Welcome to India! – April 4
We arrived in India on Wednesday. Here is an account of our travels.
– 45 minute drive to Capetown Airport
– 3 hour wait at the airport
– 10 hour flight to Dubai
– 1 hour layover
– 3 hour flight from Dubai to Hyderabad, India
– 7 hour bus ride south east to our ministry location near Coastal Andre Pradesh. (I am unable to tell you exactly the town I am at for the ministry's safety)
Surprisingly, all of that traveling didn't phase me at all. I don't wear my watch anymore (I know that's a shocker to most of you) and so I just let the time pass as it does. Because of that, all of the traveling just blends together and I don't see it as all of those travel increments. However, I am trying to give you all a better account of what I am actually doing.
We are serving with an organization called India Christian Ministries. Their focus is on church planting, child discipleship and children's homes for disabled orphans. My team will be serving with the children's home. We will be doing administrative work half of the day and then work with the kids the other half of the day.
They have chosen 15 children who don't normally get attention when volunteers come for us to interact with this month. We each have asked God to show us which kid we are to have and that will essentially be our adopted kid for the month. Our job will be to create a goal for the month to help the child. If they are biting when you first meet them, then try to get them to stop biting by the end of the month. Something like that. There are other volunteers there who are trained in this and will help us create goals and give us tips and strategies to help these kids meet their goals.
Once a week, we will be taking our child out somewhere in the community (with their caregiver) to get them out. We might go to the beach, get ice cream, or go on a boat ride on the nearby dam with them. The organization really wants to foster real life with these children as they are trying to get them adopted.
I will be working with a 9 year old boy with a seizure disorder. I have never worked with someone with seizures, but God told me that working with a boy with seizures was my calling for this month. I am excited to see what God has in store this month.
On our first day, we went out into the market and picked out fabric to get appropriate clothing to wear in India. I picked out two different sets of fabric and I am getting two custom made outfits! It is a long shirt that covers your shoulders and your butt, pants that cover your ankles and a scarf that you drape over the front of your chest. We have to essentially have almost everything covered. We will be getting our outfits(Pujabis) tomorrow. Pictures to come. 🙂
(At the tailor getting measured for our Pujabis)
Here, ankles are the most scandaleous thing we can show and since we are foreigners, we are automatically considered promiscious. We have to really be careful and aware of how we are dressed.
It is a culture of arranged marriages and so we can not really have interaction with the opposite sex. That includes eye contact and smiling. If we make direct eye contact and smile at them then we are flirting with them. Not making eye contact is REALLY hard for me.
The food we are eating is delicious! Thanks to working on eating spicy food the last three months, so far I am able to handle all of the spice. We were given food our first night and for breakfast and then we have eaten food from restaurants or street vendors near our housing for the rest of the meals. I know you are all wondering, NO, we have not gotten sick from eating any of the food. We are being careful.
(Alison and I drinking banana juice. Chipatti which you eat with your fingers dipping the bread into the sauce. You eat everything with your hands. Your right hand because your left hand is your dirty hand for wiping. Yes, for what you thinking of. Me drinking Chai tea)
The culture is fascinating here thus far! We drive in these little car/taxi things to get places and streets are crazy. There are random bikers and little taxi things called "autos" and cars everywhere and they all honk ALL THE TIME! And their horns sound like unique ice cream truck funny horns. They all have a little short melody. It's crazy.
(Indian "auto". A picture of us with four of us in the back and we had two in front plus the driver. Our record is 7 people 🙂
You don't see many women outside walking around. You can definitely tell it is a society run by men. We draw a lot of attention being a large group of women, but no one approaches us at all.
We are with two other teams right now. However, we have not moved into our permanent housing yet. We are still waiting for them to fix the water for that.
Overall, I am doing well! The transition here is SOO much easier than going from the states to MOzamibique in January. However, it is as drastic of a change coming from South Africa to India as the states to Mozambique. But, I am just really used to traveling and culture changes by now that it still doesn't really phase me. I actually have to tell myself to think about the culture instead of just automatically accepting it as where I am living now.
Anyways, more to come ! love you all!
