I first off would like to apologize for the almost total absence of blogs this past month. The squad has been mostly without internet during our stay in India thus far, so posting updates has been difficult. I jumped on one of the rare occasions to upload this one. Enjoy!
We find ourselves in rural India during this season of our Race, and we are absolutely loving it! I’m not sure I can or should say where we are exactly, but what I will tell you is we are in the “chicken foot” of India, which is the section of the country that is almost cut off from the main part. It borders China, Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan, and Bangladesh. The feel is very southeast Asian, with rolling hills, green forests, and rice paddies galore. The people are either Bengalí or of Chinese/Mongolian descent. It is no Ecuador. I think I might be feeling a little bit of the good ole culture shock.
Ministry for the most part has been VBS for local kids, but we have made the occasional trip out to rural areas for the same purpose. We have also taken part in a few construction projects. A week ago we went to a rural area to help folks from a church plant level ground for the foundation of their new church building, and haul sand from a nearby river and pile it up for concrete. That day was one of the best days on the World Race so far, believe it or not! We were surrounded by stellar people and we took part in some pretty awesome work. We literally trekked into a river to load wet sand into bags and then proceed to trek back, walk up a hill, and dump it into a pile. The whole time we were wearing jeans! Needless to say there was a mud pie fight with the locals at one point.
This week is our final week in this village before we move on to our debrief and then a different village after that. Ministry this week has been different. So far it has been teaching. We have been living at a boarding school during the duration of our stay in this particular village. School has started back this week, so the headmaster asked if we would like to teach. He said we could teach on anything we want, so at this point I have taught English, the geography of Florida, and the history and structure of the Anglican Church. I had a blast doing each!
You might be wondering why the title is what it is. I decided to go with it while I was on a mini fishing trip with our liaison and a few folks from the teams present. In Part 1 of the blog (from last summer) I titled it so because I was poking fun at the fact that some people thought the World Race was a nine month vacation. Well, it’s definitely not, but I thought it was funny that I found myself fishing on the day I started this.
Prayers for all of the teams on the field right now would be appreciated. We recently found out that at our debrief in a few days we’ll undergo team changes. That means Collective Pursuit will be no more. I have no idea (no one does) who I’ll be with in a week and that’s an exciting/scary thought, so please pray. I’m not the only one in that boat.
India is a magnificent place! I am already dreading the day when we have to leave. Thankfully I don’t need to worry about that right now. I’ll try to be better at posting updates this coming month. Last thing; Thank you again to all of my supporters! You made all of this happen, and for that I am most blessed by all of you!
