Pages from the Philips

Our first couple of days have been filled with lots more travel, people to visit and some great South Indian Food. After we arrived in Cochin (located in the state of Kerala, the state where Christo grew up), we spent Tuesday and Wednesday visiting with Christo’s uncle Babu and aunt Sally who work as church planters in the city of Cochin. When Christo lived in India, he attended one of the churches which Babu Uncle had planted and it was while attending that church that Babu Uncle led Christo to Christ. Babu & Sally lived in the US in the 80s while Babu Uncle attended Dallas Theological Seminary from where he received his masters in theology. Subsequently they returned to India to plant a church in Cochin where they served as church planters for 12 years. They then returned to the US for a couple of years while their children went to high school and have since returned to India about a year and half ago as missionaries sent out from Denton Bible Church. Since their return, Babu uncle has taken an active role in providing theological training for leaders from local churches around India. It was wonderful to hear about the work God is doing in the churches in South India, especially as many families from the local churches in South India have decided to go to North India to help take the Gospel there.

Since this was our first visit to South India since getting married, Christo’s parents flew to India to meet us here for the first two weeks so that they could help to facilitate some of our meetings with Christo’s relatives (especially on his dad’s side) who have never met Melissa or the kids. Having them here has been such a big help because it has allowed us to have two more sets of hands to help out with kids who were extremely tired from the trip and all the adjustments they have had to make after coming here. After spending Wednesday in Cochin, we traveled to Mylapra via Allepy. Allepy was Christo’s childhood home where he lived from the time he was born until age three and so on this trip Melissa and the kids got to see a little of Christo’s life that he experienced while growing up in India. We then arrived in Mylapra where we visited Christo’s aunt, Chinnamamma who lost her husband a few months ago. This was a difficult visit because the three month anniversary of her husband’s passing away occurred during our visit. They had been married for over 45 years and now almost everything in their home reminds her of him and thus it has been a long couple of months for her as she grieves this loss. Since she has family in the US, we encouraged her to come and visit for a couple of months so that she has some time way from a place that invokes so many memories for her.

After visiting Chinnamamma, we traveled to Malapilly on Friday to visit Dayle, Thankachayan uncle and Valsammama (Christo’s uncle and aunt on his mom’s side). Dayle is one of Christo’s cousins who works for the State Department and she was visiting her parents for a couple of weeks from Kuwait. She is expecting her first baby and plans to move back to the US for a year for the baby’s birth before going abroad again. After this visit, we drove to the area near Christo’s dad’s childhood home (Kottayam). We had a really enjoyable visit with Dr. Finny Matthew and his wife. Dr. Finny was the person who led dad to Christ many years ago and so it was wonderful to see them again and hear about their heart for India. It is Dr. Finny’s son (Philip) who we met a couple of years ago in Dallas who shared with us about the hospital at Makunda where we’ll be traveling to next week. Dr. Finny served with World Vision India as their national director and now that he has retired he serves as president of Shalom Bible College which helps to train men and women in theology. It was exciting to hear about a new course they have started there in cross-cultural missions where they bring in church leaders and missionaries from Northern India to come to the South to train men here and give them a vision for reaching North India for Christ. It was exciting to hear them share about their passion for reaching India. They have been such a dear family to us over the years and we’re glad that we’ll get to be with their son and his family during our time at Makunda.

After the visit with Dr. Finny, we finally travelled to Christo’s uncle’s house, our final destination for Friday. Kunjumon uncle and his family have never met Melissa or the kids and thus are some of the first people from Christo’s dad’s side of the family to meet them. Our plan is to spend Saturday in Kottayam before we travel back to Cochin.

On Sunday evening we will travel via train to northern Kerala to visit the rest of Christo’s dad’s side of the family.

Prayer Requests:

1. Continued mercies as we have more travel ahead of us.
2. Please pray for Christo on Sunday (this will be Saturday evening in the US) as he will be preaching on Sunday in Cochin regarding the Christian response to poverty. (This will be at the church he attended with his family while they lived in Cochin prior to coming to the US.)
3. Our jet-lagged kids. We are making progress little by little but their sleeping and eating schedules are still off. Christo and Melissa are pretty much over jet lag so all of our schedules are off from one another’s!

Along with this post, we’ve put up some pictures from our trip to India and others taken during our first day in Cochin.