I really do believe that service in NA is indeed a power greater than myself.
900 miles each way, 30 hours in a train, temeratures touching 47 degrees celcius and very, very rural !
But the love and kindness and sharing of those guys was fab; none of em actually speaks or uses English, they have no literature in their language. However, it is evident that simply cause of Fellowshipping, they now number about 400 recovering addicts in a closely knitted recovering community !
They hosted the regional meeting to perfection and the PR meeting and the night vigil that followed very also fabulous !
Outstanding post Raman, thank you for sharing it with us. A couple of things jumped out at me. First was the bat logo, but you explained that, second was that I didn't see any women. Was it a mens retreat or is this a cultural thing? Anyway, you are an amazingly generous brother. Your posts and photo's are always most appreciated. Oh, and I did a conversion on the temperature. Your at about 115 degrees Fahrenheit! Now that's hot!!!!!
And Don,, i did not let the cat out of the bag but you noticed. Yes,,, there are no women there in recovery. I asked them about this and was told that it is indeed a cultural thing,,,, the women dont come to meetings for fear of being ostracized !!!
I was also curious whether they had many women in that part of India addicted to drugs. There are no statistics available but an accepted given is that women in that area, even if addicted and wanting to be in recovery will find it difficult due to social norms.
Thats the sad picture,,
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Raman an addict clean and serene just for today in NA Worldwide ; live to love and love to live the NA Way !!!
Hi Vin, what happens in these events is that they do speak in their own language (which I dont know) but when I share I do so i the national language Hindi, which is a language they understand.
The need to be appropriate and NA specific was most evident in the H&I workshop which I conducted. I ran several checks to make sure they understood what we the panle were sharing and evn though they did affirm that we also had it translated into the local language.
Hopefully, we did get a message accross that H&I alys a very important role in fullfilling our Fellowship's primary purpose; to carry the message to the addict that still suffers. Research shows that most recovering addicts in all of India, and this area aincluded, got their first intro to NA in treatment centres or detox units of hospitals. This has been a first point of contact for addicts that wanted recovery. Therefore the importance of having the local Fellowship understand what we shared.
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Raman an addict clean and serene just for today in NA Worldwide ; live to love and love to live the NA Way !!!
