A conglomeration of the last few days:
I’m sitting in the airport waiting to begin our 48 hr. travel day to India. “Travel day” being more of a concept rather than an actual day. Launch has been amazing and it really helped prepare my heart and spirit for the journey ahead. I was fearful of a lot of things heading into launch but God truly provided me with a supernatural peace about leaving.
We flew on Qatar Airlines from Dulles to Doha, Qatar and it is one of the nicest airlines out there! Movie screen with tons of options, a phone to call from seat to seat, ample leg room, big blanket, and pretty awesome airplane food including pineapple juice 🙂 It was nice to have all the luxury for the 12.5 hour flight which didn’t feel all that long.
Setting foot in the Middle East was a little crazy. All we did was go from one gate to the other to hop on our next flight but nonetheless, we saw some interesting things.
Sitting in Calcutta’s airport, it’s 11:50pm on July 7th in North Carolina and 9:20am on July 8th in Calcutta…..quite the time change.
After arriving in Hyderbad, we took a nice long bus ride (9 hours) to where we would be staying the night. This bus ride provided me several “firsts” on the race. First time riding in a non air-conditioned bus in probably the most humid weather I’ve ever experienced. First time peeing on the side of the rode in total darkness. First time getting soaked in a bus because of the rain coming through the windows (too hot to close them).
Well hello World Race!
Some more firsts…. sleeping on my sleeping pad in a non air-conditioned room with 40 other girls. First time taking a shower from the rain that was dripping off the roof. First time riding a tuk tuk through Indian traffic. Oh, and first time using a squatty potty.
Now that I’m writing this, all these things don’t really seem like a big deal and in reality they are not. But doing all of them in such a short time frame without a lot of sleep heightens the experience I guess.
Tomorrow we leave to travel to our actual ministry sight which is another couple hours away. From what I’ve heard it will consist of a lot of evangelism, preaching, teaching, and worship…. every day! Definitely pray for strength for what will be a pretty heavy month of ministry. One things for sure, India throws you into world race culture fast!
