For practicle reasons it was not possible to conduct the Alpha courses in the Villa where I stay, so we have an area in the town of Margoan, 6 kms away, its called Immanuel Church,but nothng like what you would expect a Church building to be.  The place is very humble, in fact it is literally a tin shack backing onto a railway track. The Alpha courses began on Thursday 1st May.  Two sessions per week on Thursday & Friday 7-9pm.  Due to working patterns here I was advised that it was difficult for people to sometimes make it, so we duplicate and I run the same courses again on Saturday mornings at 9 -11am and Sunday evenings at 7-9pm.  The concept of bringing and sharing food is somewhat difficult for the type of people who attend, so refreshments is only water, but God supplied..  We range between 4 -10 persons for each session which is much better than my expectations.  I am very pleased to say and blessed that Alcino and Rajesh are both understudying so they will continue when I have left and that was important.  Not all the people speak English so Alcino (a Goan National) interprets for me mainly in Konkani and sometimes in Hindi.  It gets a little difficult sometimes but we get through with Gods help.  We were not able to do the course on DVD so thanks to Kathryn Elsmore at HTB who kindly sent  me the Alpha script, I actually teach it in person (not as good and Nicky Gumble but I am growing in confidence and getting better), the people seem to very much like it.  I have to modify some of  Nicky Gumbles stories and jokes somewhat though, to meet with the understanding of those present.
That’s it for now.  Hope and pray you are all well, where ever you are.  You are in my heart.
Yours in Christ
Jim
Diary number 6   Jim Fisher      Colva, Goa,India
Hello Everyone,  
Life has been really challenging since last writing.  Still  great, and to me very exciting and fulfilling as having such a strong calling to be here nothing  can dampen that.  The utilities has caused some problems.  The monsoons are fastly approacing, suppose to be the beginning of June.  It is an annual practice for the municipality to prepare their maintenance works inadvance (last minute rush) and so we have experienced many cuts of electricity  especially during the day and with high temperatures, thanks be to God I am now getting used to it though.   I  did not know before but the cuts are promulgated in the local papers but no one said anything! I guess people get used to it and after a time all becomes just the norm.  In hotels there is no problem as they have large generators etc.  We also had a water cut for three days,  in the villa we do have overhead water tanks so this did not cause too much of  problem.
One thing you have to be careful of is food/drinking water related problems.  When you are used to the conditions it is not really a problem but coming from a country like the UK where you are used to different standards you have to be careful.  Todate I have had no problems but I have only eaten out with people and restaurants I know are clean and safe.  We have a filter at the villa so we first filter then boil then filter again,  the first filtering  can cease when I have become more used to it.  The Alpha Chrisitan Course (meaning of life) has been  going well overall, although numbers have reduced, due to some of interesting factors.  It has been running for three weeks now (two sessions per week on Thurs/Friday & duplicated on Sat mornings and Sunday evenings) Ours numbers have averaged at Thurs 7 - Friday 4 - Saturday mornings 2 - Sundays evenings 7.  Our first Alpha session was 10 so we are not too bad  and the two (Alcino & Rajesh) who will be the future leaders are still with us, praise the Lord.