Day two in Sri Lanka

The second day got off to an early start. Anne and the others went to visit some of the pre-schools to meet the children and teachers, and to do some teaching.

I was taken in a three-wheeler to the Bible School to teach the pastors. The military are everywhere and our vehicle was stopped on the way and we were questioned.

There were around 15 pastors and I decided to teach them on the theme of Grace and the New Covenant. The session went on for an hour and a half and there was some good discussion.

The others were a long way south of me on the eastern coast, and I was driven to join them in a jeep. This is a very poor area that was in the centre of the civil war. We past signs of the battles five years ago—houses with only a shell remaining, or even more strange, white latrines standing alone in the scrub land alongside the road. The latrines had been build by Oxfam before the war, and even though the houses were destroyed they had survived the fighting.

The homes that are there are very poor, with tin-roofs and a fence made of palm branches as you can see in this one.

We were served lunch outside with chickens scratching under our feet. Freshly caught fish (curried of course), local rice, papya and pineapple.

Sri Lanka has a large number of semi-feral dogs. They are all the same smallish size, and mostly the same golden sandy colour. People don’t seem to pet them but they seem to attach themselves to housholds who put out garbage for them to eat, and in return they act as guard dogs, although they seem very lazy, almost never bark and are not dangerous. Here’s one I tried to make friends with:

I was pleased to find the occasional semi-feral cat as well. They seemed more willing to be petted than the dogs and this one decided to settle under my chair. Again, they are small, and mostly the same color.

Next we visited some development projects. In this video you can see a chilli pepper grinder which allows the family to make a small amount of money by providing a service to the community.

Here is the home where the family lives:

The last project we saw is a village store:

Anne and Ruth had been visiting some more schools and doing some teaching. The military had got wind that there were foreigners in the area, so when we arrived we were greeted by two men with machine guns. Thankfully they seemed to be easily satisfied that were were not causing problems and left us alone.

Here is the pre-school where Anne and Ruth were speaking to the teachers. We arrived in time to distribute chocolate eggs to all the teachers and children.

Next we visited a small rural church where I preached a short message. Another hour’s trip back up the coast and we were involved in the Bible student’s graduation. Finally we went back to the pastor’s house for a very late supper.