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The plan is to build a home for orphans and widows on five acres donated on the edge of a village named Maram.
The village is in Manipur, a state in northeastern India. Myanmar to the south is trying to recover from a devastating cyclone. China to the north is dealing with earthquakes that killed thousands and left many more living in tents. The combination has left people in that part of India struggling, Ms. Albin said.
“It was a poor area before,” she noted. “They’re still having trouble getting rice, and when they can find it, it’s twice the price.”
The church is planning a three-day conference where people will walk in from all over the countryside, and Ms. Albin admitted that they are concerned about getting enough rice - the primary food source in that part of the world - to feed everyone. But she has faith that the Lord will provide, since she is the director of Southeast Asia ministries for The Lord Will Provide, a Christian ministry based in Temple (www.theLORDwillprovide.org).
Ms. Albin is following a path that in part was shown to her in 2007 by a shy student named Danielle.
Danielle thought someone was meant to hear about her daily devotional - a story about the woman who was ill, but had the faith that touching Jesus’ cloak would make her well. In the devotional from Kenneth Copeland, Copeland told how God told him to put himself in the story - but surprisingly as the man with the cloak. Copeland’s initial reaction was not all that different from what a lot of people would say: I can’t do that.
Ms. Albin said that story told her she had to be willing to act like Jesus during her mission trip. While she was starting off at an orphanage in Bangalore that needed a science and biology teacher, which Ms. Albin is, she knew that she had more to do in other parts of India.
While at first she thought she would be taking at least a four-hour train trip to Hyderabad, instead she was connected with a youth minister who had to escort some orphans home that started her on a five-day journey to Manipur.
In India, she said, anybody can buy a ticket at any time to get on a train - but in her case it meant going without the amenities Americans are used to. They did not have seats for the start of the journey that went through Calcutta, going two nights without a designated place to sleep, no berth reserved or even a plan set.
“The people were so nice,” Ms. Albin recalled. “They would let us sit on the edge of their bunk.”
For one thing, they were surprised to see an out-of-place white woman on that part of the train. “Why not reservations?” they would ask, which was the normal method of travel for people from outside the country. She said she explained the urgency of getting the children home in time for school.
Other urgencies were a little different than in America, she said. The toilet was a hole in the back of the train.
“You have to carry your own ‘white gold’ (toilet paper),” Ms. Albin said.
But the hardships of the trip did not deter Ms. Albin from returning, or retiring from her teaching job at Central Texas Christian School or leaving friends at Bethel Assembly of God in Temple.
Shawn Smith, secondary principal at the school, said Ms. Albin is a great teacher of science and Bible classes at the school. She also provided leadership as the sponsor of the Kiwanis Key Club in her three years, he said.
“We’re definitely not going to stand in the way when God calls,” Smith said of her trip to India, which she expects to last beyond the start of the next school year.
He pointed out how Ms. Albin helped open the eyes of some of the students to what is going on in the bigger universe - how some in science are trying to shut out people who believe in creation and intelligent design - after they saw the movie “Expelled” in a special showing at the Beltonian.
“The more you study the more you actually realize it had to be God,” Ms. Albin said of the way things work. “It’s too complicated. … It’s too perfect.”
“We preach and we teach, ‘When God calls go,’” Smith said, adding that they can use this as a teaching point for the students - that one of the teachers who they respect when she was called, she went. He noted that God has already provided for the school a replacement teacher and “who knows what God has in store” for the future.
“We had a chapel here this year and she was able to share with the students what went on (in India),” Smith said, noting that he is glad she is following her calling.
--jprickett@temple-telegram.com