Travel Day #1
So World Race Alumni will warn you that a "travel day" is more of a concept than an actual day. Our first World Race travel day proved that statement to be correct!
It's Friday July 6th and we head to the airport at 6pm to wait for our flight to India. We spend 5 hours in the airport waiting to board our plane at 11pm. In that time we were able to eat Chipotle for dinner and spend some one on one time with one of our teammates. It was a great last day in the states 🙂
Finally 11pm approaches and we board our 1st plane to Doha Qatar. And let me just say that Qatar Airways is like something out of a movie. Definitely the nicest plane I have ever been on (& that is such a blessing for our 12 hour flight!) They served us 2 wonderful meals and we had access to so many free movies and games. I was able to sleep a little off and on. Fast forward it is now roughly 7pm on Saturday July 7th when we land in Doha. When we land in Doha we are rushed through to catch our connecting flight to Kohlkata India. We land and literally 45 minutes later we are on board our next flight waiting for take off, then just like that we are back in the air for what is now going to be a 5 hour flight. We land in Kohlkata at 330 am. where we go through customs, grab our luggage and are ushered around to the front of the airport where we will have a 10 hour layover. Culture shock sets in. I can't hardly begin to describe the scene at this airport and our group of 55 Americans are quite the spectacle at 4 in the morning. We go inside and find a nice "comfortable" piece of airport floor and prepare to wait. I realize as we entertain ourselves with games and music as we wait that we are quite the attraction. People stop to stare and take pictures and videos of us. I felt like I was the main attraction at the zoo. Quite the experience and a realization that this is my new life for the next 11 months. Finally it is 1 pm and we are ready to go through security and board our plane by 1:30pm. This time only a 2 hour flight. By this point I am exhausted. I sleep almost the entire flight! We land in Hyderabad around 4pm on Sunday. After collecting our bags we go to meet our ministry contact for the month only to find out that we now have a 7 hour bus ride to a rural town in Andra-Pradesh. We wait another hour or so for the bus to arrive. A green tour bus looking thing shows up and I am glad to see it says A/C! Its so hot and humid in india so a 7 hour bus ride would be rough without A/C. I climb aboard and take my seat only to realize in this case A/C evidently means the windows open. And as I've learned to say on the World Race "oh well" thank you that we have a ride. 9 hours on a bumpy winding road and we arrive in our little town at 3 am on Monday morning sweaty, nasty and exhausted. I am excited to find out it is only a short walk around the corner to the building we will be staying for the night. They have ceiling fans in our room! I fill like i've hit the lottery! We set up our sleeping pads for the night and lay down to sleep. 4 hours of uninterrupted wonderful sleep 🙂 By this time I am totally lost to what time or day it is. I think we traveled for about 40 hours but somehow that 40 hours spanned 3 days.
Now its Monday morning and the streets are busy with buses, bikes and "autos" driving by and honking horns. I get up and prepare to take a shower. yep… I did it. I took a bucket shower for the first time in my life. I HATE cold showers and always said I rather be dirty than take a cold shower but things changed when I left America a few short days ago and that bucket shower was wonderful! After getting cleaned up me and Becky and Jennifer went out to explore our little town. The poverty we are surrounded by is shocking. Trash piles, free roaming water buffalo, cows and dogs, dirt and dust but the smiles I received from the people we passed won me over. I'm officially on the world race and I couldn't be more excited! I am so excited to see what the Lord will do while we are here.
Today is a rest day and tomorrow my team will travel to a small village west of where we currently are. we will be for the remainder of our time in India. Right now i'm assuming I won't have internet access until the end of the month when we get back but hope to update you again soon if we have internet access once we get there. In the mean time please be praying for the manifest presence of God as we minister to people who have never heard the gospel message before in their life. Also, my team of 6 will be taking turnes preaching 6 days a week so pray that the Lord would speak through us and that lives would be changed!
I would loved to have posted pictures but the internet is terrible here so it will have to wait until later!
