New Delhi.
4AM. Team arrives on the ground after 10 hours in the air. No Sleep.
5AM. Team has bags. Hop on a bus to the train station. Clay and Lunchboxes are with us. Cost: 50 Rupies/person (50Rs:1USD)
5:30AM Team dropped off in front of a dark alley. Told it leads to train station. 6 guys and 13 girls carry packs 5 blocks past barking dogs, sleeping beggars, and ricksaws heading to work. Welcome to India
5:50AM Arrive at train station and for the 1st time realize there are 1.3 billion people in India….and they are all at the train station.
6:00AM Fight my way to the front of the info desk. Team has prepurchased train tickets, but needs to get our seat assignments. Discover I lost my teams printed ticket confirmation sheet.
6:20AM Fight my way to the front of the correct line.
6:25AM Recieve seat assignments for the other 2 teams. Even though I wrote down the Transaction # from my ticket confirmation sheet before I lost it, the lone man behind the counter will not accept it. He is demanding the ticket confirmation sheet.
6:30AM Train leaving in 20 minutes. Freak out continues. Man at counter finally agrees to look up my seats using Team Lunchboxes PNR # and searching for American names with seats around them. Have to stop men from cutting me in line while I argue with the man behind the counter. After stopping one man he replies, “Thats not how it works in India.” “Thats how it works today” was my only reply.
6:40AM Train was sweet. Huge seats that fully reclined. Free Tea and Kellog’s Corn Flakes?!?! Car itself would have been too dirty to be in service for Amtrack, but for the 3rd world it was a luxery cruise. I soon realize that like everything in India, 1st class is dirt cheap.
6:50AM For the 1st time in 3 months, something happens on time. Train Departs
I have been in India for ~4 days now. And in my ministry city of Ambala for 1 full day. Its a important Hindu holiday so the contacts have asked us not to start ministry until Thursday. We will be working in a school owned by the Church and visiting people in their homes. India is a half-closed country. Its not illegal to be a Christian, but it is discouraged and sometimes outlawed to convert someone to Christianity. So pray for us as we go out and interact with people in the community we will be able to share with people how much Christ has changed our lives without alerting the authorities or Hindu extremist groups. Dont worry though. We are not in any physical danger.
