The New Pathway

Monday 9 November 2009 was the inauguration ceremony for two new buildings at Pathway Agro-farm, which have been under construction the last two years.

One is a dormitory and the other classrooms for rehabilitation of physically and mentally handicapped children. The concept is to enrich the experience of both groups by combining them in a single facility. (See http://www.pathway-india.com/ for more of the story.)

Guests included the mayor of Chennai and several state officials who came with proper retinue of police and were welcomed with traditional "fife and drum", or shehnai and mridangam.

We chatted with Becky Douglas, the Mormon mom from Atlanta who founded the nearby Rising Star Outreach for children of lepers.

(Their story is dramatically told at www.RisingStarOutreach.com )

Though it is monsoon season, the weather held beautifully through the day. Just in case, a large tent had been prepared to protect the ceremony.

The program began with traditional dances from eight states in India, which students had practiced for weeks.

Beside state and local political leaders, speakers included a remarkable assemblage for a remote farm in rural India.
Judge William Sheffield, in search of meaning in his life, resigned the California Superior Court bench to enroll in Yale Divinity School. While in his studies, he discovered the Church of Jesus Christ has truly been restored in modern times.
Years later, while working as general counsel for the church in Asia, he was led to discover Pathway, which he proceeded to bring to the attention of President Hinckley and a number of other well-connected friends who have provided funding.

Bill Benac is a financial turn-around expert who has headed multiple multi-national mega-corporations, including EDS when it was spinning out from GM.

Gary Sabin, a multi-billion-dollar real estate developer from southern California, started the Sabin Children's Foundation to sponsor research on Cystic Fibrosis, since all of his children are affected by it. The foundation has since branched out to do projects of service to children in many places in the world.

A part of the duties of Presiding Bishop H. David Burton is responsibility for all the properties of the church worldwide.

He and his wife toured classrooms and met children.

Our warm fuzzy as Latter-day Saints Charities volunteers is to know we have some part in this substantial effort to help a bunch of children in India to become useful citizens and Saints.

Happy Divali

Divali, the Festival of Lights, is the biggest celebration of the year in India. It is the time for giving gifts (shops are all crowded for weeks before), getting new clothing, and being with family (train tickets are sold out and multiply in price). It is celebrated with "crackers" which is generic for any kind of fireworks. Last year when we were in the city for the celebration, there must have been crores (= 100 lakh, 1 lakh = 100,000) of firecrackers fired. At Pathway this year the celebration was less extravagant, but they all had new "dress" (= any kind of clothing) and the camera caught their excitement with their "Festival of Lights".

DAVID KIM DOSDALL 4 Jan 1969 - 31 Aug 2009

(Our son David joined the family in 1983 at age 14, along with his brother and two sisters, after the death of both their parents. A premonition of his own early death has for years inhibited his desires to marry and have children, not wanting to leave them orphans. In retrospect, perhaps he was better connected spiritually than the rest of us. This fear was reinforced when he had his first heart attack on his 37th birthday. The next three years brought three more episodes, the last of which he did not survive.)


David, our bright, tender son whose heart was broken. . . We have enjoyed the spark and humor you have brought to our lives. We have appreciated your easy talent for making friends, of being able to talk to people in every situation and of every age. We have watched your ready smile and heard the enthusiasm in your voice as you have been a good and favorite friend to the children and a buddy to your peers. We have seen you meet and conquer physical challenges – fast motorcycle rides & car races, a dump into the chilly Detroit River with your sister during a sail in a small Styrofoam boat, flying down mountains on a snowboard, agilely climbing scaffolding and roofs to do daunting jobs.
We have seen you meet larger challenges of depression and discouragement, despite losses & disappointments which have befallen you. We have seen strength, a willingness to do good and to be good, and to keep on keeping on. You have gone to work, trying to stay busy and to maintain yourself and your feelings of self-worth, even though your heart was faltering and your energy waning. You faced your uncertain future with courage, struggling to live each day to the best of your ability.
We have wished and prayed for you to have peace and a greater level of understanding. We have hoped you could know and feel that you are a beloved son of God, that life is only a step in your journey, that death is only a door leading to greater knowledge and to greater happiness. That door has opened to you earlier than we anticipated, and now you, our dear and unique son, have gone ahead of us.
We trust that your spirit is in the tender care of our Heavenly Father, with new light opened to your view, that you are experiencing a reunion with your birth parents, family and friends who rejoice to see you again. We hope you can also feel the love of those you have left behind here on earth, who await a time of joyous reunion with you on the other side of the veil.
With assurance in the love of our Father in Heaven and the mercy of Jesus Christ, we bid you a tearful goodbye – God be with you. Continue your work and your learning until we meet again.
We love you, our dear son David.

The Light of the Gospel in South India

Welcome to Pastor John's church. (continued from 18May09) Since he has been preaching from the Book of Mormon for some months now, he asked us to bring copies for his people, and called a special meeting. Being near sunset and the chapel door facing west resulted in this sriking and symbolic photo. However, since the sun had not yet set, most of his people were still working in their fields. As a few sang enthusiastically, more gathered.

The denomination that built this church 12 years ago 2 km. from John's house could not find pastors willing to come to this rural slum area. In response to the congregation's request, John put the other two churches he founded in the hands of assistants and has been ministering here over five years.

He asked us to speak to his people about the coming of the Book of Mormon (while he translated) and then to give each of them a copy.

With this smiling, toothless little old lady in the red sari, the emotion of the event hit me when I placed a book in her eagerly outstreched hands- which were missing several fingers.

I don't know how many of them will be able to read it, even in Tamil, but they are sure proud to have it.

(to be continued)

Conference in Coimbatore, ogling in Ooty.

With another missionary couple and 12 young Elders, we travelled 8 hours by train to Coimbatore for a missionary zone conference.

The trains here are electric, quiet, cheap to ride, and this one was air conditioned, clean, and quite comfortable.

For the benefit of our family and friends who live near Salem UT, Salem OR, or Salem MA, we passed through Salem, Tamil Nadu which you see named here in Tamil, Hindi, and English.

We spent Tuesday in the lovely Coimbatore chapel, learning from our insightful mission president and his wife, and from some very dedicated young men.

Having better things to think about all day, the only time we thought to snap a picture of the group was over the lunch pizza.

The Chennai zone is capably led by Elder Manohar from Hyderabad, Andra Pradesh. In the course of his travels he has had to learn Telegu, Kanada, Tamil, Sinhala and in school Hindi and English. He has siezed opportunities for exposure to French and Spanish but doesn't claim competency in those. The embodiment of missionary enthusiasm, he has had to resist his mother tugging him to come home and be with the family. He would like after his mission to go to BYU-Hawaii and then get his MBA in the states.

After the conference we took a holiday to see a different India. Just west of Coimbatore (like west of Denver) the mountains rise abruptly into the Western Ghats, which separate the state of Tamil Nadu from Kerala. Nestled in the tops of the Nilgiris Hills lie several "hill stations" to which the British resorted to escape the summer heat.

With the same missionaries in less formal circumstances, we hired an 18 passenger bus to carry us up the face of the mountain on an adequate road with dozens of switchbacks where the busses honked politely before (literally) taking their turns.

The tall, straight pines of the mountain forest would lead you to think you were in the Pacific Northwest, except for the local fauna.

At the summit of Doddabetta, elevation 8600 feet (not Himalayan, but a respectable height), it never freezes or snows, but never gets much over 70F either; a refreshing change from the heat and filthiness of Chennai. Here they actually care about litter and provide "dust bins" (which is the generic name for any kind of trash container from wastebasket to trash can to dumpster) which are both rare and ignored in the city.

The view from the mountaintops is of forest interspersed with cultivated terraces. It is interesting to see that even in this most densely populated country there is still good land sparsely settled.

Vegetables grow well here, but by far the largest crop on the neatly terraced hillsides is tea, which grows on convenient waist-high bushes and is harvested by hand. Entire plantations of it mingle with forest and village.

In the distance 8 km. from the summit of Doddabetta lies the tourist "hill station" of Udhagamandalam, or Ooty as it is more commonly called.

One kid (Elder Schmidt) samples the local veggies, and another kid gets the leftovers.

We wandered leisurely in the botanical gardens in Ooty, where the orderliness of the Pax Britiannia is still apparent.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

1 August 2009: Groundbreaking for the first LDS chapel in Chennai. Led by Chennai First Branch President Sunderajan, speakers included "pioneers" who joined the church in the 1980's when all Asia was administered by the Singapore mission, and there was one missionary couple in Madras (now Chennai) who held meetings in their apartment.