For their first experience traveling abroad, the Rev. Lewis Hinshaw and his son, Patrick, embarked on an ambitious journey.

Their destination: India.

Patrick Hinshaw, left, and his father, the Rev. Lewis Hinshaw of Plymouth Congregational Church, recently spent three weeks in southern India. While there they met members and viewed projects of the Church of South India, a Christian denomination. About 2 percent of the 1.1 billion people in India are Christians.

Specifically, the state of Kerala on that nation’s lower southwestern side, facing the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.

In other words, a long way from Kansas.

The Hinshaws were among five members of a delegation from the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ, which maintains a global partnership with the Church of South India’s Madhya Kerala Diocese.

Lewis Hinshaw is associate pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt., while Patrick Hinshaw, 20, lives in Lawrence and works for Commerce Bank.

Others in the group, who visited India from Jan. 16 to Feb. 6, were the Rev. Russ Bennett of Tulsa, Okla., the Rev. Deanna Lewis of Onaga and Pansy Beaudoin of Wakefield, a laywoman in the church.

The trip was designed to build on a relationship between the United Church of Christ and the Church of South India.

The Madhya Kerala Diocese oversees 300 churches in the cities, towns and villages of its region of Kerala. The Americans stayed in Kottayam, the city where the diocese has its offices, and visited churches, schools, hospitals and orphanages run by the church.

“We were there to meet the people of the Church of South India and to see their work,” Lewis Hinshaw said.

	www.kerala.com

Bridging languages

Roughly 2 percent of the 1.1 billion people living in India are Christians, according to Hinshaw. Of Kerala’s 30 million people, about 20 percent are Christians.

Hinduism is the predominant faith in Kerala, with Muslims making up a sizable minority. The state also has a tiny community of Jews that goes back to ancient times.

The native language of Kerala is called Malayalam, but many people were eager to communicate with the visiting Americans.

“I had no idea, but just about everybody there spoke some English and came up to you to try it out,” Patrick Hinshaw said.

The group received a warm reception as it traveled through Kerala, meeting people and learning about their way of life.

That came as a relief, as the delegation had worried that some people wouldn’t welcome Americans to their country, in the wake of emotions stirred up by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terrorism.

“We never felt threatened or encountered any hostility,” Lewis Hinshaw said. “In India, hospitality is a fine art.”

But the people they saw in the streets were curious about the visitors, because there are few white people in that part of the country.

The familiar name on this sign stems from donations from the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ that were used to pay for a computer center in Kanam, India. Patrick Hinshaw is joined by two pastors from the St. James Church of South India in Kanam.

Spiritual connections

The delegation visited Immanuel Church of South India, a congregation of 120 to 150 families in the town of Vazhoor. Church members are building housing for homeless people.

The Rev. T.J. John, Immanuel’s pastor, visited United Church of Christ congregations in the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference including Plymouth last September. At that time, Plymouth made a $1,500 gift to Immanuel Church of South India to support its development work.

For the Lawrence pastor, the trip to India was a spiritual journey, too.

“One of the things that affected me is how much we have in common (with the Christians they met), and how much more important that is than our differences,” Hinshaw said. “Everywhere we went, I felt immediately at home, that we belonged. I attribute that to our common faith.”

Patrick Hinshaw had a kind of epiphany, as well.

“One of the biggest things that struck me is how much religion is part of people’s everyday lives in India,” he said. “They’re very serious about it.”

The American delegation visited India before religious strife recently broke out between Hindus and Muslims.

People in Kerala were interested in learning about the lives of their guests from the American Midwest.

“They know very little about our daily lives, outside of what they see on television,” Patrick Hinshaw said.

Members of the delegation understood that they were acting as ambassadors of America, and they attempted to reach out and build friendships.

“One of the messages we tried to bring wherever we went was that we are Americans who have come to your country in peace,” Lewis Hinshaw said.

The trip helped the Lawrence pastor understand his role in a new way.

“One of the strongest impressions I had is that I am a citizen of the world, not just of the United States,” he said. “I had a sense of how interrelated our lives are on this planet that the things that happen in our country have repercussions.”