Yesterday was pretty crazy. (Actually about a week ago now that I'm posting this blog….)
First we had to take a auto ride (a very miniature taxi w/o doors) to the bus stop where we would then travel to our ministry site for month. Like I said, auto’s are very miniature and sit about three people in the back. Well we had seven people each with a huge hiking pack on their back and a good sized backfront in front. Cramming all that stuff into mini taxis in the middle of Indian traffic then trying to get it all out in the middle of Indian traffic while fumbling to find Indian rupees to pay the driver is a bit of stressful time. Needless to say we made it to the bus stop where we were stared at and encircled by most other people at the bus stop like we were from the zoo. Apparently white people are few and far between in India and most other countries we will be visiting.
Once we got on the bus and after we were profusely sweating from the heat and carrying close to 80 lbs on our backs, we proceeded to sit on the bus with our our 80 lbs. of stuff on our laps. You have to pay by the seat on the bus and even though only half the seats were being taken up, we had to sit in extremely close proximity of our sweaty selves in order to avoid paying extra 🙂
A couple hours later we arrived at the church, pitched our tents inside, and opened all the windows to get some air flow! Thank goodness we have two or three working ceiling fans (sometimes) to help the airflow along.
After resting up, we went out for our first time of official ministry! We had no idea what to expect but had been praying prior to arriving in India that the Lord would speak to us and lead us in the direction that He desired. We walked with the pastor and our translator to a local village and before we knew it we were playing with dozens of kids in the street. We don’t have to do anything but show up in order to draw a crowd which makes it easy to find people to talk to. The kids were adorable and so much fun to play, dance, and shake hands with- they loveeeee shaking hands. I was initially very exciting because for some reason I didn’t think we would get the chance to minister to any children this month since were not assigned to an orphanage or children’s home like other teams. I quickly realized that we will probably be visiting with a lot children and have the opportunity to pray for them along with their families.
