Five hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to New Delhi. Two hours waiting for the bus in the New Delhi airport. Greeted by our 6 foot 9 inch contact :o) Load rickety old bus (but SO cool!). Drive thirty minutes to random dusty street (it is now approx.. 12 am). Wait in street loading and unloading our huge packs. Avoid getting hit by passing trucks and cars. Get eaten alive by a hundred mosquitoes. Get stared at by multiple groups of men passing by. Drive to orphanage (where we will be staying for 2 days). Sleep in same clothes on orphanage floor under large open roof. “Sleep” from 2am to approx.. 4:45am. Wake to thumps on sleeping pad and giggles, look up into the faces of about 10 children staring down at us. Decide to get up and play with kids on roof until 7:30am when most leave for school :o). Fall in love with most of them….walk out for the first time to find an ATM and experience India during the day. The people are beautiful, the kids are even more beautiful. The streets are dirty. The land is dry and hot. The food is AWESOME. Return to orphanage, get greeted by 3 or 4 kids who already recognize us…NOTHING BETTER. Get served a delicious lunch and dinner, get blown away by the kids praise and worship to their Father and Bible study (all lead by a 10 year old), teach them some of our songs, get tons of love and affection for most of the night. Stay with 6 foot nine inch’s family, get served, served, served! Arrive at orphanage the next morning, spend time with kids until going to ridiculously PACKED train station. The trains in lower class are PACKED. Our train is a “sleeper train”, we will spend the next 40 hours on it…there is no shower and no air conditioning and the “squatty potties” go straight to the tracks…the temperature is around 100 during the day, our team BONDS :o) Our “beds” are VERY compact. We SURVIVE :o) We arrive in Chennai from New Delhi-we are greeted immediately by our outstanding contacts-very dirty and tired, but so happy to see them! One word for the people we have been around here so far…servants, in every sense of the matter, we feel like royalty here, more to come soon. God You are so GOOD.
First India picture at the airport :o)
It’s already HOT!
Good morning orphanage!
Our “ceiling”
6am view from the orphanage rooftop!
Sleepy!
This little boy is going to be a preacher, he recited memory verses and read from his Bible for us!
Tye and I fell in love with this little boy (I would post names, I just have no idea how to spell them)
They need new toys…the one behind the one in the green is his brother :o)
Finally got the chance to bust out my Party City balloons!
They liked this pose :o)
:o)
Reciting scripture…praise Jesus!
Glad you can’t see how dirty we were!
Waiting for lunch :o)
They LOVED these balloons, I wish I had more…
Random shot of my sad attempt to play Cricket, but it was still a lovely pose even if I didn’t hit the ball :o)
When I returned from Cricket, this one cuddled with me for pretty much the rest of the day :o)
Can you say adorable??? This is the orphanage directors baby :o)
The kids when THEY were leading prayer and worship on their own…intense!!!
Most of them didn’t even acknowledge anyone around them during prayer, it was just obvious sweet communion with their Savior!!!
Beautiful faces!
We taught them a few of our own songs too :o)
She fell asleep after about 5 minutes in my lap :o)
Pray for her scalp to heal, they aren’t sure what it is, but it’s on the rest of her body too :o(
They cooked us every meal like this :o) All the different types of bread are so delicious!
The kids being served dinner :o)
They eat with their hands, and always the right, not the left as this is used to “wipe” :o)
Scraped clean!
The girls room, during the evening we walked in and they were all huddled around a girl laying their hands on her and praying for her about something, but their hands were raised and they were crying out to God, we were speechless!
This is our 6 foot 9 inch contact…Saji :o)
This is his amazing wife Miriam, a few of us stayed with her and Saji one night and she cooked us a delicious breakfast and gave us ice cream! Hallelujah!
Tye holding Varum, we would have brought him with us if we could! It was so nice to spend a few days with my sis and finally do “ministry” together even though we weren’t staying here all month!
This girl said “I like you” after meeting me for a few minutes and the way she said it made me melt, you can see the remains of a Hindu tattoo on her chest that her grandmother made her get around age 7, she is now a Christian and says it means “nothing to her now, but still remains”.
Love this picture of Saji and Varum :o)
Raiki and Abigail do India! (although later the Pastor I am staying with said monkey’s are a Hindu god and was putting a cross on Raiki’s forehead and shaking his head…..Raiki will now remain packed for the month :o))
Varum still liked him!
Ben and Varum…can you tell he likes to be held?
I wish I could sleep as well as a child in this heat! Don’t feel sorry for these kids though, they all have an incredible heavenly Father and know and worship Him like nothing I’ve seen before, I would feel bad taking them from a place like this, the director and her family love them like they are their own. What a powerful Savior we serve!
The first night of the 40 hour bus ride :o)
Me and Charles standing near the door for some “fresh” air!
Love this pic of Alison and I…we were holding on to each other so we wouldn’t fly out!
Sweaty and dirty girls!
My all time FAVORITE pic of Raiki! haha!
He even made friends on the train!
Sisters :o)
Somehow we got talked into going into the middle of about 3 Indian families and singing and dancing!
Mark relaxing in our little cube :o)
Finally arrived in Chennai and took one of these to our site.
View of hot and dry India from the train.
:o)
Pretty :o)
I will post more of my new place in Chennai. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love India already, we are living across the street from a village of “garbage pickers”. The way god is humbling and transforming my heart and the hearts of my team is unreal. Like my friend Sage says, it’s all about perspective changes, and I am so thankful that God continues to do that in deeper and deeper levels.
An excerpt from the book “The Final Quest”:
“Go and call My captains to the last battle. Go and defend the poor and the oppressed, the widows and the orphans. This is the commission of My captains, and it is where you will find them. My children are worth MORE to Me than the stars in the heavens. Feed My lambs. Watch over My little ones. Give the Word of God to them that they may LIVE. Go to the battle. Go and do not retreat. Go quickly, for I will come quickly. Obey Me and hasten the day of My coming.”
“Heavenly Father I thank You for Your sweet and precious Spirit. God, I thank You for my life and that it TRULY IS YOURS to prove. I thank You for my family and their incredible influence in giving me Your Truth at such a young age. I thank You for their prayers and for Your pursuit of us and our hearts. I thank You for allowing us to see glimpses of You in precious young children who have “nothing” according to the world, but EVERYTHING in You. Lord Jesus I thank You for Your sovereignty and for accepting me as I am and for Your death that I may have life in You to the fullest. You are my sweetest JOY and I lay my LIFE before You, gladly.” Thank You Sweet Savior, In Your precious and Holy Name. Amen. Love Your Daughter, Rachel :o)
