Last week involved a 17hr train ride back to Bucharest, one night at a hostel. The next night was spent sleeping on the floor of the airport to fly out early the next morning to Moscow. All day layover with no English and yet another money exchange just to buy a snack. We loaded the plan to India only to sit for two hours and exit off the plane for another 2hrs while they found a working plane to get us to New Dehli. After the long overnight flight we found ourselves eating our first Indian meal at the airport. We loaded into 2 cabs with all of our huge backpacks and headed toward the train station. On the way the cab driver pulled over to grab a snack for him and some friends. He then dropped us off at his friends “ticket business” where we were told our train has been delayed 7hrs and we would need to purchase new tickets. After almost falling for the scam we found the rest of our team at the train station, the white kids sweating in the corner. Hollywood is not exaggerating when they show India. The traffic is a mad house with goats, chickens, cows, people, children, cars all moving in any which direction and horns being the only way to make sense of who goes where. What Hollywood did not prepare me for is the stares. Oh my, everyone stops what they are doing, drops their jaws and stares at us whities until we get uncomfortable enough to move to the next place just to find new eyes glued on us. It was rather uncomfortable at first but after our 20hr train ride in a sleeper car with many Indian men we soon got used to it.
This month we are in north eastern India, in the state of Bihar. Working with an amazing organization GEMS (Gospel Echoing Missions Society). GEMS has so much going on here on their 23 acre campus. They have created this little village in the middle of town where they are reaching out to so many people. They have many other campuses in five states here in India and one in Nepal; we are at the main headquarters which includes:
-Hindi speaking school
-English speaking school
-Tailoring workshop
-Printing Press
-Women’s Training Center
-Men’s Bible College
-Nursing School
-A Hospital
-HIV/AIDS Clinic
-Polio Children’s Home
Our main project this month is to remodel a rundown building, turning it into a preschool. We will give the place a complete makeover, so the kids can start coming by the end of the month hopefully.
