executive were making as many times more money as I am than the pastor, he would be making over 35 million dollars a year. Karen and I came home and discussed this for quite some time and we are just shocked that there are dedicated and hard working young people who will submit themselves to a very rigorous and intense post-graduate education for this amount of money. I still remember when my dad talked about arriving in Chile, South America back in 1944. Of course, at that time dad didn't have his master's degree but he had his undergraduate degree in theology and a burning desire to work in Spanish work, since he had grown up in El Paso, Texas. When they got off the boat in Chile, dad discovered he would be making a dollar a day. His and mom's first opportunity to come back to visit family and friends in the USA would be in 6 years. My company here in India flies me home, business class, twice a year. To put one last period on this sentence, the pastor here kind of laughingly told me that his wife has a pretty good tech job with a local company. In fact, her office is right behind our apartment here in Powai. The sad part, his entire salary pays only the tithe on his wife's salary, so she is making 10 times what he makes. I know that pastors in America must now be making in the neighborhood of $50,000/year. The last time I checked, the Indian rupee is about 45 to 1 on the USD, so you can take the same number in both the USA and India, and that's the pay, only here its in rupees, where it's USD in America. An American pastor makes about 45-50 times as much as an Indian pastor. I don't know even where to start with this, but now I have a completely new and amazing appreciation for these pastors and workers.

If you noticed the pictures look a little different today, we followed our Mumbai Central pastor to another SDA English speaking church in the Mumbai area. A friend in Delhi had told me about this church in an area called Sanpada. If the driver knows what he is doing, then it's possible that we might get there quicker than we do to Mumbai Central. Sanpada is an area across the bay, which is part of Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai.) We drove kind of through and passed it on the way to Pune a couple of weeks ago, so I got a brief look at it and now we know. I was very impressed with this huge SDA school that we ended up at for church today. As it turns out, it is a private, SDA school but, since private schools are so highly sought after, they have 2600 students here. When I saw all the school busses and the size of the school I was totally in shock. After church today, one of the teachers informed me that almost the whole congregation at church today was made up solely of the teachers at this SDA school but that most of the students were not Seventh-day Adventist at all. So, I said, what a great opportunity to give them reading, writing, arithmetic, English and Bible. He said they love it and that the school is highly regarded and very successful. I had no idea and love surprises like this. We met in one of the classrooms and sat on very hard desks for the entire length of the SS and church program. Gave me so much more respect for these young kids who come in and sit in these desks every single day. Karen and I guess that there were about 25 people there today, with only one child in the entire congregation. Interesting. As soon as we arrived, the pastor came out of the classroom and greeted us, along with the local pastor of this church. We were honored as guests with special recognition and introduction from the front, as well as one long-stem rose each. Just a wonderful experience, and the pastor of this church said he had heard about me already. I forgot to mention that 3 weeks ago, when we were attending the Mumbai SDA central church, we ran into the president of the Western Indian Union office, and when he saw me, he said he had already heard very good things about my sermons from his grandkids. I guess they attended Mumbai back on July 16, when I was very priveleged to speak there. All this preaching stuff, and the wonderful way that the people here respond to God's gospel of Love, makes me wish, again, that I was two people, so I could share all the time. I got the thelogy degree to please my parents, who thought flying was not a worthy profession, but I have been flying professionally for 31 plus years and it has been a very enjoyable career. Anytime someone pays you to do what you love to do anyway, it's a good life, but we really have to fix this minister salary thing here. AND, I bet, although I don't know, that the teachers are not paid well, either. So fundamentally wrong. And, I have many friends in India who are pilots or working tech jobs and they are paid quite well. It's just a different culture.

Hi Victorville, Hi Garden Grove, Hi Redlands. These are the three SDA churches that I worked at back in the late 70's and early 80's just before I voluntarily switched careers. Great memories, great people and a wonderful experience. I wasn't paid well, but it was an OK life, with lots of the compensation coming as appreciation directly from the parisioners. (Not money, just great appreciation for trying to communicate God's love to them and their kids.) I need some of that love and forgiveness myself these days. I have been struggling lately and just really need your prayers and love.

Thanks for coming along, I hope you enjoyed the message and the journey. Love you all!!

Dan

Waiting to fly

Hi Family and friends,

In early to mid-June, Karen and I began the process of saying good-bye to our Delhi and Gurgaon friends and boarded an airliner for a two hour flight from Delhi to Mumbai on June 18th. Getting three cats on board a domestic airliner in India is no small task. Security insisted on seeing the cat containers but wouldn't have anything to do with the cats themselves. I talked to many supervisors and coordinators before the transaction actually took place. Karen was busy with the debit card covering the cost of the extra baggage and the cats themselves, which we had already taken to the vets office and gotten documentation of their shots and certificates so they could travel. The vet was trained in America and when he sees and American he charges American prices so all the paperwork and the cages, etc, ran way over $200 USD. They were not happy about their new journey and of course, when we arrived at our new apartment near mid-night on Saturday night, security was not happy to see us or our cats. They refused to let us into our new apartment. Calls were placed and, with the cats howling in the background, after about 45 minutes of negotiating, we ended up being let in. The first picture at the top is one of Karen's and my best friends in India, Louise Eikerman. She called and met us at the mall just a day before she was going to board an airliner for her native Canada. She is a nurse and a sweetheart, who has helped us a couple of times. She is now already back in India and has said that Vancouver was lovely this summer. Blue skies, perfect temperatures, etc. Rub it in, Louise. Friends Simon and Jess Alexander also saw us off and have invited us to spend Christmas with them in one of the most beautiful parts of India, the Kerala coast. We really look forward to that and hope that it all works out.

In the meantime, the last few weeks have been consumed with getting a major inspection done on the airplane so that has given us a little time to get some trips done, which you already saw the blog for the Pune trip. We have been busy trying to get all the paperwork in order for our third visit to the FRRO, foreign regional registration office. This most hated of Indian government bureaucracies is just indicative of how things go wrong when you allow paperwork and old ideas left over from the British way of doing things to flourish and grow for decades. Its just horrible and now we have made two visits there with at least a 90 minute drive each way in traffic and with not even the courtesy to get in and speak with any of the people since they always find something wrong with the paperwork. Part of this required a visit to Delhi by airlines to deregister there so we could register here in Mumbai. Until you have been here and done this you cannot imagine the amount of time and energy that goes into keeping all your paperwork and visas and other transactions current and ready in case you need them.

At least, since I have come to Mumbai, we have been flying some quite interesting people. The picture above with the lady in blue is a famous Bollywood actress here named Somali Bandre. She flew with us twice and once she had a planeload of friends from Bollywood so that was a fun and interesting trip.

Karen and I have been traveling to the Mumbai Central SDA church every weekend that we are here. Traffic is bad, although if you leave early enough, we can make it in 45 minutes. If you leave a little late, then it's over an hour. Gives new meaning to the trip to church every week but we love the little congregation of only about 60 people. The pastor is a wonderful, young man, Pastor Rajan Paul, who has been very kind to Karen and I as we moved (shifted) into the Mumbai area. Just an interesting sidelight. The pastors here in India are paid so poorly that it is just kind of sad. Our current pastor's wife has a nice, corporate job near our apartment and she makes many times what he does. In fact, he told us that his salary only pays the tithe on his wife's salary. Kind of puts dedication to the church and it's work in a new light when you consider that. I remember my folks taking a job as missionaries in Chile, South America back in the mid-40's. Dad's starting salary was $30/month and they were starving to death. Just unbelievable what church work expects of people sometimes. Dad said that even though they were ex-pats from America that the division office had decided that they would be compensated as locals. If I had been dad, I would have been on the next boat home. They had just riden on a frieght ship from New York that took them weeks to get there. Once they got there, it was going to be 6 years before they got to see America again, courtesy of the church. Mom had her first baby thousands of miles away from home, without the support of family or people that she could easily communicate with. Wow, mom, I have a new appreciation for what you went through. You made some great friends, though, and now, all these years later, your friends from those many years ago in Chile, the Wanderslebans, are good friends from Cleveland, Tennessee. Turns out, that many years later, I hired Fred Salyers as a pilot at Life Care Centers in Cleveland, and he had married the Wanderslebans daughter, Joyce, so SDA world strikes again.

When I first came to India, I had told Karen that 2-3 years would be it. Now, I am going into my 3rd year and I have changed my story. Of course, you never know how it will work out, but if things go according to my plan at all, then we will stay in India for another 6 and 1/2 years until I hit my 65th birthday and will no longer be able to fly here.

We keep talking about things that we should blog about and then I can't remember what we wanted to say when I sit down to write. One of the things we have discovered is that pedestrians are not protected in traffic like they are in America. If a car comes for you, you better jump, as they will not move or slow down. So, Karen ends up screaming at the drivers and waving her arms like mad, which I am sure just makes them wonder what's wrong with that blonde, American woman there in the way. I tell her she is not going to change the culture here but that doesn't seem to change her mind about this one. We like our neighborhood here better with a Chili's restaurant and a Spaghetti Kitchen that make us feel much more at home.The gym is about 3 blocks away and when we walk there we have discovered one of the differences here is that they don't pick up their pet's dog poop so you better watch your step. We see the natives stopped, with their pets, just doing the business in the middle of the sidewalk, not even moving to the curb. PLEASE, people!! Karen usually makes friends with every dog in the neighborhood but here she has met with some resistance that we have blamed on skin color. These dogs not only don't want to come to her, but bark and snap and really don't want to be with her. She got her feelings hurt but not every dog on the planet is going to love anyone. Our little Poppy cat was going into heat and caterwalling around the apartment for weeks, so I finally took her to the vet and got her fixed. We just took her to a vet a few blocks away and you would have been amazed at this little vet office, with the operating table right there in the office. They shaved Poppy's side in a square about two inches on a side and so it will take months for her hair to look right again, although she doesn't seem to mind. Boy, now I think she is becoming my new favorite kitty, as she has calmed down and really is a wonderful cat, considering she was going to be a Feral cat on the streets of Gurgaon until that fateful night in March of 2010 when Karen reached down, picked her up and her life changed, miraculously, forever. God does something similar for us, if we let HIM. Karen now knows the names of all dozen or so dogs that we see on our way to the gym and back each day. We love our gym and the people here are warming up to us. We finally found a couple of ex-pat organizations that have promised to let us know what is going on and to invite us to come to their social functions.

I have decided I want to buy either a real piano or possibly and electronic one for the Mumbai church. They have neither a piano or organ so the music is done each week with the assistance of a wonderful, young man and his guitar. I love the guitar, but miss the keyboard function and hope maybe we can find one reasonably here in Mumbai to help them out.

Hope this finds you all well. Will be back flying again in just a couple of days. There will be more road pictures and stories from that.

Love you guys,

Dan

Trip to Pune and Spicer College

Hello my friends,

For the first time in 5 months, I am back to publishing my blog. So, for those of you who look for this then you will be happy. Karen and I finally got a little bit of time off from my work and we are heading out on a ROAD TRIP. You see, my airplane is in maintenance for at least 15 days so that gives me time to go and see some of India, as well as other places.

First of all, I need to apologize for not being on my blog site in 5 months. The job change and transition to Mumbai was WAY more difficult and time consuming than I EVER thought it would be. Karen and I went together to the USA the 1st of April for my 40th High School reunion. That was really fun and we had a blast together but then I had to go to New York City to get my new Indian visa as I had to have that for my NEW job. That took like an extra week and with all the bother of New York City hassles, traffic and just dealing with Indian bureaucracy at the Consulate in New York. Fortunately, we had friends in the DGCA in India who helped hurry my new pilot visa through and meanwhile I was back in California, visiting with my granddaughter, Sadie, while the bureaucrats fought over issues. Finally, after the embassy refused to take my credit card info over the phone and said to send it on their website, I sent it to their email address. No passport in the Fedex truck the next morning so I called and they said their website had issues and wasn't working. I forced them to take the info over the phone and finally, on Wednesday of the second week, I had my passport and visa, but not in time to make the LA flight to Delhi that day. So, one more night in Loma Linda and then LAX to Delhi on Emirates, a very nice ride in business class and the first class lounges, where I took my first shower in Dubai this time. Very nice!! With lots of sleep and the shower I was ready for my big Indian bureaucracy when I got back to Delhi this time. First to the Indian Air Force to finish up my delayed Indian medical. Once that was in hand, we headed for the DGCA to get my new pilot's license for the new company, since your license has your employer on it. I got that and then we headed for the dreaded Foreign Regional Registration Office. Ugh!! This most hated of bureaucracies is just a drag any time. Fortunately, I had my copilot Vipul, with me to help if there were any issues that we couldn't understand. Of course, we took about 3 days because for a minute we thought we were going to the Gurgaon FRRO because that was my home address, but NO, it was back to Delhi and the LONG lines there. Finally got everything settled and had my paperwork done. They were still finishing up the certification for the aircraft in India (it had come from England) and once that was done, we started flying on April 28. I had already been working for the company for one full month, but all of that time was tied up in paperwork and taking taxis all over Delhi to get things done. Karen was still in the USA visiting with family and having get-together's with friends in Pittsburgh area. Finally, on May 26th she reappeared in India and, though I was out of town flying the plane, she put on her big girl pants and got a taxi to take her HOME, where she crashed for like a week straight. Jet lag coming from the USA is always a killer, for sure.

I had lots of flying for awhile and then it began to slow down. Finally, I had to return to the USA in late June for my recurrent training and this time, due to last minute schedule changes, I caught a British Airways/American Airlines combination through London and then straight to Dallas/Fort Worth airport, where my class started at 8 a.m. the next morning after 22 straight hours of flying and then arriving in Dallas at 8:30 p.m. the night before. Fortunately, I didn't sleep through class and we got the training done before I headed for Tennessee, where I visited with Brad, Jessica and Sadie, who were staying with her family in Tennessee. I also got a chance to visit with many friends at church and in the area over several days. Bill and Debbie Hoover up in Cleveland, Gary Walls, Doctor Starkey, all friends from days gone by, made contact and we had some quality time together. Got many chances to see Sadie and she is becoming quite a ham, reminding me constantly of someone in our family about 30 years prior to this. Brad has his 30th birthday in early June. Wow, can I possibly have a kid that age already?? 

We left this morning from Mumbai, where our new apartment in Powai area of Mumbai is our new favorite place in India. We LOVE our location, since we are on the 14th floor of a bunch of highrise apartments that are in a very nice section of Mumbai. Karen can walk out our door and catch a tuk-tuk or walk just 3 blocks to great restaurants, shopping and banks, whatever she needs. This area appeals to ex-pats and she finds herself finally feeling quite at home in India. Our gym is located about 3 blocks away and we walk together there almost every day. Too fun to have someone to work out and walk with. Karen is working hard on her new body image and finally has gotten the GYM fever even more than me. I have been faithful in the gym for over 2 years now. Even though I am no Charles Atlas, I am in the best physical condition of my life and she has started to become a believer that this stuff works so she is now waking me up at 6 a.m. to make it to the gym and workout before others get to our favorite equipment. She has lost many pounds and I have lost almost 30 since I first came to India in June of 2009. The best part is I don't worry about my blood pressure and the treadmill tests that are a routine part of my Indian flight physical are just such a breeze now. Since treadmill or Cross-trainer is a part of my cardio routine, it sure makes a difference in how I feel about my physicals. Since India has been such a blessing to me, financially, we are making plans to stay until I am forced to retire at age 65 here, so almost another 7 years. Life is adventurous, comfortable and pretty easy. We wish we were closer to family and sometimes it is lonely and hectic. Our biggest frustration right now is Mumbai traffic, which is SO MUCH WORSE than Delhi traffic. I live 10 miles from the airport and sometimes it takes 1:20 or more to get to work. Very sad and frustrating. I kill time with my new company IPAD2 and the moving map of the world works very well in all parts of India so, since I love maps, it is my new passtime, getting acquainted with the roads of India. I even tell the drivers where to go sometimes, which they do not appreciate at all. Too funny. The driver mentality cannot process a moving map with a blue dot that represents our taxi and roadways that represent what you see out the window. Not a single driver can do it, so I just tell them that I will say right or left to get where we are going. They argue with me and sometimes that alone takes an extra 10-15 minutes. But, those of you who know I love maps will know that I have found my new passion. It even works at the airport on the runways to keep us from getting lost on the airports. Too fun!!

Gottta go to Friday night vespers at the college so must close. I am off Facebook for a little while so you guys will benefit because I will take more time to keep you updated. Please let me know you like or don't like this stuff. I will try to keep it interesting.

Karen was looking for her glasses as we left this morning and they were on her head. I had to post that pic. Also, look at the road to Pune, have you ever seen such open, clear, clean roads in India? amazing. Also, look at the beautiful scenery. Our college has a wonderful campus and we will enjoy it for vespers as well as church tomorrow. Then, a little touring around Pune and back home tomorrow night.

Love you all,

Dan and Karen